war_and_peace.txt

The Project Gutenberg eBook of War and Peace
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: War and Peace

Author: graf Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Aylmer Maude
        Louise Maude

Release date: April 1, 2001 [eBook #2600]
                Most recently updated: June 14, 2022

Language: English

Credits: An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE ***




WAR AND PEACE


By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi


    Contents

    BOOK ONE: 1805

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII

    CHAPTER XXIII

    CHAPTER XXIV

    CHAPTER XXV

    CHAPTER XXVI

    CHAPTER XXVII

    CHAPTER XXVIII


    BOOK TWO: 1805

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI


    BOOK THREE: 1805

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX


    BOOK FOUR: 1806

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI


    BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII


    BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII

    CHAPTER XXIII

    CHAPTER XXIV

    CHAPTER XXV

    CHAPTER XXVI


    BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII


    BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII


    BOOK NINE: 1812

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII

    CHAPTER XXIII


    BOOK TEN: 1812

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII

    CHAPTER XXIII

    CHAPTER XXIV

    CHAPTER XXV

    CHAPTER XXVI

    CHAPTER XXVII

    CHAPTER XXVIII

    CHAPTER XXIX

    CHAPTER XXX

    CHAPTER XXXI

    CHAPTER XXXII

    CHAPTER XXXIII

    CHAPTER XXXIV

    CHAPTER XXXV

    CHAPTER XXXVI

    CHAPTER XXXVII

    CHAPTER XXXVIII

    CHAPTER XXXIX


    BOOK ELEVEN: 1812

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX

    CHAPTER XXI

    CHAPTER XXII

    CHAPTER XXIII

    CHAPTER XXIV

    CHAPTER XXV

    CHAPTER XXVI

    CHAPTER XXVII

    CHAPTER XXVIII

    CHAPTER XXIX

    CHAPTER XXX

    CHAPTER XXXI

    CHAPTER XXXII

    CHAPTER XXXIII

    CHAPTER XXXIV


    BOOK TWELVE: 1812

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI


    BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX


    BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX


    BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI

    CHAPTER XVII

    CHAPTER XVIII

    CHAPTER XIX

    CHAPTER XX


    FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII

    CHAPTER XIII

    CHAPTER XIV

    CHAPTER XV

    CHAPTER XVI


    SECOND EPILOGUE

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    CHAPTER XII










BOOK ONE: 1805





CHAPTER I

“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the
Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war,
if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that
Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing
more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my
‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I
have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.”

It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna
Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna.
With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high
rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna
Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering
from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used
only by the elite.

All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered
by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:

“If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,
I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette
Schérer.”

“Heavens! what a virulent attack!” replied the prince, not in the
least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an
embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on
his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that
refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and
with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance
who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna,
kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,
and complacently seated himself on the sofa.

“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend’s
mind at rest,” said he without altering his tone, beneath the
politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony
could be discerned.

“Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times
like these if one has any feeling?” said Anna Pávlovna. “You are
staying the whole evening, I hope?”

“And the fete at the English ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I
must put in an appearance there,” said the prince. “My daughter is
coming for me to take me there.”

“I thought today’s fete had been canceled. I confess all these
festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.”

“If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have
been put off,” said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force
of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.

“Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s
dispatch? You know everything.”

“What can one say about it?” replied the prince in a cold, listless
tone. “What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has
burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.”

Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale
part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years,
overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had
become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not
feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the
expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it
did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,
as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,
which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to
correct.

In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst
out:

“Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t understand
things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She
is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign
recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one
thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform
the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will
not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of
revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of
this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just
one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial
spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander’s
loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to
find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer
did Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot
understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for
himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they
promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not
perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and
that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don’t believe a
word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian
neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty
destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!”

She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.

“I think,” said the prince with a smile, “that if you had been
sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King
of Prussia’s consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me
a cup of tea?”

“In a moment. À propos,” she added, becoming calm again, “I am
expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who
is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best
French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And
also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been
received by the Emperor. Had you heard?”

“I shall be delighted to meet them,” said the prince. “But
tell me,” he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just
occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief
motive of his visit, “is it true that the Dowager Empress wants
Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all
accounts is a poor creature.”

Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were
trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for
the baron.

Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor
anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was
pleased with.

“Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her
sister,” was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.

As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna’s face suddenly assumed an
expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with
sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious
patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke
beaucoup d’estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.

The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and
courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna
wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man
recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she
said:

“Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came
out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly
beautiful.”

The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.

“I often think,” she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer
to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political
and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate
conversation—“I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life
are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children?
I don’t speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don’t like him,” she
added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows.
“Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than
anyone, and so you don’t deserve to have them.”

And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

“I can’t help it,” said the prince. “Lavater would have said I
lack the bump of paternity.”

“Don’t joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know
I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves” (and her
face assumed its melancholy expression), “he was mentioned at Her
Majesty’s and you were pitied....”

The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,
awaiting a reply. He frowned.

“What would you have me do?” he said at last. “You know I did all
a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.
Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That
is the only difference between them.” He said this smiling in a way
more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round
his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and
unpleasant.

“And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with,” said Anna
Pávlovna, looking up pensively.

“I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That
is how I explain it to myself. It can’t be helped!”

He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated.

“Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?” she
asked. “They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I
don’t feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who
is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess
Mary Bolkónskaya.”

Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and
perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of
the head that he was considering this information.

“Do you know,” he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad
current of his thoughts, “that Anatole is costing me forty thousand
rubles a year? And,” he went on after a pause, “what will it be in
five years, if he goes on like this?” Presently he added: “That’s
what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours
rich?”

“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is
the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under
the late Emperor, and was nicknamed ‘the King of Prussia.’ He is
very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy.
She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately.
He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov’s and will be here tonight.”

“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pávlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe
with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich
and of good family and that’s all I want.”

And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the
maid of honor’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro
as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.

“Attendez,” said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, “I’ll speak to
Lise, young Bolkónski’s wife, this very evening, and perhaps the
thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family’s behalf that I’ll
start my apprenticeship as old maid.”





CHAPTER II

Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room was gradually filling. The highest
Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age
and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.
Prince Vasíli’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her
father to the ambassador’s entertainment; she wore a ball dress and
her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya,
known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, * was also there.
She had been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did
not go to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince
Vasíli’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced.
The Abbé Morio and many others had also come.

     * The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.

To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, “You have not yet seen my
aunt,” or “You do not know my aunt?” and very gravely conducted
him or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her
cap, who had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests
began to arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her
aunt, Anna Pávlovna mentioned each one’s name and then left them.

Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not
one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them
cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these greetings with mournful and
solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in
the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her
Majesty, “who, thank God, was better today.” And each visitor,
though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman
with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not
return to her the whole evening.

The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some work in a
gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a
delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth,
but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she
occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case
with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her
upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and
peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty
young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and
carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones
who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a
little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life
and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile
and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a
specially amiable mood that day.

The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying
steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat
down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a
pleasure to herself and to all around her. “I have brought my work,”
said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.
“Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me,”
she added, turning to her hostess. “You wrote that it was to be quite
a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed.” And she
spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray
dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.

“Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone
else,” replied Anna Pávlovna.

“You know,” said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in
French, turning to a general, “my husband is deserting me? He is going
to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?” she
added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and without waiting for an answer she
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.

“What a delightful woman this little princess is!” said Prince
Vasíli to Anna Pávlovna.

One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with
close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable
at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout
young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a well-known
grandee of Catherine’s time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man
had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only
just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his
first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she
accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of
this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight
of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face
when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than
the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to
the clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which
distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.

“It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor
invalid,” said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her
aunt as she conducted him to her.

Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as
if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little
princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.

Anna Pávlovna’s alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty’s health.
Anna Pávlovna in dismay detained him with the words: “Do you know the
Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man.”

“Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very
interesting but hardly feasible.”

“You think so?” rejoined Anna Pávlovna in order to say something
and get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now
committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before
she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to
another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet
spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé’s
plan chimerical.

“We will talk of it later,” said Anna Pávlovna with a smile.

And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she
resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready
to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As
the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes
round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that
creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the
machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pávlovna moved about her
drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a
word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady,
proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about
Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached
the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and
again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbé.

Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna
Pávlovna’s was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all
the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a
child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing
any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident
and refined expression on the faces of those present he was always
expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio.
Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an
opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.





CHAPTER III

Anna Pávlovna’s reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed
steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,
beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face
was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had
settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round
the abbé. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful
Princess Hélène, Prince Vasíli’s daughter, and the little Princess
Bolkónskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age.
The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.

The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished
manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of
politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in
which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as
a treat to her guests. As a clever maître d’hôtel serves up as a
specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in
the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to
her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice
morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the
murder of the Duc d’Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien
had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular
reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.

“Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,” said Anna Pávlovna,
with a pleasant feeling that there was something à la Louis XV in the
sound of that sentence: “Contez nous çela, Vicomte.”

The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to
comply. Anna Pávlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to
listen to his tale.

“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” whispered Anna Pávlovna to
one of the guests. “The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,” said she
to another. “How evidently he belongs to the best society,” said she
to a third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest
and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef
on a hot dish.

The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.

“Come over here, Hélène, dear,” said Anna Pávlovna to the
beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of
another group.

The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which
she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful
woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss
and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling
diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking
at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the
privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders,
back, and bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much
exposed—and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as
she moved toward Anna Pávlovna. Hélène was so lovely that not only
did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even
appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She
seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish its effect.

“How lovely!” said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his
shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary
when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her
unchanging smile.

“Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,” said he,
smilingly inclining his head.

The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered
a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was
being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,
altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more
beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time
to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story
produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pávlovna, at once adopted just
the expression she saw on the maid of honor’s face, and again relapsed
into her radiant smile.

The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Hélène.

“Wait a moment, I’ll get my work.... Now then, what are you
thinking of?” she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. “Fetch me my
workbag.”

There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking
merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her
seat.

“Now I am all right,” she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she
took up her work.

Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and
moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.

Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance
to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of
this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his
sister’s, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous,
self-satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the
wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary
was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen
self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and
mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms
and legs always fell into unnatural positions.

“It’s not going to be a ghost story?” said he, sitting down beside
the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this
instrument he could not begin to speak.

“Why no, my dear fellow,” said the astonished narrator, shrugging
his shoulders.

“Because I hate ghost stories,” said Prince Hippolyte in a tone
which showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he
had uttered them.

He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure
whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in
a dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe
effrayée, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.

The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,
to the effect that the Duc d’Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to
visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte,
who also enjoyed the famous actress’ favors, and that in his presence
Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was
subject, and was thus at the duc’s mercy. The latter spared him, and
this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.

The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point
where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked
agitated.

“Charming!” said Anna Pávlovna with an inquiring glance at the
little princess.

“Charming!” whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into
her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story
prevented her from going on with it.

The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully
prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pávlovna, who had kept a
watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was
talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbé, so she hurried to the
rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbé about
the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young
man’s simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both
were talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why
Anna Pávlovna disapproved.

“The means are ... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of
the people,” the abbé was saying. “It is only necessary for one
powerful nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place
herself disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object
the maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the
world!”

“But how are you to get that balance?” Pierre was beginning.

At that moment Anna Pávlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,
asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian’s
face instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary
expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.

“I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the
society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had
the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of
the climate,” said he.

Not letting the abbé and Pierre escape, Anna Pávlovna, the more
conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the
larger circle.





CHAPTER IV

Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew
Bolkónski, the little princess’ husband. He was a very handsome young
man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about
him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,
offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was
evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had
found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to
them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed
to bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from
her with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna
Pávlovna’s hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.

“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pávlovna.

“General Kutúzov,” said Bolkónski, speaking French and stressing
the last syllable of the general’s name like a Frenchman, “has been
pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp....”

“And Lise, your wife?”

“She will go to the country.”

“Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?”

“André,” said his wife, addressing her husband in the same
coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, “the vicomte has
been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!”

Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from
the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad,
affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round
Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was
touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre’s beaming face he gave him an
unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.

“There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?” said he to
Pierre.

“I knew you would be here,” replied Pierre. “I will come to supper
with you. May I?” he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the
vicomte who was continuing his story.

“No, impossible!” said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing
Pierre’s hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He
wished to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasíli and his
daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.

“You must excuse me, dear Vicomte,” said Prince Vasíli to the
Frenchman, holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent
his rising. “This unfortunate fete at the ambassador’s deprives me
of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave
your enchanting party,” said he, turning to Anna Pávlovna.

His daughter, Princess Hélène, passed between the chairs, lightly
holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more
radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,
almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.

“Very lovely,” said Prince Andrew.

“Very,” said Pierre.

In passing Prince Vasíli seized Pierre’s hand and said to Anna
Pávlovna: “Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me
a whole month and this is the first time I have seen him in society.
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever
women.”


Anna Pávlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his
father to be a connection of Prince Vasíli’s. The elderly lady who
had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince
Vasíli in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed
had left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety
and fear.

“How about my son Borís, Prince?” said she, hurrying after him into
the anteroom. “I can’t remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what
news I may take back to my poor boy.”

Although Prince Vasíli listened reluctantly and not very politely
to the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an
ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go
away.

“What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he
would be transferred to the Guards at once?” said she.

“Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can,” answered Prince
Vasíli, “but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should
advise you to appeal to Rumyántsev through Prince Golítsyn. That would
be the best way.”

The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskáya, belonging to one of the
best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of
society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to
Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son.
It was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasíli that she had obtained an
invitation to Anna Pávlovna’s reception and had sat listening to
the vicomte’s story. Prince Vasíli’s words frightened her, an
embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment;
then she smiled again and clutched Prince Vasíli’s arm more tightly.

“Listen to me, Prince,” said she. “I have never yet asked you
for anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my
father’s friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God’s sake to
do this for my son—and I shall always regard you as a benefactor,”
she added hurriedly. “No, don’t be angry, but promise! I have asked
Golítsyn and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were,”
she said, trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.

“Papa, we shall be late,” said Princess Hélène, turning her
beautiful head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she
stood waiting by the door.

Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized
if it is to last. Prince Vasíli knew this, and having once realized
that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be
unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But
in Princess Drubetskáya’s case he felt, after her second appeal,
something like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was
quite true; he had been indebted to her father for the first steps in
his career. Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of
those women—mostly mothers—who, having once made up their minds,
will not rest until they have gained their end, and are prepared if
necessary to go on insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even
to make scenes. This last consideration moved him.

“My dear Anna Mikháylovna,” said he with his usual familiarity and
weariness of tone, “it is almost impossible for me to do what you
ask; but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father’s
memory, I will do the impossible—your son shall be transferred to the
Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?”

“My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you—I knew your
kindness!” He turned to go.

“Wait—just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards...”
she faltered. “You are on good terms with Michael Ilariónovich
Kutúzov ... recommend Borís to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at
rest, and then...”

Prince Vasíli smiled.

“No, I won’t promise that. You don’t know how Kutúzov is pestered
since his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that
all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as
adjutants.”

“No, but do promise! I won’t let you go! My dear benefactor...”

“Papa,” said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before,
“we shall be late.”

“Well, au revoir! Good-by! You hear her?”

“Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?”

“Certainly; but about Kutúzov, I don’t promise.”

“Do promise, do promise, Vasíli!” cried Anna Mikháylovna as he
went, with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably
came naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.

Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed
all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face
resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the
group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to
listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was
accomplished.





CHAPTER V

“And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at
Milan?” asked Anna Pávlovna, “and of the comedy of the people of
Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and
Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of
the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one’s head whirl! It is as
if the whole world had gone crazy.”

Prince Andrew looked Anna Pávlovna straight in the face with a
sarcastic smile.

“‘Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche!’’ * They say he was
very fine when he said that,” he remarked, repeating the words in
Italian: “‘Dio mi l’ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!’’

     * God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!

“I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run
over,” Anna Pávlovna continued. “The sovereigns will not be able to
endure this man who is a menace to everything.”

“The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia,” said the vicomte, polite
but hopeless: “The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis
XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!” and he became
more animated. “And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their
betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending
ambassadors to compliment the usurper.”

And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.

Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time
through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the
little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Condé
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity
as if she had asked him to do it.

“Bâton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d’azur—maison Condé,”
said he.

The princess listened, smiling.

“If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer,” the
vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which
he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but
follows the current of his own thoughts, “things will have gone too
far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I
mean good French society—will have been forever destroyed, and
then....”

He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to
make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pávlovna,
who had him under observation, interrupted:

“The Emperor Alexander,” said she, with the melancholy which
always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, “has
declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose
their own form of government; and I believe that once free from the
usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms
of its rightful king,” she concluded, trying to be amiable to the
royalist emigrant.

“That is doubtful,” said Prince Andrew. “Monsieur le Vicomte quite
rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will
be difficult to return to the old regime.”

“From what I have heard,” said Pierre, blushing and breaking into
the conversation, “almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to
Bonaparte’s side.”

“It is the Buonapartists who say that,” replied the vicomte without
looking at Pierre. “At the present time it is difficult to know the
real state of French public opinion.”

“Bonaparte has said so,” remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic
smile.

It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his
remarks at him, though without looking at him.

“‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow
it,’” Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting
Napoleon’s words. “‘I opened my antechambers and they crowded
in.’ I do not know how far he was justified in saying so.”

“Not in the least,” replied the vicomte. “After the murder of the
duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some
people,” he went on, turning to Anna Pávlovna, “he ever was a hero,
after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one
hero less on earth.”

Before Anna Pávlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pávlovna felt sure he would say something
inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.

“The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,” declared Monsieur Pierre,
“was a political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon
showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole
responsibility of that deed.”

“Dieu! Mon Dieu!” muttered Anna Pávlovna in a terrified whisper.

“What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows
greatness of soul?” said the little princess, smiling and drawing her
work nearer to her.

“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed several voices.

“Capital!” said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his
knee with the palm of his hand.

The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his
audience over his spectacles and continued.

“I say so,” he continued desperately, “because the Bourbons fled
from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone
understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,
he could not stop short for the sake of one man’s life.”

“Won’t you come over to the other table?” suggested Anna
Pávlovna.

But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.

“No,” cried he, becoming more and more eager, “Napoleon is great
because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses,
preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom
of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did he obtain
power.”

“Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to
commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have
called him a great man,” remarked the vicomte.

“He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might
rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great
man. The Revolution was a grand thing!” continued Monsieur Pierre,
betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme
youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.

“What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that...
But won’t you come to this other table?” repeated Anna Pávlovna.

“Rousseau’s Contrat Social,” said the vicomte with a tolerant
smile.

“I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas.”

“Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,” again interjected an
ironical voice.

“Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most
important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from
prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon
has retained in full force.”

“Liberty and equality,” said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at
last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words
were, “high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does
not love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and
equality. Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the
contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.”

Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the
vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of
Pierre’s outburst Anna Pávlovna, despite her social experience, was
horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre’s sacrilegious words
had not exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was
impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in
a vigorous attack on the orator.

“But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” said she, “how do you explain the
fact of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man who—is
innocent and untried?”

“I should like,” said the vicomte, “to ask how monsieur explains
the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not
at all like the conduct of a great man!”

“And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!” said the
little princess, shrugging her shoulders.

“He’s a low fellow, say what you will,” remarked Prince Hippolyte.

Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His
smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled,
his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by
another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to
ask forgiveness.

The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that
this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were
silent.

“How do you expect him to answer you all at once?” said Prince
Andrew. “Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish
between his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor.
So it seems to me.”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of
this reinforcement.

“One must admit,” continued Prince Andrew, “that Napoleon as a man
was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he
gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but ... but there are other acts
which it is difficult to justify.”

Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of
Pierre’s remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to
go.

Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,
and asking them all to be seated began:

“I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.
Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point will be
lost....” And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian
as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.
Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their
attention to his story.

“There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must
have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her
taste. And she had a lady’s maid, also big. She said....”

Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with
difficulty.

“She said.... Oh yes! She said, ‘Girl,’ to the maid, ‘put on a
livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some
calls.’”

Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his
audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several
persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pávlovna, did however
smile.

“She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and
her long hair came down....” Here he could contain himself no
longer and went on, between gasps of laughter: “And the whole world
knew....”

And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told
it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pávlovna and the
others appreciated Prince Hippolyte’s social tact in so agreeably
ending Pierre’s unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote
the conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last
and next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and
where.





CHAPTER VI

Having thanked Anna Pávlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began
to take their leave.

Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge
red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing
room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something
particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was
absent-minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the
general’s three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume,
till the general asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and
inability to enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by
his kindly, simple, and modest expression. Anna Pávlovna turned toward
him and, with a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his
indiscretion, nodded and said: “I hope to see you again, but I also
hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.”

When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody
saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, “Opinions are
opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am.” And
everyone, including Anna Pávlovna, felt this.

Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders
to the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened
indifferently to his wife’s chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also
come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant
princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.

“Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold,” said the little princess,
taking leave of Anna Pávlovna. “It is settled,” she added in a low
voice.

Anna Pávlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she
contemplated between Anatole and the little princess’ sister-in-law.

“I rely on you, my dear,” said Anna Pávlovna, also in a low tone.
“Write to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au
revoir! ”—and she left the hall.

Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face
close to her, began to whisper something.

Two footmen, the princess’ and his own, stood holding a shawl and
a cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to
the French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of
understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual
spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.

“I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince
Hippolyte “—so dull—. It has been a delightful evening, has it
not? Delightful!”

“They say the ball will be very good,” replied the princess, drawing
up her downy little lip. “All the pretty women in society will be
there.”

“Not all, for you will not be there; not all,” said Prince Hippolyte
smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he
even pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from
awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the
shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as
though embracing her.

Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her
husband. Prince Andrew’s eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he
seem.

“Are you ready?” he asked his wife, looking past her.

Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion
reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch
following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.

“Princesse, au revoir,” cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well
as with his feet.

The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark
carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under
pretense of helping, was in everyone’s way.

“Allow me, sir,” said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold,
disagreeable tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.

“I am expecting you, Pierre,” said the same voice, but gently and
affectionately.

The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte
laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte
whom he had promised to take home.

“Well, mon cher,” said the vicomte, having seated himself beside
Hippolyte in the carriage, “your little princess is very nice, very
nice indeed, quite French,” and he kissed the tips of his fingers.
Hippolyte burst out laughing.

“Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,”
continued the vicomte. “I pity the poor husband, that little officer
who gives himself the airs of a monarch.”

Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, “And you were
saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to
know how to deal with them.”

Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew’s study like
one quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took
from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar’s
Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle.

“What have you done to Mlle Schérer? She will be quite ill now,”
said Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white
hands.

Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager
face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.

“That abbé is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the
right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but—I do not
know how to express it ... not by a balance of political power....”

It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract
conversation.

“One can’t everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have
you at last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a
diplomatist?” asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.

Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.

“Really, I don’t yet know. I don’t like either the one or the
other.”

“But you must decide on something! Your father expects it.”

Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbé as tutor,
and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow
his father dismissed the abbé and said to the young man, “Now go
to Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to
anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasíli, and here is money. Write
to me all about it, and I will help you in everything.” Pierre had
already been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided
on anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.
Pierre rubbed his forehead.

“But he must be a Freemason,” said he, referring to the abbé whom
he had met that evening.

“That is all nonsense.” Prince Andrew again interrupted him, “let
us talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?”

“No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted
to tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for
freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;
but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is
not right.”

Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre’s childish words.
He put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such
nonsense, but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other
answer than the one Prince Andrew gave to this naïve question.

“If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no
wars,” he said.

“And that would be splendid,” said Pierre.

Prince Andrew smiled ironically.

“Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about....”

“Well, why are you going to the war?” asked Pierre.

“What for? I don’t know. I must. Besides that I am going....” He
paused. “I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit
me!”





CHAPTER VII

The rustle of a woman’s dress was heard in the next room. Prince
Andrew shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it
had had in Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from
the sofa. The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house
dress as fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely
placed a chair for her.

“How is it,” she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly
and fussily in the easy chair, “how is it Annette never got married?
How stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying
so, but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you
are, Monsieur Pierre!”

“And I am still arguing with your husband. I can’t understand why he
wants to go to the war,” replied Pierre, addressing the princess
with none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their
intercourse with young women.

The princess started. Evidently Pierre’s words touched her to the
quick.

“Ah, that is just what I tell him!” said she. “I don’t
understand it; I don’t in the least understand why men can’t live
without wars. How is it that we women don’t want anything of the kind,
don’t need it? Now you shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here
he is Uncle’s aide-de-camp, a most brilliant position. He is so
well known, so much appreciated by everyone. The other day at the
Apráksins’ I heard a lady asking, ‘Is that the famous Prince
Andrew?’ I did indeed.” She laughed. “He is so well received
everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp to the Emperor. You know
the Emperor spoke to him most graciously. Annette and I were speaking of
how to arrange it. What do you think?”

Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the
conversation, gave no reply.

“When are you starting?” he asked.

“Oh, don’t speak of his going, don’t! I won’t hear it spoken
of,” said the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which
she had spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly
ill-suited to the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member.
“Today when I remembered that all these delightful associations
must be broken off ... and then you know, André...” (she looked
significantly at her husband) “I’m afraid, I’m afraid!” she
whispered, and a shudder ran down her back.

Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides
Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of
frigid politeness.

“What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don’t understand,” said he.

“There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim
of his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone
in the country.”

“With my father and sister, remember,” said Prince Andrew gently.

“Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to
be afraid.”

Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a
joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she
felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the
gist of the matter lay in that.

“I still can’t understand what you are afraid of,” said Prince
Andrew slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.

The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.

“No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have....”

“Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier,” said Prince Andrew.
“You had better go.”

The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered.
Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room.

Pierre looked over his spectacles with naïve surprise, now at him and
now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.

“Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?” exclaimed the little
princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful
grimace. “I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed
so to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no
pity for me. Why is it?”

“Lise!” was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed
an entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself
regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:

“You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave
like that six months ago?”

“Lise, I beg you to desist,” said Prince Andrew still more
emphatically.

Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to
all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the
sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.

“Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because.... I assure you
I myself have experienced ... and so ... because ... No, excuse me!
An outsider is out of place here.... No, don’t distress yourself....
Good-by!”

Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.

“No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of
the pleasure of spending the evening with you.”

“No, he thinks only of himself,” muttered the princess without
restraining her angry tears.

“Lise!” said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch
which indicates that patience is exhausted.

Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess’ pretty
face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes
glanced askance at her husband’s face, and her own assumed the timid,
deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its
drooping tail.

“Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” she muttered, and lifting her dress with one
hand she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.

“Good night, Lise,” said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand
as he would have done to a stranger.





CHAPTER VIII

The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre
continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead
with his small hand.

“Let us go and have supper,” he said with a sigh, going to the door.

They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room.
Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore
that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married.
Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and,
with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on
his face, began to talk—as one who has long had something on his mind
and suddenly determines to speak out.

“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry
till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of,
and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen
her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable
mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing—or all that is
good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t look at me with such surprise. If you marry
expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every
step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing
room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an
idiot!... But what’s the good?...” and he waved his arm.

Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and
the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend
in amazement.

“My wife,” continued Prince Andrew, “is an excellent woman, one
of those rare women with whom a man’s honor is safe; but, O God, what
would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to
whom I mention this, because I like you.”

As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkónski
who had lolled in Anna Pávlovna’s easy chairs and with half-closed
eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his
thin face was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which
the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant
light. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary
times, the more impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid
irritation.

“You don’t understand why I say this,” he continued, “but it is
the whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career,” said
he (though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), “but Bonaparte when
he worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing
but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with
a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you
have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with
regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality—these are
the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war,
the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for
nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit,” continued Prince
Andrew, “and at Anna Pávlovna’s they listen to me. And that stupid
set without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women.... If you only
knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is
right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that’s what
women are when you see them in their true colors! When you meet them
in society it seems as if there were something in them, but there’s
nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don’t marry, my dear fellow; don’t
marry!” concluded Prince Andrew.

“It seems funny to me,” said Pierre, “that you, you should
consider yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have
everything before you, everything. And you....”

He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he
thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.

“How can he talk like that?” thought Pierre. He considered his
friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the
highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might
be best described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at
Prince Andrew’s calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary
memory, his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything,
and had an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for
work and study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew’s lack
of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he himself was
particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a
sign of strength.

Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise
and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels
that they may run smoothly.

“My part is played out,” said Prince Andrew. “What’s the use of
talking about me? Let us talk about you,” he added after a silence,
smiling at his reassuring thoughts.

That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre’s face.

“But what is there to say about me?” said Pierre, his face relaxing
into a careless, merry smile. “What am I? An illegitimate son!”
He suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great
effort to say this. “Without a name and without means... And it
really...” But he did not say what “it really” was. “For the
present I am free and am all right. Only I haven’t the least idea what
I am to do; I wanted to consult you seriously.”

Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance—friendly and
affectionate as it was—expressed a sense of his own superiority.

“I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our
whole set. Yes, you’re all right! Choose what you will; it’s all the
same. You’ll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting
those Kurágins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so
badly—all this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!”

“What would you have, my dear fellow?” answered Pierre, shrugging
his shoulders. “Women, my dear fellow; women!”

“I don’t understand it,” replied Prince Andrew. “Women who are
comme il faut, that’s a different matter; but the Kurágins’ set of
women, ‘women and wine’ I don’t understand!”

Pierre was staying at Prince Vasíli Kurágin’s and sharing the
dissipated life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to
reform by marrying him to Prince Andrew’s sister.

“Do you know?” said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy
thought, “seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such
a life I can’t decide or think properly about anything. One’s head
aches, and one spends all one’s money. He asked me for tonight, but I
won’t go.”

“You give me your word of honor not to go?”

“On my honor!”





CHAPTER IX

It was past one o’clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a
cloudless, northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending
to drive straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he
felt the impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light
enough to see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like
morning or evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole
Kurágin was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which
there was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind
Pierre was very fond of.

“I should like to go to Kurágin’s,” thought he.

But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go
there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so
passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to
that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his
promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it
he had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering;
“besides,” thought he, “all such ‘words of honor’ are
conventional things with no definite meaning, especially if
one considers that by tomorrow one may be dead, or something so
extraordinary may happen to one that honor and dishonor will be all the
same!” Pierre often indulged in reflections of this sort, nullifying
all his decisions and intentions. He went to Kurágin’s.

Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards’ barracks, in which
Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs,
and went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty
bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of
alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.

Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.
Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the
remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on
the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of
laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and
general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously
round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one
pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.

“I bet a hundred on Stevens!” shouted one.

“Mind, no holding on!” cried another.

“I bet on Dólokhov!” cried a third. “Kurágin, you part our
hands.”

“There, leave Bruin alone; here’s a bet on.”

“At one draught, or he loses!” shouted a fourth.

“Jacob, bring a bottle!” shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow
who stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine
linen shirt unfastened in front. “Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is
Pétya! Good man!” cried he, addressing Pierre.

Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,
particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober
ring, cried from the window: “Come here; part the bets!” This was
Dólokhov, an officer of the Semënov regiment, a notorious gambler and
duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him
merrily.

“I don’t understand. What’s it all about?”

“Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here,” said Anatole, and
taking a glass from the table he went up to Pierre.

“First of all you must drink!”

Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at
the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening
to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre’s glass while
explaining that Dólokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval
officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge
of the third floor window with his legs hanging out.

“Go on, you must drink it all,” said Anatole, giving Pierre the last
glass, “or I won’t let you go!”

“No, I won’t,” said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up
to the window.

Dólokhov was holding the Englishman’s hand and clearly and distinctly
repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to
Anatole and Pierre.

Dólokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He
was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache,
so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly
seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle
of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm
lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually
round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute,
insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it
impossible not to notice his face. Dólokhov was a man of small means
and no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of
rubles, Dólokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a
footing that all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him
more than they did Anatole. Dólokhov could play all games and nearly
always won. However much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness.
Both Kurágin and Dólokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes
and scapegraces of Petersburg.

The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone
from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who
were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of
the gentlemen around.

Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to
smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but
could not move it. He smashed a pane.

“You have a try, Hercules,” said he, turning to Pierre.

Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with
a crash.

“Take it right out, or they’ll think I’m holding on,” said
Dólokhov.

“Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?” said Anatole.

“First-rate,” said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who with a bottle
of rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of
the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.

Dólokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window
sill. “Listen!” cried he, standing there and addressing those in the
room. All were silent.

“I bet fifty imperials”—he spoke French that the Englishman might
understand him, but he did not speak it very well—“I bet fifty
imperials ... or do you wish to make it a hundred?” added he,
addressing the Englishman.

“No, fifty,” replied the latter.

“All right. Fifty imperials ... that I will drink a whole bottle of
rum without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this
spot” (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)
“and without holding on to anything. Is that right?”

“Quite right,” said the Englishman.

Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons
of his coat and looking down at him—the Englishman was short—began
repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.

“Wait!” cried Dólokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window
sill to attract attention. “Wait a bit, Kurágin. Listen! If
anyone else does the same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you
understand?”

The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to
accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though
he kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating
Dólokhov’s words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the
Life Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window
sill, leaned over, and looked down.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he muttered, looking down from the window at the
stones of the pavement.

“Shut up!” cried Dólokhov, pushing him away from the window. The
lad jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.

Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,
Dólokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered
his legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself
on his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to
the left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and
placed them on the window sill, though it was already quite light.
Dólokhov’s back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit
up from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in
front. Pierre stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others
present, suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted
to seize hold of Dólokhov’s shirt.

“I say, this is folly! He’ll be killed,” said this more sensible
man.

Anatole stopped him.

“Don’t touch him! You’ll startle him and then he’ll be killed.
Eh?... What then?... Eh?”

Dólokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged
himself on his seat.

“If anyone comes meddling again,” said he, emitting the words
separately through his thin compressed lips, “I will throw him down
there. Now then!”

Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle
and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand
to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some
broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the
window and from Dólokhov’s back. Anatole stood erect with staring
eyes. The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man
who had wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw
himself on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from
which a faint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed
horror and fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes.
Dólokhov still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown
further back till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand
holding the bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the
effort. The bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher
and his head tilting yet further back. “Why is it so long?” thought
Pierre. It seemed to him that more than half an hour had elapsed.
Suddenly Dólokhov made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm
trembled nervously; this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip
as he sat on the sloping ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and
arm wavered still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch
the window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered
his eyes and thought he would never open them again. Suddenly he was
aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dólokhov was standing on the
window sill, with a pale but radiant face.

“It’s empty.”

He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dólokhov
jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.

“Well done!... Fine fellow!... There’s a bet for you!... Devil take
you!” came from different sides.

The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money.
Dólokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the
window sill.

“Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I’ll do the same thing!”
he suddenly cried. “Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a
bottle. I’ll do it.... Bring a bottle!”

“Let him do it, let him do it,” said Dólokhov, smiling.

“What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go
giddy even on a staircase,” exclaimed several voices.

“I’ll drink it! Let’s have a bottle of rum!” shouted Pierre,
banging the table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to
climb out of the window.

They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who
touched him was sent flying.

“No, you’ll never manage him that way,” said Anatole. “Wait a
bit and I’ll get round him.... Listen! I’ll take your bet tomorrow,
but now we are all going to ——’s.”

“Come on then,” cried Pierre. “Come on!... And we’ll take Bruin
with us.”

And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,
and began dancing round the room with it.





CHAPTER X

Prince Vasíli kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskáya
who had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Borís on the evening of
Anna Pávlovna’s soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an
exception made, and Borís transferred into the regiment of Semënov
Guards with the rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment
to Kutúzov’s staff despite all Anna Mikháylovna’s endeavors and
entreaties. Soon after Anna Pávlovna’s reception Anna Mikháylovna
returned to Moscow and went straight to her rich relations, the
Rostóvs, with whom she stayed when in the town and where her darling
Bóry, who had only just entered a regiment of the line and was being
at once transferred to the Guards as a cornet, had been educated from
childhood and lived for years at a time. The Guards had already left
Petersburg on the tenth of August, and her son, who had remained in
Moscow for his equipment, was to join them on the march to Radzivílov.

It was St. Natalia’s day and the name day of two of the Rostóvs—the
mother and the youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Ever since
the morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going
continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostóva’s big house on
the Povarskáya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and
her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing room with the visitors
who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in
relays.

The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type
of face, evidently worn out with childbearing—she had had twelve.
A languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a
distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikháylovna
Drubetskáya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the
drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young
people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to
take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw
them off, inviting them all to dinner.

“I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher,” or “ma chère”—he
called everyone without exception and without the slightest variation
in his tone, “my dear,” whether they were above or below him in
rank—“I thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name
day we are keeping. But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended,
ma chère! On behalf of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!”
These words he repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and
with the same expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the
same firm pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As
soon as he had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were
still in the drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily
spreading out his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air
of a man who enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and
fro with dignity, offered surmises about the weather, or touched on
questions of health, sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but
self-confident French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in
the fulfillment of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking
his scanty gray hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner.
Sometimes on his way back from the anteroom he would pass through the
conservatory and pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables
were being set out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who
were bringing in silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask
table linen, he would call Dmítri Vasílevich, a man of good family and
the manager of all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the
enormous table would say: “Well, Dmítri, you’ll see that things are
all as they should be? That’s right! The great thing is the serving,
that’s it.” And with a complacent sigh he would return to the
drawing room.

“Márya Lvóvna Karágina and her daughter!” announced the
countess’ gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing
room. The countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold
snuffbox with her husband’s portrait on it.

“I’m quite worn out by these callers. However, I’ll see her and
no more. She is so affected. Ask her in,” she said to the footman in a
sad voice, as if saying: “Very well, finish me off.”

A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling
daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.

“Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child ...
at the Razumóvski’s ball ... and Countess Apráksina ... I was
so delighted...” came the sounds of animated feminine voices,
interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and
the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last
out until, at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses
and say, “I am so delighted... Mamma’s health... and Countess
Apráksina...” and then, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put
on cloaks or mantles, and drive away. The conversation was on the chief
topic of the day: the illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of
Catherine’s day, Count Bezúkhov, and about his illegitimate son
Pierre, the one who had behaved so improperly at Anna Pávlovna’s
reception.

“I am so sorry for the poor count,” said the visitor. “He is in
such bad health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill
him!”

“What is that?” asked the countess as if she did not know what the
visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of
Count Bezúkhov’s distress some fifteen times.

“That’s what comes of a modern education,” exclaimed the visitor.
“It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do
as he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible
things that he has been expelled by the police.”

“You don’t say so!” replied the countess.

“He chose his friends badly,” interposed Anna Mikháylovna.
“Prince Vasíli’s son, he, and a certain Dólokhov have, it is said,
been up to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it.
Dólokhov has been degraded to the ranks and Bezúkhov’s son sent
back to Moscow. Anatole Kurágin’s father managed somehow to get his
son’s affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg.”

“But what have they been up to?” asked the countess.

“They are regular brigands, especially Dólokhov,” replied the
visitor. “He is a son of Márya Ivánovna Dólokhova, such a worthy
woman, but there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere,
put it in a carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The
police tried to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied
a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka
Canal. And there was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his
back!”

“What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!” shouted
the count, dying with laughter.

“Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?”

Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.

“It was all they could do to rescue the poor man,” continued the
visitor. “And to think it is Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s son
who amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so
well educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has
done for him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in
spite of his money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite
declined: I have my daughters to consider.”

“Why do you say this young man is so rich?” asked the countess,
turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention.
“His children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is
illegitimate.”

The visitor made a gesture with her hand.

“I should think he has a score of them.”

Princess Anna Mikháylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently
wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in
society.

“The fact of the matter is,” said she significantly, and also in a
half whisper, “everyone knows Count Cyril’s reputation.... He has
lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.”

“How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!” remarked the
countess. “I have never seen a handsomer man.”

“He is very much altered now,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “Well, as
I was saying, Prince Vasíli is the next heir through his wife, but the
count is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to
the Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death—and he is
so ill that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from
Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre
or Prince Vasíli. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know
it all very well for Prince Vasíli told me himself. Besides, Cyril
Vladímirovich is my mother’s second cousin. He’s also my Bóry’s
godfather,” she added, as if she attached no importance at all to the
fact.

“Prince Vasíli arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on
some inspection business,” remarked the visitor.

“Yes, but between ourselves,” said the princess, “that is a
pretext. The fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladímirovich,
hearing how ill he is.”

“But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke,” said the count;
and seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the
young ladies. “I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman
cut!”

And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form
again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats
well and, in particular, drinks well. “So do come and dine with us!”
he said.





CHAPTER XI

Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably,
but not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they
now rose and took their leave. The visitor’s daughter was already
smoothing down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when
suddenly from the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls
running to the door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl
of thirteen, hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock,
darted in and stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident
that she had not intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in
the doorway appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer
of the Guards, a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short
jacket.

The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide
and threw them round the little girl who had run in.

“Ah, here she is!” he exclaimed laughing. “My pet, whose name day
it is. My dear pet!”

“Ma chère, there is a time for everything,” said the countess with
feigned severity. “You spoil her, Ilyá,” she added, turning to her
husband.

“How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name
day,” said the visitor. “What a charming child,” she added,
addressing the mother.

This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life—with
childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her
bodice, with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs
in lace-frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that
charming age when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not
yet a young woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed
face in the lace of her mother’s mantilla—not paying the least
attention to her severe remark—and began to laugh. She laughed, and in
fragmentary sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced
from the folds of her frock.

“Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see...” was all Natásha
managed to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against
her mother and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even
the prim visitor could not help joining in.

“Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you,” said the
mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning
to the visitor she added: “She is my youngest girl.”

Natásha, raising her face for a moment from her mother’s mantilla,
glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.

The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it
necessary to take some part in it.

“Tell me, my dear,” said she to Natásha, “is Mimi a relation of
yours? A daughter, I suppose?”

Natásha did not like the visitor’s tone of condescension to childish
things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.

Meanwhile the younger generation: Borís, the officer, Anna
Mikháylovna’s son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count’s eldest
son; Sónya, the count’s fifteen-year-old niece, and little Pétya,
his youngest boy, had all settled down in the drawing room and were
obviously trying to restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement
and mirth that shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms,
from which they had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had
been more amusing than the drawing room talk of society scandals, the
weather, and Countess Apráksina. Now and then they glanced at one
another, hardly able to suppress their laughter.

The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood,
were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Borís
was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate
features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression.
Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face
expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered
the drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but
failed. Borís on the contrary at once found his footing, and related
quietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was
still quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged
during the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked
right across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natásha.
She turned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was
screwing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable
to control herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as
fast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Borís did not laugh.

“You were meaning to go out, weren’t you, Mamma? Do you want the
carriage?” he asked his mother with a smile.

“Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready,” she answered,
returning his smile.

Borís quietly left the room and went in search of Natásha. The plump
boy ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been
disturbed.





CHAPTER XII

The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the
young lady visitor and the countess’ eldest daughter (who was four
years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person),
were Nicholas and Sónya, the niece. Sónya was a slender little
brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long
lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny
tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but
graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements,
by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain
coyness and reserve of manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown
kitten which promises to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently
considered it proper to show an interest in the general conversation by
smiling, but in spite of herself her eyes under their thick long lashes
watched her cousin who was going to join the army, with such passionate
girlish adoration that her smile could not for a single instant impose
upon anyone, and it was clear that the kitten had settled down only to
spring up with more energy and again play with her cousin as soon as
they too could, like Natásha and Borís, escape from the drawing room.

“Ah yes, my dear,” said the count, addressing the visitor and
pointing to Nicholas, “his friend Borís has become an officer, and
so for friendship’s sake he is leaving the university and me, his
old father, and entering the military service, my dear. And there was a
place and everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn’t
that friendship?” remarked the count in an inquiring tone.

“But they say that war has been declared,” replied the visitor.

“They’ve been saying so a long while,” said the count, “and
they’ll say so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My
dear, there’s friendship for you,” he repeated. “He’s joining
the hussars.”

The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.

“It’s not at all from friendship,” declared Nicholas, flaring
up and turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. “It is not from
friendship at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation.”

He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both
regarding him with a smile of approbation.

“Schubert, the colonel of the Pávlograd Hussars, is dining with us
today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.
It can’t be helped!” said the count, shrugging his shoulders and
speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.

“I have already told you, Papa,” said his son, “that if you
don’t wish to let me go, I’ll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere
except in the army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.—I
don’t know how to hide what I feel.” As he spoke he kept glancing
with the flirtatiousness of a handsome youth at Sónya and the young
lady visitor.

The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment
to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.

“All right, all right!” said the old count. “He always flares up!
This Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he
rose from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it,” he
added, not noticing his visitor’s sarcastic smile.

The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karágina turned to
young Rostóv.

“What a pity you weren’t at the Arkhárovs’ on Thursday. It was so
dull without you,” said she, giving him a tender smile.

The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish
smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation
without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart
of Sónya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk
he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and
hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile
on her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas’ animation
vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then
with a distressed face left the room to find Sónya.

“How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their
sleeves!” said Anna Mikháylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out.
“Cousinage—dangereux voisinage,” * she added.

     * Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.

“Yes,” said the countess when the brightness these young people had
brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no
one had put but which was always in her mind, “and how much suffering,
how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in
them now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is
always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both
for girls and boys.”

“It all depends on the bringing up,” remarked the visitor.

“Yes, you’re quite right,” continued the countess. “Till now I
have always, thank God, been my children’s friend and had their full
confidence,” said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who
imagine that their children have no secrets from them. “I know I shall
always be my daughters’ first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with
his impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can’t help it), he
will all the same never be like those Petersburg young men.”

“Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters,” chimed in the count,
who always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding
that everything was splendid. “Just fancy: wants to be an hussar.
What’s one to do, my dear?”

“What a charming creature your younger girl is,” said the visitor;
“a little volcano!”

“Yes, a regular volcano,” said the count. “Takes after me! And
what a voice she has; though she’s my daughter, I tell the truth
when I say she’ll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an
Italian to give her lessons.”

“Isn’t she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train
it at that age.”

“Oh no, not at all too young!” replied the count. “Why, our
mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen.”

“And she’s in love with Borís already. Just fancy!” said the
countess with a gentle smile, looking at Borís and went on, evidently
concerned with a thought that always occupied her: “Now you see if I
were to be severe with her and to forbid it ... goodness knows what they
might be up to on the sly” (she meant that they would be kissing),
“but as it is, I know every word she utters. She will come running to
me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I
spoil her, but really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I
was stricter.”

“Yes, I was brought up quite differently,” remarked the handsome
elder daughter, Countess Véra, with a smile.

But the smile did not enhance Véra’s beauty as smiles generally do;
on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,
expression. Véra was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at
learning, was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said
was true and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone—the visitors
and countess alike—turned to look at her as if wondering why she had
said it, and they all felt awkward.

“People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to
make something exceptional of them,” said the visitor.

“What’s the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too
clever with Véra,” said the count. “Well, what of that? She’s
turned out splendidly all the same,” he added, winking at Véra.

The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.

“What manners! I thought they would never go,” said the countess,
when she had seen her guests out.





CHAPTER XIII

When Natásha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the
conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation
in the drawing room, waiting for Borís to come out. She was already
growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming
at once, when she heard the young man’s discreet steps approaching
neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natásha dashed swiftly among the
flower tubs and hid there.

Borís paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little
dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined
his handsome face. Natásha, very still, peered out from her ambush,
waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the
glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natásha was about to
call him but changed her mind. “Let him look for me,” thought she.
Hardly had Borís gone than Sónya, flushed, in tears, and muttering
angrily, came in at the other door. Natásha checked her first impulse
to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching—as
under an invisible cap—to see what went on in the world. She was
experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sónya, muttering to herself,
kept looking round toward the drawing room door. It opened and Nicholas
came in.

“Sónya, what is the matter with you? How can you?” said he, running
up to her.

“It’s nothing, nothing; leave me alone!” sobbed Sónya.

“Ah, I know what it is.”

“Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!”

“Só-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,
for a mere fancy?” said Nicholas taking her hand.

Sónya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natásha, not stirring
and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.
“What will happen now?” thought she.

“Sónya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are
everything!” said Nicholas. “And I will prove it to you.”

“I don’t like you to talk like that.”

“Well, then, I won’t; only forgive me, Sónya!” He drew her to him
and kissed her.

“Oh, how nice,” thought Natásha; and when Sónya and Nicholas had
gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Borís to her.

“Borís, come here,” said she with a sly and significant look. “I
have something to tell you. Here, here!” and she led him into the
conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.

Borís followed her, smiling.

“What is the something?” asked he.

She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown
down on one of the tubs, picked it up.

“Kiss the doll,” said she.

Borís looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not
reply.

“Don’t you want to? Well, then, come here,” said she, and
went further in among the plants and threw down the doll. “Closer,
closer!” she whispered.

She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and
fear appeared on her flushed face.

“And me? Would you like to kiss me?” she whispered almost inaudibly,
glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from
excitement.

Borís blushed.

“How funny you are!” he said, bending down to her and blushing still
more, but he waited and did nothing.

Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so
that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing
back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.

Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs
and stood, hanging her head.

“Natásha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but....”

“You are in love with me?” Natásha broke in.

“Yes, I am, but please don’t let us do like that.... In another four
years ... then I will ask for your hand.”

Natásha considered.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” she counted on her slender
little fingers. “All right! Then it’s settled?”

A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.

“Settled!” replied Borís.

“Forever?” said the little girl. “Till death itself?”

She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining
sitting room.





CHAPTER XIV

After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave
orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to
dinner all who came “to congratulate.” The countess wished to have
a tête-à-tête talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna
Mikháylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from
Petersburg. Anna Mikháylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face,
drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.

“With you I will be quite frank,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “There
are not many left of us old friends! That’s why I so value your
friendship.”

Anna Mikháylovna looked at Véra and paused. The countess pressed her
friend’s hand.

“Véra,” she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a
favorite, “how is it you have so little tact? Don’t you see you are
not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or...”

The handsome Véra smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.

“If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone,” she replied
as she rose to go to her own room.

But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting,
one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sónya was
sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the
first he had ever written. Borís and Natásha were at the other window
and ceased talking when Véra entered. Sónya and Natásha looked at
Véra with guilty, happy faces.

It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but
apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Véra.

“How often have I asked you not to take my things?” she said. “You
have a room of your own,” and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.

“In a minute, in a minute,” he said, dipping his pen.

“You always manage to do things at the wrong time,” continued Véra.
“You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed
of you.”

Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one
replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the
room with the inkstand in her hand.

“And at your age what secrets can there be between Natásha and
Borís, or between you two? It’s all nonsense!”

“Now, Véra, what does it matter to you?” said Natásha in defense,
speaking very gently.

She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to
everyone.

“Very silly,” said Véra. “I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!”

“All have secrets of their own,” answered Natásha, getting warmer.
“We don’t interfere with you and Berg.”

“I should think not,” said Véra, “because there can never be
anything wrong in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you are
behaving with Borís.”

“Natálya Ilyníchna behaves very well to me,” remarked Borís. “I
have nothing to complain of.”

“Don’t, Borís! You are such a diplomat that it is really
tiresome,” said Natásha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly.
(She used the word “diplomat,” which was just then much in vogue
among the children, in the special sense they attached to it.) “Why
does she bother me?” And she added, turning to Véra, “You’ll
never understand it, because you’ve never loved anyone. You have no
heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and nothing more” (this nickname,
bestowed on Véra by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), “and
your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with
Berg as much as you please,” she finished quickly.

“I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors...”

“Well, now you’ve done what you wanted,” put in Nicholas—“said
unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let’s go to the
nursery.”

All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.

“The unpleasant things were said to me,” remarked Véra, “I said
none to anyone.”

“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” shouted laughing voices
through the door.

The handsome Véra, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant
effect on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been
said to her, went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf.
Looking at her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and
calmer.


In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.

“Ah, my dear,” said the countess, “my life is not all roses
either. Don’t I know that at the rate we are living our means won’t
last long? It’s all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the
country do we get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what
besides! But don’t let’s talk about me; tell me how you managed
everything. I often wonder at you, Annette—how at your age you
can rush off alone in a carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those
ministers and great people, and know how to deal with them all! It’s
quite astonishing. How did you get things settled? I couldn’t possibly
do it.”

“Ah, my love,” answered Anna Mikháylovna, “God grant you never
know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love
to distraction! One learns many things then,” she added with a certain
pride. “That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those
big people I write a note: ‘Princess So-and-So desires an interview
with So and-So,’ and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or
four times—till I get what I want. I don’t mind what they think of
me.”

“Well, and to whom did you apply about Bóry?” asked the countess.
“You see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas
is going as a cadet. There’s no one to interest himself for him. To
whom did you apply?”

“To Prince Vasíli. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything,
and put the matter before the Emperor,” said Princess Anna
Mikháylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she
had endured to gain her end.

“Has Prince Vasíli aged much?” asked the countess. “I have not
seen him since we acted together at the Rumyántsovs’ theatricals. I
expect he has forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days,” said
the countess, with a smile.

“He is just the same as ever,” replied Anna Mikháylovna,
“overflowing with amiability. His position has not turned his head
at all. He said to me, ‘I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear
Princess. I am at your command.’ Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very
kind relation. But, Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do
anything for his happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my
position is now a terrible one,” continued Anna Mikháylovna, sadly,
dropping her voice. “My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no
progress. Would you believe it, I have literally not a penny and don’t
know how to equip Borís.” She took out her handkerchief and began to
cry. “I need five hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble
note. I am in such a state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril
Vladímirovich Bezúkhov. If he will not assist his godson—you know
he is Bóry’s godfather—and allow him something for his maintenance,
all my trouble will have been thrown away.... I shall not be able to
equip him.”

The countess’ eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.

“I often think, though, perhaps it’s a sin,” said the princess,
“that here lives Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov so rich, all
alone... that tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It’s a
burden to him, and Bóry’s life is only just beginning....”

“Surely he will leave something to Borís,” said the countess.

“Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish.
Still, I will take Borís and go to see him at once, and I shall speak
to him straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it’s
really all the same to me when my son’s fate is at stake.” The
princess rose. “It’s now two o’clock and you dine at four. There
will just be time.”

And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of
time, Anna Mikháylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the
anteroom with him.

“Good-by, my dear,” said she to the countess who saw her to the
door, and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, “Wish me
good luck.”

“Are you going to Count Cyril Vladímirovich, my dear?” said the
count coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added:
“If he is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the
house, you know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my
dear. We will see how Tarás distinguishes himself today. He says Count
Orlóv never gave such a dinner as ours will be!”





CHAPTER XV

“My dear Borís,” said Princess Anna Mikháylovna to her son as
Countess Rostóva’s carriage in which they were seated drove over the
straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril
Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s house. “My dear Borís,” said the
mother, drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying
it timidly and tenderly on her son’s arm, “be affectionate and
attentive to him. Count Cyril Vladímirovich is your godfather after
all, and your future depends on him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice
to him, as you so well know how to be.”

“If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of
it...” answered her son coldly. “But I have promised and will do it
for your sake.”

Although the hall porter saw someone’s carriage standing at the
entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to
be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the
rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady’s old
cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,
hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse
today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.

“We may as well go back,” said the son in French.

“My dear!” exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand
on his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.

Borís said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking
off his cloak.

“My friend,” said Anna Mikháylovna in gentle tones, addressing
the hall porter, “I know Count Cyril Vladímirovich is very ill...
that’s why I have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him,
my friend... I only need see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich: he is staying
here, is he not? Please announce me.”

The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned
away.

“Princess Drubetskáya to see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich,” he called
to a footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat,
who ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.

The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large
Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly
ascended the carpeted stairs.

“My dear,” she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a
touch, “you promised me!”

The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.

They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the
apartments assigned to Prince Vasíli.

Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were
about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they
entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasíli
came out—wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast,
as was his custom when at home—taking leave of a good-looking,
dark-haired man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.

“Then it is certain?” said the prince.

“Prince, humanum est errare, * but...” replied the doctor,
swallowing his r’s, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French
accent.

     * To err is human.

“Very well, very well...”

Seeing Anna Mikháylovna and her son, Prince Vasíli dismissed the
doctor with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of
inquiry. The son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly
clouded his mother’s face, and he smiled slightly.

“Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our
dear invalid?” said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look
fixed on her.

Prince Vasíli stared at her and at Borís questioningly and perplexed.
Borís bowed politely. Prince Vasíli without acknowledging the bow
turned to Anna Mikháylovna, answering her query by a movement of the
head and lips indicating very little hope for the patient.

“Is it possible?” exclaimed Anna Mikháylovna. “Oh, how awful!
It is terrible to think.... This is my son,” she added, indicating
Borís. “He wanted to thank you himself.”

Borís bowed again politely.

“Believe me, Prince, a mother’s heart will never forget what you
have done for us.”

“I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna
Mikháylovna,” said Prince Vasíli, arranging his lace frill, and in
tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikháylovna whom he had placed
under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he
had done in Petersburg at Anna Schérer’s reception.

“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” added he, addressing
Borís with severity. “I am glad.... Are you here on leave?” he went
on in his usual tone of indifference.

“I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency,”
replied Borís, betraying neither annoyance at the prince’s brusque
manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly
and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.

“Are you living with your mother?”

“I am living at Countess Rostóva’s,” replied Borís, again
adding, “your excellency.”

“That is, with Ilyá Rostóv who married Nataly Shinshiná,” said
Anna Mikháylovna.

“I know, I know,” answered Prince Vasíli in his monotonous voice.
“I never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that
unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,
I am told.”

“But a very kind man, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a
pathetic smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostóv deserved this
censure, but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. “What
do the doctors say?” asked the princess after a pause, her worn face
again expressing deep sorrow.

“They give little hope,” replied the prince.

“And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me
and Borís. He is his godson,” she added, her tone suggesting that
this fact ought to give Prince Vasíli much satisfaction.

Prince Vasíli became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikháylovna saw that
he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezúkhov’s fortune,
and hastened to reassure him.

“If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle,”
said she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, “I
know his character: noble, upright ... but you see he has no one with
him except the young princesses.... They are still young....” She bent
her head and continued in a whisper: “Has he performed his final duty,
Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no
worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill.
We women, Prince,” and she smiled tenderly, “always know how to say
these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for
me. I am used to suffering.”

Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done
at Anna Pávlovna’s, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna
Mikháylovna.

“Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna
Mikháylovna?” said he. “Let us wait until evening. The doctors are
expecting a crisis.”

“But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the
welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a
Christian...”

A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the
count’s niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her
body was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasíli
turned to her.

“Well, how is he?”

“Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise...” said the
princess, looking at Anna Mikháylovna as at a stranger.

“Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a
happy smile, ambling lightly up to the count’s niece. “I have come,
and am at your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you
have gone through,” and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.

The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as
Anna Mikháylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she
had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasíli to
take a seat beside her.

“Borís,” she said to her son with a smile, “I shall go in to see
the count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile
and don’t forget to give him the Rostóvs’ invitation. They ask him
to dinner. I suppose he won’t go?” she continued, turning to the
prince.

“On the contrary,” replied the prince, who had plainly become
depressed, “I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young
man.... Here he is, and the count has not once asked for him.”

He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Borís down one flight of
stairs and up another, to Pierre’s rooms.





CHAPTER XVI

Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in
Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and
sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostóv’s was true.
Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been
for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father’s
house. Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be
already known in Moscow and that the ladies about his father—who were
never favorably disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the
count against him, he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to
his father’s part of the house. Entering the drawing room, where the
princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom
were sitting at embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the
eldest who was reading—the one who had met Anna Mikháylovna. The
two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they
differed only in that one had a little mole on her lip which made her
much prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper.
The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him
with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression;
while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and
lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked
by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the
canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying
to make out the pattern.

“How do you do, cousin?” said Pierre. “You don’t recognize
me?”

“I recognize you only too well, too well.”

“How is the count? Can I see him?” asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual,
but unabashed.

“The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you
have done your best to increase his mental sufferings.”

“Can I see the count?” Pierre again asked.

“Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see
him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle’s beef tea is ready—it is
almost time,” she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were
busy, and busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he,
Pierre, was only busy causing him annoyance.

Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and
said: “Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see
him.”

And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the
sister with the mole.

Next day Prince Vasíli had arrived and settled in the count’s house.
He sent for Pierre and said to him: “My dear fellow, if you are going
to behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that
is all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must
not see him at all.”

Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in
his rooms upstairs.

When Borís appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room,
stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall,
as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely
over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering
indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.

“England is done for,” said he, scowling and pointing his finger
at someone unseen. “Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the
rights of man, is sentenced to...” But before Pierre—who at that
moment imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just
effected the dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured
London—could pronounce Pitt’s sentence, he saw a well-built and
handsome young officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left
Moscow when Borís was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him,
but in his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Borís by the hand
with a friendly smile.

“Do you remember me?” asked Borís quietly with a pleasant smile.
“I have come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not
well.”

“Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him,”
answered Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.

Borís felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider
it necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least
embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.

“Count Rostóv asks you to come to dinner today,” said he, after a
considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.

“Ah, Count Rostóv!” exclaimed Pierre joyfully. “Then you are his
son, Ilyá? Only fancy, I didn’t know you at first. Do you remember
how we went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It’s such an
age...”

“You are mistaken,” said Borís deliberately, with a bold and
slightly sarcastic smile. “I am Borís, son of Princess Anna
Mikháylovna Drubetskáya. Rostóv, the father, is Ilyá, and his son is
Nicholas. I never knew any Madame Jacquot.”

Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.

“Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I’ve mixed everything up. One
has so many relatives in Moscow! So you are Borís? Of course. Well, now
we know where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition?
The English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the
Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve
doesn’t make a mess of things!”

Borís knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the
papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve’s name.

“We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal
than with politics,” said he in his quiet ironical tone. “I know
nothing about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy
with gossip,” he continued. “Just now they are talking about you and
your father.”

Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion’s
sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret.
But Borís spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into
Pierre’s eyes.

“Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip,” Borís went on.
“Everybody is wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune,
though he may perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will...”

“Yes, it is all very horrid,” interrupted Pierre, “very horrid.”

Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say
something disconcerting to himself.

“And it must seem to you,” said Borís flushing slightly, but not
changing his tone or attitude, “it must seem to you that everyone is
trying to get something out of the rich man?”

“So it does,” thought Pierre.

“But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are
quite mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are
very poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that
your father is rich, I don’t regard myself as a relation of his, and
neither I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him.”

For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped
up from the sofa, seized Borís under the elbow in his quick, clumsy
way, and, blushing far more than Borís, began to speak with a feeling
of mingled shame and vexation.

“Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know
very well...”

But Borís again interrupted him.

“I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You
must excuse me,” said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put
at ease by him, “but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it
a rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to
dinner at the Rostóvs’?”

And Borís, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and
extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it,
became quite pleasant again.

“No, but I say,” said Pierre, calming down, “you are a wonderful
fellow! What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you
don’t know me. We have not met for such a long time... not since we
were children. You might think that I... I understand, quite understand.
I could not have done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but
it’s splendid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It’s
queer,” he added after a pause, “that you should have suspected
me!” He began to laugh. “Well, what of it! I hope we’ll get better
acquainted,” and he pressed Borís’ hand. “Do you know, I have not
once been in to see the count. He has not sent for me.... I am sorry for
him as a man, but what can one do?”

“And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?” asked
Borís with a smile.

Pierre saw that Borís wished to change the subject, and being of the
same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the
Boulogne expedition.

A footman came in to summon Borís—the princess was going. Pierre, in
order to make Borís’ better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner,
and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles
into Borís’ eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and
down the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with
his imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant,
intelligent, and resolute young man.

As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely
life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up
his mind that they would be friends.

Prince Vasíli saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes
and her face was tearful.

“It is dreadful, dreadful!” she was saying, “but cost me what it
may I shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be
left like this. Every moment is precious. I can’t think why his nieces
put it off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!...
Adieu, Prince! May God support you...”

“Adieu, ma bonne,” answered Prince Vasíli turning away from her.

“Oh, he is in a dreadful state,” said the mother to her son when
they were in the carriage. “He hardly recognizes anybody.”

“I don’t understand, Mamma—what is his attitude to Pierre?”
asked the son.

“The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it.”

“But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?”

“Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!”

“Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma...”

“Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!” exclaimed the mother.





CHAPTER XVII

After Anna Mikháylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril
Vladímirovich Bezúkhov, Countess Rostóva sat for a long time all
alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.

“What is the matter with you, my dear?” she said crossly to the maid
who kept her waiting some minutes. “Don’t you wish to serve me? Then
I’ll find you another place.”

The countess was upset by her friend’s sorrow and humiliating poverty,
and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always
found expression in calling her maid “my dear” and speaking to her
with exaggerated politeness.

“I am very sorry, ma’am,” answered the maid.

“Ask the count to come to me.”

The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as
usual.

“Well, little countess? What a sauté of game au madère we are to
have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Tarás were
not ill-spent. He is worth it!”

He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling
his gray hair.

“What are your commands, little countess?”

“You see, my dear... What’s that mess?” she said, pointing to his
waistcoat. “It’s the sauté, most likely,” she added with a smile.
“Well, you see, Count, I want some money.”

Her face became sad.

“Oh, little countess!” ... and the count began bustling to get out
his pocketbook.

“I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles,” and taking
out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband’s waistcoat.

“Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who’s there?” he called out
in a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will
rush to obey the summons. “Send Dmítri to me!”

Dmítri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count’s
house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.

“This is what I want, my dear fellow,” said the count to the
deferential young man who had entered. “Bring me...” he reflected
a moment, “yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don’t
bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones
for the countess.”

“Yes, Dmítri, clean ones, please,” said the countess, sighing
deeply.

“When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmítri. “Allow
me to inform you... But, don’t be uneasy,” he added, noticing that
the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always
a sign of approaching anger. “I was forgetting... Do you wish it
brought at once?”

“Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess.”

“What a treasure that Dmítri is,” added the count with a smile when
the young man had departed. “There is never any ‘impossible’ with
him. That’s a thing I hate! Everything is possible.”

“Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world,”
said the countess. “But I am in great need of this sum.”

“You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,” said the
count, and having kissed his wife’s hand he went back to his study.

When Anna Mikháylovna returned from Count Bezúkhov’s the money, all
in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess’
little table, and Anna Mikháylovna noticed that something was agitating
her.

“Well, my dear?” asked the countess.

“Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so
ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word...”

“Annette, for heaven’s sake don’t refuse me,” the countess
began, with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified,
elderly face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief.

Anna Mikháylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be
ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.

“This is for Borís from me, for his outfit.”

Anna Mikháylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess
wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were
kindhearted, and because they—friends from childhood—had to think
about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over....
But those tears were pleasant to them both.





CHAPTER XVIII

Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was
already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into
his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From
time to time he went out to ask: “Hasn’t she come yet?” They
were expecting Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, known in society as le
terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for
common sense and frank plainness of speech. Márya Dmítrievna was known
to the Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both
cities wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told
good stories about her, while none the less all without exception
respected and feared her.

In the count’s room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked
of the war that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the
recruiting. None of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew
it had appeared. The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were
smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head
first to one side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident
pleasure and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he
egged on against each other.

One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled
face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable
young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,
having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the
smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,
Shinshín, a cousin of the countess’, a man with “a sharp tongue”
as they said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to
his companion. The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards,
irreproachably washed, brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the
middle of his mouth and with red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting
it escape from his handsome mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an
officer in the Semënov regiment with whom Borís was to travel to join
the army, and about whom Natásha had teased her elder sister Véra,
speaking of Berg as her “intended.” The count sat between them and
listened attentively. His favorite occupation when not playing boston, a
card game he was very fond of, was that of listener, especially when he
succeeded in setting two loquacious talkers at one another.

“Well, then, old chap, mon très honorable Alphonse Kárlovich,”
said Shinshín, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian
expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity
of his speech. “Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l’état; *
you want to make something out of your company?”

     * You expect to make an income out of the government.

“No, Peter Nikoláevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry
the advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own
position now, Peter Nikoláevich...”

Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His
conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm
and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing
on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put
out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as
soon as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk
circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.

“Consider my position, Peter Nikoláevich. Were I in the cavalry I
should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even
with the rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and
thirty,” said he, looking at Shinshín and the count with a joyful,
pleasant smile, as if it were obvious to him that his success must
always be the chief desire of everyone else.

“Besides that, Peter Nikoláevich, by exchanging into the Guards
I shall be in a more prominent position,” continued Berg, “and
vacancies occur much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think
what can be done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to
put a little aside and to send something to my father,” he went on,
emitting a smoke ring.

“La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the
proverb says,” remarked Shinshín, moving his pipe to the other side
of his mouth and winking at the count.

      * So that squares matters.

The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshín
was talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,
continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already
gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime
the company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company,
might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in
the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently
enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others,
too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily
sedate, and the naïveté of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that
he disarmed his hearers.

“Well, my boy, you’ll get along wherever you go—foot or
horse—that I’ll warrant,” said Shinshín, patting him on the
shoulder and taking his feet off the sofa.

Berg smiled joyously. The count, followed by his guests, went into the
drawing room.

It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,
expecting the summons to zakúska, * avoid engaging in any long
conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order
to show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and
hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another,
and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are
waiting for—some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish
that is not yet ready.

     * Hors d’oeuvres.

Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the
middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,
blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk,
but he went on naïvely looking around through his spectacles as if in
search of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He
was in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of
the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity
at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest
fellow could have played such a prank on a policeman.

“You have only lately arrived?” the countess asked him.

“Oui, madame,” replied he, looking around him.

“You have not yet seen my husband?”

“Non, madame.” He smiled quite inappropriately.

“You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it’s very
interesting.”

“Very interesting.”

The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikháylovna. The latter
understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and
sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he
answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other
guests were all conversing with one another. “The Razumóvskis... It
was charming... You are very kind... Countess Apráksina...” was heard
on all sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.

“Márya Dmítrievna?” came her voice from there.

“Herself,” came the answer in a rough voice, and Márya Dmítrievna
entered the room.

All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very
oldest rose. Márya Dmítrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,
holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood
surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if
rolling them up. Márya Dmítrievna always spoke in Russian.

“Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her
children,” she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all
others. “Well, you old sinner,” she went on, turning to the count
who was kissing her hand, “you’re feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay?
Nowhere to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just
see how these nestlings are growing up,” and she pointed to the girls.
“You must look for husbands for them whether you like it or not....”

“Well,” said she, “how’s my Cossack?” (Márya Dmítrievna
always called Natásha a Cossack) and she stroked the child’s arm as
she came up fearless and gay to kiss her hand. “I know she’s a scamp
of a girl, but I like her.”

She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,
having given them to the rosy Natásha, who beamed with the pleasure
of her saint’s-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to
Pierre.

“Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit,” said she, assuming a soft high
tone of voice. “Come here, my friend...” and she ominously tucked
up her sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a
childlike way through his spectacles.

“Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell
your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it’s my
evident duty.” She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to
follow, for this was clearly only a prelude.

“A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed
and he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame,
sir, for shame! It would be better if you went to the war.”

She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep
from laughing.

“Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?” said Márya
Dmítrievna.

The count went in first with Márya Dmítrievna, the countess followed
on the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because
Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikháylovna
with Shinshín. Berg gave his arm to Véra. The smiling Julie Karágina
went in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the
whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses
followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the
band struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their
places. Then the strains of the count’s household band were replaced
by the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the
soft steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with
Márya Dmítrievna on her right and Anna Mikháylovna on her left, the
other lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count,
with the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshín and the other male
visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the
grown-up young people: Véra beside Berg, and Pierre beside Borís; and
on the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind
the crystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his
wife and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled
his neighbors’ glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn,
without omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from
behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed
by their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the
ladies’ end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the
men’s end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the
colonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so
much that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg
with tender smiles was saying to Véra that love is not an earthly but
a heavenly feeling. Borís was telling his new friend Pierre who the
guests were and exchanging glances with Natásha, who was sitting
opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a
great deal. Of the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and
went on to the game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines.
These latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a
napkin, from behind the next man’s shoulders and whispered: “Dry
Madeira”... “Hungarian”... or “Rhine wine” as the case might
be. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s monogram
that stood before his plate, Pierre held out one at random and drank
with enjoyment, gazing with ever-increasing amiability at the other
guests. Natásha, who sat opposite, was looking at Borís as girls of
thirteen look at the boy they are in love with and have just kissed for
the first time. Sometimes that same look fell on Pierre, and that funny
lively little girl’s look made him inclined to laugh without knowing
why.

Nicholas sat at some distance from Sónya, beside Julie Karágina, to
whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sónya wore
a company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned
pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas
and Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round
uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the
children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines,
and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner
to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler
with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to
appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because
no one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from
greediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for
knowledge.





CHAPTER XIX

At the men’s end of the table the talk grew more and more animated.
The colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared
in Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day
been forwarded by courier to the commander in chief.

“And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?” remarked
Shinshín. “He has stopped Austria’s cackle and I fear it will be
our turn next.”

The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to
the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshín’s remark.

“It is for the reasson, my goot sir,” said he, speaking with a
German accent, “for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He
declares in ze manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger
vreatening Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell
as ze sanctity of its alliances...” he spoke this last word with
particular emphasis as if in it lay the gist of the matter.

Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he
repeated from the opening words of the manifesto:

... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor’s sole and absolute
aim—to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations—has now decided
him to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition
for the attainment of that purpose.

“Zat, my dear sir, is vy...” he concluded, drinking a tumbler of
wine with dignity and looking to the count for approval.

“Connaissez-vous le Proverbe:* ‘Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but
turn spindles at home!’?” said Shinshín, puckering his brows and
smiling. “Cela nous convient à merveille.*(2) Suvórov now—he knew
what he was about; yet they beat him à plate couture,*(3) and where
are we to find Suvórovs now? Je vous demande un peu,” *(4) said he,
continually changing from French to Russian.

     *Do you know the proverb?

     *(2) That suits us down to the ground.

     *(3) Hollow.

     *(4) I just ask you that.

“Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!” said the colonel,
thumping the table; “and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill
pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible”... he dwelt
particularly on the word possible... “as po-o-ossible,” he ended,
again turning to the count. “Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and
zere’s an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar,
how do you judge of it?” he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he
heard that the war was being discussed had turned from his partner with
eyes and ears intent on the colonel.

“I am quite of your opinion,” replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning
his plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision
and desperation as though he were at that moment facing some great
danger. “I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer,” he
concluded, conscious—as were others—after the words were uttered
that his remarks were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and
were therefore awkward.

“What you said just now was splendid!” said his partner Julie.

Sónya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and
down to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.

Pierre listened to the colonel’s speech and nodded approvingly.

“That’s fine,” said he.

“The young man’s a real hussar!” shouted the colonel, again
thumping the table.

“What are you making such a noise about over there?” Márya
Dmítrievna’s deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the
table. “What are you thumping the table for?” she demanded of the
hussar, “and why are you exciting yourself? Do you think the French
are here?”

“I am speaking ze truce,” replied the hussar with a smile.

“It’s all about the war,” the count shouted down the table. “You
know my son’s going, Márya Dmítrievna? My son is going.”

“I have four sons in the army but still I don’t fret. It is all
in God’s hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a
battle,” replied Márya Dmítrievna’s deep voice, which easily
carried the whole length of the table.

“That’s true!”

Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies’ at the one end
and the men’s at the other.

“You won’t ask,” Natásha’s little brother was saying; “I know
you won’t ask!”

“I will,” replied Natásha.

Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half
rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what
was coming, and turning to her mother:

“Mamma!” rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,
audible the whole length of the table.

“What is it?” asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her
daughter’s face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her
sternly with a threatening and forbidding movement of her head.

The conversation was hushed.

“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” and Natásha’s voice
sounded still more firm and resolute.

The countess tried to frown, but could not. Márya Dmítrievna shook her
fat finger.

“Cossack!” she said threateningly.

Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the
elders.

“You had better take care!” said the countess.

“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” Natásha again cried
boldly, with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in
good part.

Sónya and fat little Pétya doubled up with laughter.

“You see! I have asked,” whispered Natásha to her little brother
and to Pierre, glancing at him again.

“Ice pudding, but you won’t get any,” said Márya Dmítrievna.

Natásha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even
Márya Dmítrievna.

“Márya Dmítrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don’t like ice
cream.”

“Carrot ices.”

“No! What kind, Márya Dmítrievna? What kind?” she almost screamed;
“I want to know!”

Márya Dmítrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the
guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Márya Dmítrievna’s answer
but at the incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had
dared to treat Márya Dmítrievna in this fashion.

Natásha only desisted when she had been told that there would be
pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band
again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving
their seats, went up to “congratulate” the countess, and reached
across the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and
with one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and
in the same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the
guests returned to the drawing room and to the count’s study.





CHAPTER XX

The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the
count’s visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms,
some in the sitting room, some in the library.

The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from
dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything.
The young people, at the countess’ instigation, gathered round the
clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she
had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the
other young ladies in begging Natásha and Nicholas, who were noted for
their musical talent, to sing something. Natásha, who was treated as
though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the
same time felt shy.

“What shall we sing?” she said.

“‘The Brook,’” suggested Nicholas.

“Well, then, let’s be quick. Borís, come here,” said Natásha.
“But where is Sónya?”

She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to
look for her.

Running into Sónya’s room and not finding her there, Natásha ran to
the nursery, but Sónya was not there either. Natásha concluded that
she must be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was
the place of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostóv
household. And there in fact was Sónya lying face downward on Nurse’s
dirty feather bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink
dress under her, hiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing
so convulsively that her bare little shoulders shook. Natásha’s
face, which had been so radiantly happy all that saint’s day, suddenly
changed: her eyes became fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad
neck and the corners of her mouth drooped.

“Sónya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!” And
Natásha’s large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she
began to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sónya was
crying. Sónya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and
hid her face still deeper in the bed. Natásha wept, sitting on the
blue-striped feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sónya
sat up and began wiping her eyes and explaining.

“Nicholas is going away in a week’s time, his... papers... have
come... he told me himself... but still I should not cry,” and she
showed a paper she held in her hand—with the verses Nicholas had
written, “still, I should not cry, but you can’t... no one can
understand... what a soul he has!”

And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.

“It’s all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and
Borís also,” she went on, gaining a little strength; “he is nice...
there are no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin...
one would have to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it
can’t be done. And besides, if she tells Mamma” (Sónya looked upon
the countess as her mother and called her so) “that I am spoiling
Nicholas’ career and am heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God
is my witness,” and she made the sign of the cross, “I love her so
much, and all of you, only Véra... And what for? What have I done
to her? I am so grateful to you that I would willingly sacrifice
everything, only I have nothing....”

Sónya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in
the feather bed. Natásha began consoling her, but her face showed that
she understood all the gravity of her friend’s trouble.

“Sónya,” she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true
reason of her friend’s sorrow, “I’m sure Véra has said something
to you since dinner? Hasn’t she?”

“Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others,
and she found them on my table and said she’d show them to Mamma, and
that I was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry
me, but that he’ll marry Julie. You see how he’s been with her all
day... Natásha, what have I done to deserve it?...”

And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natásha lifted
her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting
her.

“Sónya, don’t believe her, darling! Don’t believe her! Do you
remember how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting
room after supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don’t
quite remember how, but don’t you remember that it could all be
arranged and how nice it all was? There’s Uncle Shinshín’s brother
has married his first cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know.
And Borís says it is quite possible. You know I have told him all about
it. And he is so clever and so good!” said Natásha. “Don’t
you cry, Sónya, dear love, darling Sónya!” and she kissed her and
laughed. “Véra’s spiteful; never mind her! And all will come right
and she won’t say anything to Mamma. Nicholas will tell her himself,
and he doesn’t care at all for Julie.”

Natásha kissed her on the hair.

Sónya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it
seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin
playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.

“Do you think so?... Really? Truly?” she said, quickly smoothing her
frock and hair.

“Really, truly!” answered Natásha, pushing in a crisp lock that had
strayed from under her friend’s plaits.

Both laughed.

“Well, let’s go and sing ‘The Brook.’”

“Come along!”

“Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!” said
Natásha, stopping suddenly. “I feel so happy!”

And she set off at a run along the passage.

Sónya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the
verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran
after Natásha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face
and light, joyous steps. At the visitors’ request the young people
sang the quartette, “The Brook,” with which everyone was delighted.
Then Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:

   At nighttime in the moon’s fair glow
     How sweet, as fancies wander free,
   To feel that in this world there’s one
     Who still is thinking but of thee!

   That while her fingers touch the harp
     Wafting sweet music o’er the lea,
   It is for thee thus swells her heart,
     Sighing its message out to thee...

   A day or two, then bliss unspoilt,
     But oh! till then I cannot live!...

He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to
get ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the
coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.


Pierre was sitting in the drawing room where Shinshín had engaged him,
as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in
which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began
Natásha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and
blushing:

“Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers.”

“I am afraid of mixing the figures,” Pierre replied; “but if you
will be my teacher...” And lowering his big arm he offered it to the
slender little girl.

While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up,
Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natásha was perfectly happy;
she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was
sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady.
She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold.
Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where
she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and
smiling over the fan.

“Dear, dear! Just look at her!” exclaimed the countess as she
crossed the ballroom, pointing to Natásha.

Natásha blushed and laughed.

“Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised
at?”


In the midst of the third écossaise there was a clatter of chairs being
pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Márya Dmítrievna
had been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and
older visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long,
and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First
came Márya Dmítrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The
count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his
bent arm to Márya Dmítrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair
gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the
écossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted
up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:

“Semën! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?”

This was the count’s favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.
(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.)

“Look at Papa!” shouted Natásha to the whole company, and quite
forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her
curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter.

And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the
jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,
Márya Dmítrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his
shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by
a smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the
onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay
strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant
dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly
filled by the domestic serfs—the men on one side and the women on
the other—who with beaming faces had come to see their master making
merry.

“Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!” loudly remarked
the nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.

The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not
want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms
hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her
stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed
by the whole of the count’s plump figure, in Márya Dmítrievna found
expression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose.
But if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed
the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and
the agility with which he capered about on his light feet, Márya
Dmítrievna produced no less impression by slight exertions—the least
effort to move her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp
her foot—which everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual
severity. The dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could
not attract a moment’s attention to their own evolutions and did not
even try to do so. All were watching the count and Márya Dmítrievna.
Natásha kept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to
“look at Papa!” though as it was they never took their eyes off the
couple. In the intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved
and shouted to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster;
lightly, more lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying
round Márya Dmítrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until,
turning his partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas,
raising his soft foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling
and making a wide sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and
laughter led by Natásha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily
and wiping their faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.

“That’s how we used to dance in our time, ma chère,” said the
count.

“That was a Daniel Cooper!” exclaimed Márya Dmítrievna, tucking up
her sleeves and puffing heavily.





CHAPTER XXI

While in the Rostóvs’ ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced,
to a tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired
footmen and cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezúkhov had a
sixth stroke. The doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute
confession, communion was administered to the dying man, preparations
made for the sacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle
and thrill of suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond
the gates, a group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up,
waited in expectation of an important order for an expensive funeral.
The Military Governor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending
aides-de-camp to inquire after the count’s health, came himself
that evening to bid a last farewell to the celebrated grandee of
Catherine’s court, Count Bezúkhov.

The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up
respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an
hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their
bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed
on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince
Vasíli, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,
escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in
low tones.

When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasíli sat down all alone
on a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other,
leaning his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After
sitting so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened
eyes, went with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading
to the back of the house, to the room of the eldest princess.

Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous
whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man’s
room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at
his door, which creaked slightly when opened.

“The limits of human life ... are fixed and may not be
o’erpassed,” said an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat
beside him and was listening naïvely to his words.

“I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?” asked the
lady, adding the priest’s clerical title, as if she had no opinion of
her own on the subject.

“Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament,” replied the priest, passing
his hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his
bald head.

“Who was that? The Military Governor himself?” was being asked at
the other side of the room. “How young-looking he is!”

“Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes
anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction.”

“I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times.”

The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red
from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a
graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a
table.

“Beautiful,” said the doctor in answer to a remark about the
weather. “The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow
one feels as if one were in the country.”

“Yes, indeed,” replied the princess with a sigh. “So he may have
something to drink?”

Lorrain considered.

“Has he taken his medicine?”

“Yes.”

The doctor glanced at his watch.

“Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar,”
and he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.

“Dere has neffer been a gase,” a German doctor was saying to an
aide-de-camp, “dat one liffs after de sird stroke.”

“And what a well-preserved man he was!” remarked the aide-de-camp.
“And who will inherit his wealth?” he added in a whisper.

“It von’t go begging,” replied the German with a smile.

Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second
princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to
Lorrain’s instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.

“Do you think he can last till morning?” asked the German,
addressing Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.

Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before
his nose.

“Tonight, not later,” said he in a low voice, and he moved away
with a decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to
understand and state the patient’s condition.

Meanwhile Prince Vasíli had opened the door into the princess’ room.

In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before
the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.
The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots,
cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was
just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.

“Ah, is it you, cousin?”

She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth
that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with
varnish.

“Has anything happened?” she asked. “I am so terrified.”

“No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,
Catiche,” * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair
she had just vacated. “You have made the place warm, I must say,” he
remarked. “Well, sit down: let’s have a talk.”

     *Catherine.

“I thought perhaps something had happened,” she said with her
unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the
prince, she prepared to listen.

“I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can’t.”

“Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it
downwards as was his habit.

It was plain that this “well?” referred to much that they both
understood without naming.

The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her
legs, looked directly at Prince Vasíli with no sign of emotion in her
prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons
with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow
and devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince
Vasíli understood it as an expression of weariness.

“And I?” he said; “do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn
out as a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a
very serious talk.”

Prince Vasíli said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously,
now on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant
expression which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes
too seemed strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the
next glanced round in alarm.

The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony
hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasíli’s eyes evidently
resolved not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till
morning.

“Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semënovna,”
continued Prince Vasíli, returning to his theme, apparently not
without an inner struggle; “at such a moment as this one must think
of everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you
all, like children of my own, as you know.”

The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same
dull expression.

“And then of course my family has also to be considered,” Prince
Vasíli went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at
her. “You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mámontov, and
my wife—are the count’s only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard
it is for you to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for
me; but, my dear, I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for
anything. Do you know I have sent for Pierre? The count,” pointing to
his portrait, “definitely demanded that he should be called.”

Prince Vasíli looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make
out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was
simply looking at him.

“There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin,” she
replied, “and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow
his noble soul peacefully to leave this...”

“Yes, yes, of course,” interrupted Prince Vasíli impatiently,
rubbing his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little
table that he had pushed away. “But... in short, the fact is... you
know yourself that last winter the count made a will by which he left
all his property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre.”

“He has made wills enough!” quietly remarked the princess. “But he
cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.”

“But, my dear,” said Prince Vasíli suddenly, clutching the little
table and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: “what if
a letter has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for
Pierre’s legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the
count’s services, his request would be granted?...”

The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the
subject under discussion than those they are talking with.

“I can tell you more,” continued Prince Vasíli, seizing her hand,
“that letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew
of it. The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then
as soon as all is over,” and Prince Vasíli sighed to intimate what he
meant by the words all is over, “and the count’s papers are opened,
the will and letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition
will certainly be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate
son.”

“And our share?” asked the princess smiling ironically, as if
anything might happen, only not that.

“But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the
legal heir to everything and you won’t get anything. You must know,
my dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have
been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you
ought to know where they are, and must find them, because...”

“What next?” the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not
changing the expression of her eyes. “I am a woman, and you think we
are all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit...
un bâtard!”* she added, as if supposing that this translation of the
word would effectively prove to Prince Vasíli the invalidity of his
contention.

     * A bastard.

“Well, really, Catiche! Can’t you understand! You are so
intelligent, how is it you don’t see that if the count has written a
letter to the Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it
follows that Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezúkhov,
and will then inherit everything under the will? And if the will and
letter are not destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation
of having been dutiful et tout ce qui s’ensuit!* That’s certain.”

     * And all that follows therefrom.

“I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid;
and you, mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool,” said the
princess with the expression women assume when they suppose they are
saying something witty and stinging.

“My dear Princess Catherine Semënovna,” began Prince Vasíli
impatiently, “I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about
your interests as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I
tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the
will in Pierre’s favor are among the count’s papers, then, my dear
girl, you and your sisters are not heiresses! If you don’t believe me,
then believe an expert. I have just been talking to Dmítri Onúfrich”
(the family solicitor) “and he says the same.”

At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess’ ideas;
her thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice
when she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself
evidently did not expect.

“That would be a fine thing!” said she. “I never wanted anything
and I don’t now.”

She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.

“And this is gratitude—this is recognition for those who have
sacrificed everything for his sake!” she cried. “It’s splendid!
Fine! I don’t want anything, Prince.”

“Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters...”
replied Prince Vasíli.

But the princess did not listen to him.

“Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect
nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the
blackest ingratitude—in this house...”

“Do you or do you not know where that will is?” insisted Prince
Vasíli, his cheeks twitching more than ever.

“Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and
sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has
been intriguing!”

The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She
had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.
She gave her companion an angry glance.

“There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was
all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards
forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his
last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let
him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who...”

“Who sacrificed everything for him,” chimed in the princess, who
would again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, “though
he never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh,
“I shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward,
that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one
has to be cunning and cruel.”

“Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart.”

“No, I have a wicked heart.”

“I know your heart,” repeated the prince. “I value your friendship
and wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don’t upset yourself,
and let us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it
but an hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where
it is. You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the
count. He has, no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it.
You understand that my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his
wishes; that is my only reason for being here. I came simply to help him
and you.”

“Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing—I know!” cried
the princess.

“That’s not the point, my dear.”

“It’s that protégé of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskáya,
that Anna Mikháylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the
infamous, vile woman!”

“Do not let us lose any time...”

“Ah, don’t talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and
told the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about
Sophie—I can’t repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he
would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this
vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid.”

“We’ve got to it at last—why did you not tell me about it
sooner?”

“It’s in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow,”
said the princess, ignoring his question. “Now I know! Yes; if I have
a sin, a great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!” almost shrieked
the princess, now quite changed. “And what does she come worming
herself in here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time
will come!”





CHAPTER XXII

While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the
princess’ room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for)
and Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was
driving into the court of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna,
having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that
he was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre
followed Anna Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began
to think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He
noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back
door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who
looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the
shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other
men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides.
But neither Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who
could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. “It seems
to be all right,” Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikháylovna.
She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to
Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it
was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had
to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikháylovna’s air
of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely
necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by
some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots
clattering. These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them
there.

“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna
Mikháylovna of one of them.

“Yes,” replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were
now permissible; “the door to the left, ma’am.”

“Perhaps the count did not ask for me,” said Pierre when he reached
the landing. “I’d better go to my own room.”

Anna Mikháylovna paused and waited for him to come up.

“Ah, my friend!” she said, touching his arm as she had done her
son’s when speaking to him that afternoon, “believe me I suffer no
less than you do, but be a man!”

“But really, hadn’t I better go away?” he asked, looking kindly at
her over his spectacles.

“Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.
Think that he is your father ... perhaps in the agony of death.” She
sighed. “I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to
me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.”

Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had
to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna who was
already opening a door.

This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the
princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been
in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of
these rooms. Anna Mikháylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
with a decanter on a tray as “my dear” and “my sweet,” asked
about the princess’ health and then led Pierre along a stone passage.
The first door on the left led into the princesses’ apartments. The
maid with the decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything
in the house was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious
impatience, while the princess jumped up and with a gesture of
desperation slammed the door with all her might.

This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on
Prince Vasíli’s face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre
stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna
Mikháylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as
if to say that this was no more than she had expected.

“Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,” said she in
reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.

Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what
“watching over his interests” meant, but he decided that all these
things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly
lit room adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those
sumptuous but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front
approach, but even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water
had been spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer
and by a servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They
went into the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian
windows opening into the conservatory, with its large bust and full
length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still
sitting here in almost the same positions as before, whispering to one
another. All became silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna
Mikháylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who,
hanging his head, meekly followed her.

Anna Mikháylovna’s face expressed a consciousness that the decisive
moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,
keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than
that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the
dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid
glance at all those in the room and noticing the count’s confessor
there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet
seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing
first of one and then of another priest.

“God be thanked that you are in time,” said she to one of the
priests; “all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young
man is the count’s son,” she added more softly. “What a terrible
moment!”

Having said this she went up to the doctor.

“Dear doctor,” said she, “this young man is the count’s son. Is
there any hope?”

The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his
shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna with just the same movement raised her
shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away
from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and
tenderly sad voice, she said:

“Trust in His mercy!” and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit
and wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was
watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.

Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved
toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikháylovna had
disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him
with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they
whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind
of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before
received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to
the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up
and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully
silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre
wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to
pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not
even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and
that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful
rite which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound
to accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the
aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady’s chair, placing his huge hands
symmetrically on his knees in the naïve attitude of an Egyptian statue,
and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in
order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his
own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of
those who were guiding him.

Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasíli with head erect
majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three
stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;
his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed
Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),
and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly
fixed on.

“Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is
well!” and he turned to go.

But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: “How is...” and hesitated,
not knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man “the
count,” yet ashamed to call him “father.”

“He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my
friend...”

Pierre’s mind was in such a confused state that the word “stroke”
suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasíli
in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of
illness. Prince Vasíli said something to Lorrain in passing and went
through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his
whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and
the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.
Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and
at last Anna Mikháylovna, still with the same expression, pale but
resolute in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly
on the arm said:

“The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be
administered. Come.”

Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed
that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all
followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to
enter that room.





CHAPTER XXIII

Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its
walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the
columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and
on the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated
with red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under
the gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair
on snowy-white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre
saw—covered to the waist by a bright green quilt—the familiar,
majestic figure of his father, Count Bezúkhov, with that gray mane of
hair above his broad forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep
characteristically noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay
just under the icons; his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the
right hand, which was lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust
between forefinger and thumb, and an old servant, bending over from
behind the chair, held it in position. By the chair stood the priests,
their long hair falling over their magnificent glittering vestments,
with lighted tapers in their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the
service. A little behind them stood the two younger princesses holding
handkerchiefs to their eyes, and just in front of them their eldest
sister, Catiche, with a vicious and determined look steadily fixed on
the icons, as though declaring to all that she could not answer for
herself should she glance round. Anna Mikháylovna, with a meek,
sorrowful, and all-forgiving expression on her face, stood by the door
near the strange lady. Prince Vasíli in front of the door, near the
invalid chair, a wax taper in his left hand, was leaning his left arm on
the carved back of a velvet chair he had turned round for the purpose,
and was crossing himself with his right hand, turning his eyes upward
each time he touched his forehead. His face wore a calm look of piety
and resignation to the will of God. “If you do not understand these
sentiments,” he seemed to be saying, “so much the worse for you!”

Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants;
the men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing
themselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting
of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of
feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikháylovna, with
an air of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she
was about, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave
him a taper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him,
began crossing himself with the hand that held the taper.

Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,
watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained
with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she
again began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him
without laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of
temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst
of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered
to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count’s hand
got up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikháylovna stepped
forward and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from
behind her back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning
against one of the columns in a respectful attitude implying that he,
a foreigner, in spite of all differences of faith, understood the full
importance of the rite now being performed and even approved of it. He
now approached the sick man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor
of life, with his delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the
hand that was free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected
a moment. The sick man was given something to drink, there was a
stir around him, then the people resumed their places and the service
continued. During this interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasíli
left the chair on which he had been leaning, and—with an air
which intimated that he knew what he was about and if others did not
understand him it was so much the worse for them—did not go up to the
dying man, but passed by him, joined the eldest princess, and moved
with her to the side of the room where stood the high bedstead with its
silken hangings. On leaving the bed both Prince Vasíli and the princess
passed out by a back door, but returned to their places one after the
other before the service was concluded. Pierre paid no more attention
to this occurrence than to the rest of what went on, having made up his
mind once for all that what he saw happening around him that evening was
in some way essential.

The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was
heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the
sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around
him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which
Anna Mikháylovna’s was the most distinct.

Pierre heard her say:

“Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be
impossible...”

The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants
that Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray
mane—which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight
of for a single moment during the whole service. He judged by the
cautious movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that
they had lifted the dying man and were moving him.

“Catch hold of my arm or you’ll drop him!” he heard one of the
servants say in a frightened whisper. “Catch hold from underneath.
Here!” exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the
bearers and the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the
weight they were carrying were too much for them.

As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikháylovna, passed the young man
he caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying
man’s high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by
those who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly,
leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones,
its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was
not disfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre
remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to
Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven
movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon
nothing.

After a few minutes’ bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had
carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikháylovna touched Pierre’s
hand and said, “Come.” Pierre went with her to the bed on which the
sick man had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony
just completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His
hands were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms
downward. When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but
with a look the significance of which could not be understood by mortal
man. Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes
they must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated,
not knowing what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna
Mikháylovna made a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick
man’s hand and moving her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre,
carefully stretching his neck so as not to touch the quilt, followed her
suggestion and pressed his lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither
the hand nor a single muscle of the count’s face stirred. Once more
Pierre looked questioningly at Anna Mikháylovna to see what he was to
do next. Anna Mikháylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood
beside the bed. Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were
doing right. Anna Mikháylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell
into the naïvely symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently
distressed that his stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing
his utmost to look as small as possible. He looked at the count, who
still gazed at the spot where Pierre’s face had been before he sat
down. Anna Mikháylovna indicated by her attitude her consciousness of
the pathetic importance of these last moments of meeting between the
father and son. This lasted about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an
hour. Suddenly the broad muscles and lines of the count’s face began
to twitch. The twitching increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one
side (only now did Pierre realize how near death his father was), and
from that distorted mouth issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna
Mikháylovna looked attentively at the sick man’s eyes, trying to
guess what he wanted; she pointed first to Pierre, then to some drink,
then named Prince Vasíli in an inquiring whisper, then pointed to the
quilt. The eyes and face of the sick man showed impatience. He made an
effort to look at the servant who stood constantly at the head of the
bed.

“Wants to turn on the other side,” whispered the servant, and got up
to turn the count’s heavy body toward the wall.

Pierre rose to help him.

While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back
helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he
noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,
or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any
rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre’s terror-stricken
face, and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile
appeared, quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride
his own helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected
quivering in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his
eyes. The sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall.
He sighed.

“He is dozing,” said Anna Mikháylovna, observing that one of the
princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. “Let us go.”

Pierre went out.





CHAPTER XXIV

There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the
eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the
Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion
they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide
something as she whispered:

“I can’t bear the sight of that woman.”

“Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room,” said Prince
Vasíli to Anna Mikháylovna. “Go and take something, my poor Anna
Mikháylovna, or you will not hold out.”

To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze
below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikháylovna into the small
drawing room.

“There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup
of this delicious Russian tea,” Lorrain was saying with an air of
restrained animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese
handleless cup before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid
in the small circular room. Around the table all who were at Count
Bezúkhov’s house that night had gathered to fortify themselves.
Pierre well remembered this small circular drawing room with its mirrors
and little tables. During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not
know how to dance, had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies
who, as they passed through in their ball dresses with diamonds and
pearls on their bare shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly
lighted mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now
this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea
things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the
night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly
whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none
of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the
bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have
liked to. He looked inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was
again going on tiptoe to the reception room where they had left Prince
Vasíli and the eldest princess. Pierre concluded that this also was
essential, and after a short interval followed her. Anna Mikháylovna
was standing beside the princess, and they were both speaking in excited
whispers.

“Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not
necessary,” said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the
same state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.

“But, my dear princess,” answered Anna Mikháylovna blandly but
impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other
from passing, “won’t this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment
when he needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is
already prepared...”

Prince Vasíli was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude,
with one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so
flabby that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but
he wore the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were
saying.

“Come, my dear Anna Mikháylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You
know how fond the count is of her.”

“I don’t even know what is in this paper,” said the younger of
the two ladies, addressing Prince Vasíli and pointing to an inlaid
portfolio she held in her hand. “All I know is that his real will is
in his writing table, and this is a paper he has forgotten....”

She tried to pass Anna Mikháylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar
her path.

“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikháylovna, seizing
the portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily.
“Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous
en conjure...”

The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the
portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if
the princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna
Mikháylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none
of its honeyed firmness and softness.

“Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a
family consultation; is it not so, Prince?”

“Why don’t you speak, cousin?” suddenly shrieked the princess so
loud that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. “Why
do you remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to
interfere, making a scene on the very threshold of a dying man’s room?
Intriguer!” she hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the
portfolio.

But Anna Mikháylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the
portfolio, and changed her grip.

Prince Vasíli rose. “Oh!” said he with reproach and surprise,
“this is absurd! Come, let go I tell you.”

The princess let go.

“And you too!”

But Anna Mikháylovna did not obey him.

“Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go
and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?”

“But, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna, “after such a solemn
sacrament, allow him a moment’s peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your
opinion,” said she, turning to the young man who, having come quite
close, was gazing with astonishment at the angry face of the princess
which had lost all dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince
Vasíli.

“Remember that you will answer for the consequences,” said Prince
Vasíli severely. “You don’t know what you are doing.”

“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
Mikháylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.

Prince Vasíli bent his head and spread out his hands.

At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long
and which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged
against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out
wringing her hands.

“What are you doing!” she cried vehemently. “He is dying and you
leave me alone with him!”

Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikháylovna, stooping, quickly
caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest
princess and Prince Vasíli, recovering themselves, followed her. A few
minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again
biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an
irrepressible hatred.

“Yes, now you may be glad!” said she; “this is what you have
been waiting for.” And bursting into tears she hid her face in her
handkerchief and rushed from the room.

Prince Vasíli came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was
sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre
noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an
ague.

“Ah, my friend!” said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was
in his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it
before. “How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am
near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is
awful...” and he burst into tears.

Anna Mikháylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet
steps.

“Pierre!” she said.

Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his
forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:

“He is no more....”

Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.

“Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as
tears.”

She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could
see his face. Anna Mikháylovna left him, and when she returned he was
fast asleep with his head on his arm.

In the morning Anna Mikháylovna said to Pierre:

“Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you.
But God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command
of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you
well enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes
duties on you, and you must be a man.”

Pierre was silent.

“Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been
there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised
me only the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he had
no time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father’s
wish?”

Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in
silence at Princess Anna Mikháylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
Mikháylovna returned to the Rostóvs’ and went to bed. On waking in
the morning she told the Rostóvs and all her acquaintances the details
of Count Bezúkhov’s death. She said the count had died as she would
herself wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As
to the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she
could not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved
better during those awful moments—the father who so remembered
everything and everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to
the son, or Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he
with grief, though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his
dying father. “It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the
soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son,” said she.
Of the behavior of the eldest princess and Prince Vasíli she spoke
disapprovingly, but in whispers and as a great secret.





CHAPTER XXV

At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andréevich Bolkónski’s estate, the
arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but
this expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old
prince’s household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andréevich
(nicknamed in society, “the King of Prussia”) ever since the Emperor
Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously
with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle
Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the
capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that
anyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to
Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to
say that there are only two sources of human vice—idleness and
superstition, and only two virtues—activity and intelligence. He
himself undertook his daughter’s education, and to develop these two
cardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry
till she was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was
occupied. He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving
problems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working
in the garden, or superintending the building that was always going on
at his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity,
regularity in his household was carried to the highest point of
exactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same conditions,
and not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about
him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably
exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear
and respect as few hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was
in retirement and had now no influence in political affairs, every high
official appointed to the province in which the prince’s estate lay
considered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber
just as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince
appeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this
antechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when
the enormously high study door opened and showed the figure of a rather
small old man, with powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray
eyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd,
youthfully glittering eyes.

On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess
Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the
morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a
silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning
prayed that the daily interview might pass off well.

An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose
quietly and said in a whisper: “Please walk in.”

Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly
opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the
entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round
continued his work.

The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use.
The large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted
bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while
standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with
tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around—all indicated
continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot
shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure
of the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the
tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns
of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,
dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching
the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing,
so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding
her tenderly and attentively, said severely:

“Quite well? All right then, sit down.” He took the exercise book
containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair
with his foot.

“For tomorrow!” said he, quickly finding the page and making a
scratch from one paragraph to another with his hard nail.

The princess bent over the exercise book on the table.

“Wait a bit, here’s a letter for you,” said the old man suddenly,
taking a letter addressed in a woman’s hand from a bag hanging above
the table, onto which he threw it.

At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the
princess’ face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.

“From Héloïse?” asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his
still sound, yellowish teeth.

“Yes, it’s from Julie,” replied the princess with a timid glance
and a timid smile.

“I’ll let two more letters pass, but the third I’ll read,” said
the prince sternly; “I’m afraid you write much nonsense. I’ll read
the third!”

“Read this if you like, Father,” said the princess, blushing still
more and holding out the letter.

“The third, I said the third!” cried the prince abruptly, pushing
the letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him
the exercise book containing geometrical figures.

“Well, madam,” he began, stooping over the book close to his
daughter and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat,
so that she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of
old age and tobacco, which she had known so long. “Now, madam, these
triangles are equal; please note that the angle ABC...”

The princess looked in a scared way at her father’s eyes glittering
close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was
plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her
fear would prevent her understanding any of her father’s further
explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the
teacher’s fault or the pupil’s, this same thing happened every day:
the princess’ eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear
anything, but was only conscious of her stern father’s withered face
close to her, of his breath and the smell of him, and could think only
of how to get away quickly to her own room to make out the problem in
peace. The old man was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was
sitting noisily backward and forward, made efforts to control himself
and not become vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded,
and sometimes flung the exercise book away.

The princess gave a wrong answer.

“Well now, isn’t she a fool!” shouted the prince, pushing the book
aside and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and
down, lightly touched his daughter’s hair and sat down again.

He drew up his chair, and continued to explain.

“This won’t do, Princess; it won’t do,” said he, when Princess
Mary, having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day’s
lesson, was about to leave: “Mathematics are most important, madam!
I don’t want to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and
you’ll like it,” and he patted her cheek. “It will drive all the
nonsense out of your head.”

She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut
book from the high desk.

“Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Héloïse has
sent you. Religious! I don’t interfere with anyone’s belief... I
have looked at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go.”

He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.

Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that
rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She
sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and
which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as
her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke
the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from
childhood; that same Julie Karágina who had been at the Rostóvs’
name-day party.

Julie wrote in French:

Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is
separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness
are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us
our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against
fate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot
overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since
we parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big
study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as
three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,
calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me
as I write?

Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror
which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and
thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness
at her reflection in the glass. “She flatters me,” thought the
princess, turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter
her friend, the princess’ eyes—large, deep and luminous (it seemed
as if at times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)—were
so beautiful that very often in spite of the plainness of her face
they gave her an attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the
princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look
they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her
face assumed a forced unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a
glass. She went on reading:

All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already
abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march
to the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought
intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant
that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may
be overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His
goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this
war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean
young Nicholas Rostóv, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain
inactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to
you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for
the army was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you
last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which
one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly,
he is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that
my relations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the
sweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much.
Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then.
That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know
these poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are
generally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too
young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship,
this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of
this! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of
old Count Bezúkhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses
have received very little, Prince Vasíli nothing, and it is Monsieur
Pierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been
recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezúkhov and
possessor of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince
Vasíli played a very despicable part in this affair and that he
returned to Petersburg quite crestfallen.

I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and
inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used
to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezúkhov and the
owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to
watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by
marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward
him, though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort
of fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves
by finding husbands for me (most of whom I don’t even know), the
matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess
Bezúkhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post.
À propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal
auntie Anna Mikháylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of
a plan of marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince
Vasíli’s son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to
someone rich and distinguée, and it is on you that his relations’
choice has fallen. I don’t know what you will think of it, but
I consider it my duty to let you know of it. He is said to be very
handsome and a terrible scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find
out about him.

But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and
Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apráksins’. Read the
mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though
there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it
is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give
my respects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle
Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.

JULIE

P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.

The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous
eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly
rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of
paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote,
also in French:

Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great
delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which
you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect
on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I
dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if
we had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you
suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young
man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such
feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of
them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian
love, love of one’s neighbor, love of one’s enemy, is worthier,
sweeter, and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a
young man can inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.

The news of Count Bezúkhov’s death reached us before your letter
and my father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last
representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own
turn now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as
possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!

I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always
seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value
most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince
Vasíli, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine
Saviour’s words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are
terribly true. I pity Prince Vasíli but am still more sorry for Pierre.
So young, and burdened with such riches—to what temptations he will be
exposed! If I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be
poorer than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the
volume you have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since
you tell me that among some good things it contains others which our
weak human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to
spend time in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear
no fruit. I never could understand the fondness some people have for
confusing their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken
their doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for
exaggeration quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read
the Epistles and Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries
they contain; for how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the
terrible and holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh
which forms an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us
rather confine ourselves to studying those sublime rules which our
divine Saviour has left for our guidance here below. Let us try to
conform to them and follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less
we let our feeble human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who
rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek
to fathom what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will
He vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.

My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he
has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasíli. In
regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet
friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must
conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay
the duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as
faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings
toward him whom He may give me for husband.

I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival
at Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,
however, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war
into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you
are—at the heart of affairs and of the world—is the talk all of
war, even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature—which townsfolk
consider characteristic of the country—rumors of war are heard
and painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and
countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day
before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a
heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our
people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of
the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should
have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the
laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of
injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing
one another.

Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy
Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!

MARY

“Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched
mine. I have written to my poor mother,” said the smiling Mademoiselle
Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r’s.
She brought into Princess Mary’s strenuous, mournful, and gloomy
world a quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and
self-satisfied.

“Princess, I must warn you,” she added, lowering her voice and
evidently listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with
exaggerated grasseyement, “the prince has been scolding Michael
Ivánovich. He is in a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared.”

“Ah, dear friend,” replied Princess Mary, “I have asked you never
to warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge
him and would not have others do so.”

The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes
late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting
room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o’clock, as the
day was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the
clavichord.





CHAPTER XXVI

The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of
the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house
through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty
times repeated—of a sonata by Dussek.

Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the
porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to
alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tíkhon, wearing
a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in
a whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.
Tíkhon knew that neither the son’s arrival nor any other unusual
event must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince
Andrew apparently knew this as well as Tíkhon; he looked at his watch
as if to ascertain whether his father’s habits had changed since he
was at home last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he
turned to his wife.

“He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary’s
room,” he said.

The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes
and her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as
merrily and prettily as ever.

“Why, this is a palace!” she said to her husband, looking around
with the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball.
“Let’s come, quick, quick!” And with a glance round, she smiled at
Tíkhon, at her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.

“Is that Mary practicing? Let’s go quietly and take her by
surprise.”

Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.

“You’ve grown older, Tíkhon,” he said in passing to the old man,
who kissed his hand.

Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord
came, the pretty, fair-haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne,
rushed out apparently beside herself with delight.

“Ah! what joy for the princess!” exclaimed she: “At last! I must
let her know.”

“No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne,” said
the little princess, kissing her. “I know you already through my
sister-in-law’s friendship for you. She was not expecting us?”

They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound
of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and
made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.

The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the
middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary’s heavy tread and the
sound of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who
had only met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in
each other’s arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they
happened to touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her
hand to her heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to
cry or to laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as
lovers of music do when they hear a false note. The two women let go
of one another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each
other’s hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began
kissing each other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew’s surprise
both began to cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to
cry. Prince Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women
it seemed quite natural that they should cry, and apparently it never
entered their heads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting.

“Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!...” they suddenly exclaimed, and then
laughed. “I dreamed last night...”—“You were not expecting
us?...” “Ah! Mary, you have got thinner?...” “And you have grown
stouter!...”

“I knew the princess at once,” put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.

“And I had no idea!...” exclaimed Princess Mary. “Ah, Andrew, I
did not see you.”

Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and
he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had
turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,
gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,
rested on Prince Andrew’s face.

The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip
continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary
and drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of
glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had
had on the Spásski Hill which might have been serious for her in her
condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left
all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have
to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty
Odýntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary,
a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was
still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full
of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of
thought independent of her sister-in-law’s words. In the midst of a
description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:

“So you are really going to the war, Andrew?” she said sighing.

Lise sighed too.

“Yes, and even tomorrow,” replied her brother.

“He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had
promotion...”

Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of
thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.

“Is it certain?” she said.

The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: “Yes,
quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful...”

Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law’s
and unexpectedly again began to cry.

“She needs rest,” said Prince Andrew with a frown. “Don’t you,
Lise? Take her to your room and I’ll go to Father. How is he? Just the
same?”

“Yes, just the same. Though I don’t know what your opinion will
be,” answered the princess joyfully.

“And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the
lathe?” asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which
showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was
aware of his weaknesses.

“The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and
my geometry lessons,” said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons
in geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.

When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old
prince to get up, Tíkhon came to call the young prince to his father.
The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his
son’s arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while
he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned
style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew
entered his father’s dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and
manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which
he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered
chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tíkhon.

“Ah! here’s the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?” said the
old man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tíkhon
was holding fast to plait, would allow.

“You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like
this he’ll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?” And he
held out his cheek.

The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He
used to say that a nap “after dinner was silver—before dinner,
golden.”) He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his
thick, bushy eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on
the spot indicated to him. He made no reply on his father’s favorite
topic—making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly
of Bonaparte.

“Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is
pregnant,” said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his
father’s face with an eager and respectful look. “How is your
health?”

“Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from
morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well.”

“Thank God,” said his son smiling.

“God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on,” he continued,
returning to his hobby; “tell me how the Germans have taught you to
fight Bonaparte by this new science you call ‘strategy.’”

Prince Andrew smiled.

“Give me time to collect my wits, Father,” said he, with a smile
that showed that his father’s foibles did not prevent his son from
loving and honoring him. “Why, I have not yet had time to settle
down!”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to
see whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. “The
house for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and
show her over, and they’ll talk nineteen to the dozen. That’s
their woman’s way! I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About
Mikhelson’s army I understand—Tolstóy’s too... a simultaneous
expedition.... But what’s the southern army to do? Prussia is
neutral... I know that. What about Austria?” said he, rising from his
chair and pacing up and down the room followed by Tíkhon, who ran after
him, handing him different articles of clothing. “What of Sweden? How
will they cross Pomerania?”

Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began—at first
reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit
changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on—to explain
the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army,
ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out
of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was
to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty
thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in
Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English
were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand
men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did
not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were
not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three
times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: “The
white one, the white one!”

This meant that Tíkhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.
Another time he interrupted, saying:

“And will she soon be confined?” and shaking his head reproachfully
said: “That’s bad! Go on, go on.”

The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his
description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:
“Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra.” *

     * “Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he’ll
     return.”


His son only smiled.

“I don’t say it’s a plan I approve of,” said the son; “I am
only telling you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now,
not worse than this one.”

“Well, you’ve told me nothing new,” and the old man repeated,
meditatively and rapidly:

“Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room.”





CHAPTER XXVII

At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the
dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle
Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by
a strange caprice of his employer’s was admitted to table though the
position of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly
not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept
very strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important
government officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael
Ivánovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his
checked handkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals,
and had more than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivánovich
was “not a whit worse than you or I.” At dinner the prince usually
spoke to the taciturn Michael Ivánovich more often than to anyone else.

In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was
exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen—one
behind each chair—stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head
butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making
signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door
by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large
gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes
Bolkónski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted
portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate)
of a ruling prince, in a crown—an alleged descendant of Rúrik and
ancestor of the Bolkónskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that
genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at
a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.

“How thoroughly like him that is!” he said to Princess Mary, who had
come up to him.

Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand
what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with
reverence and was beyond question.

“Everyone has his Achilles’ heel,” continued Prince Andrew.
“Fancy, with his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!”

Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother’s
criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard
coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was
his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners
with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock
struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing
room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under
their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on
the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the
sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around
him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of
her neck.

“I’m glad, glad, to see you,” he said, looking attentively into
her eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. “Sit down,
sit down! Sit down, Michael Ivánovich!”

He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved
the chair for her.

“Ho, ho!” said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.
“You’ve been in a hurry. That’s bad!”

He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only
and not with his eyes.

“You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible,” he
said.

The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was
silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and
she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and
she became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings
from various people and retelling the town gossip.

“Countess Apráksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has
cried her eyes out,” she said, growing more and more lively.

As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly,
and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a
definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivánovich.

“Well, Michael Ivánovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time
of it. Prince Andrew” (he always spoke thus of his son) “has been
telling me what forces are being collected against him! While you and I
never thought much of him.”

Michael Ivánovich did not at all know when “you and I” had said
such things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as
a peg on which to hang the prince’s favorite topic, he looked
inquiringly at the young prince, wondering what would follow.

“He is a great tactician!” said the prince to his son, pointing to
the architect.

And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the
generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not
only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the
A B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant
little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any
Potëmkins or Suvórovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced
that there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war,
but only a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,
pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his
father’s ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him
with evident pleasure.

“The past always seems good,” said he, “but did not Suvórov
himself fall into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know
how to escape?”

“Who told you that? Who?” cried the prince. “Suvórov!” And he
jerked away his plate, which Tíkhon briskly caught. “Suvórov!...
Consider, Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvórov; Moreau!...
Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvórov had had a free hand; but
he had the Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have
puzzled the devil himself! When you get there you’ll find out what
those Hofs-kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvórov couldn’t manage them so
what chance has Michael Kutúzov? No, my dear boy,” he continued,
“you and your generals won’t get on against Buonaparte; you’ll
have to call in the French, so that birds of a feather may fight
together. The German, Pahlen, has been sent to New York in America, to
fetch the Frenchman, Moreau,” he said, alluding to the invitation made
that year to Moreau to enter the Russian service.... “Wonderful!...
Were the Potëmkins, Suvórovs, and Orlóvs Germans? No, lad, either you
fellows have all lost your wits, or I have outlived mine. May God help
you, but we’ll see what will happen. Buonaparte has become a great
commander among them! Hm!...”

“I don’t at all say that all the plans are good,” said Prince
Andrew, “I am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You
may laugh as much as you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great
general!”

“Michael Ivánovich!” cried the old prince to the architect who,
busy with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: “Didn’t
I tell you Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same
thing.”

“To be sure, your excellency,” replied the architect.

The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.

“Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got
splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only
idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody
has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except one another. He made
his reputation fighting them.”

And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to
him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His
son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were
presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He
listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this
old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and
discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and
political events.

“You think I’m an old man and don’t understand the present state
of affairs?” concluded his father. “But it troubles me. I don’t
sleep at night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown
his skill?” he concluded.

“That would take too long to tell,” answered the son.

“Well, then go off to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne,
here’s another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours,” he
exclaimed in excellent French.

“You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!”

“Dieu sait quand reviendra.” hummed the prince out of tune and, with
a laugh still more so, he quitted the table.

The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of
the dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her
father-in-law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she
took her sister-in-law’s arm and drew her into another room.

“What a clever man your father is,” said she; “perhaps that is why
I am afraid of him.”

“Oh, he is so kind!” answered Princess Mary.





CHAPTER XXVIII

Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering
his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in
her sister-in-law’s room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without
epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him.
After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he
ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept
with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted
with silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber—a present from
his father who had brought it from the siege of Ochákov. All these
traveling effects of Prince Andrew’s were in very good order: new,
clean, and in cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.

When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable
of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments
one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew’s face
looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced
briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him
and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was
he sad at leaving his wife?—perhaps both, but evidently he did not
wish to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he
hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the
cover of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable
expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.

“I hear you have given orders to harness,” she cried, panting (she
had apparently been running), “and I did so wish to have another talk
with you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not
angry with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrúsha,” she added,
as if to explain such a question.

She smiled as she uttered his pet name, “Andrúsha.” It was
obviously strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be
Andrúsha—the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in
childhood.

“And where is Lise?” he asked, answering her question only by a
smile.

“She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room.
Oh, Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have,” said she, sitting
down on the sofa, facing her brother. “She is quite a child: such a
dear, merry child. I have grown so fond of her.”

Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and
contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.

“One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,
Andrew? Don’t forget that she has grown up and been educated in
society, and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into
everyone’s situation. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. * Think
what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to,
to be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her
condition! It’s very hard.”

     * To understand all is to forgive all.

Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we
think we thoroughly understand.

“You live in the country and don’t think the life terrible,” he
replied.

“I... that’s different. Why speak of me? I don’t want any other
life, and can’t, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young
society woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her
life, all alone—for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what
poor resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.
There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne....”

“I don’t like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all,” said Prince
Andrew.

“No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she’s much to be
pitied. She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don’t need her,
and she’s even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am
even more so. I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and
Michael Ivánovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and
kind, because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says:
‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as
for the good we have done them.’ Father took her when she was homeless
after losing her own father. She is very good-natured, and my father
likes her way of reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads
splendidly.”

“To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father’s character sometimes
makes things trying for you, doesn’t it?” Prince Andrew asked
suddenly.

Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.

“For me? For me?... Trying for me!...” said she.

“He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he’s getting
very trying,” said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their
father in order to puzzle or test his sister.

“You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of
intellectual pride,” said the princess, following the train of her own
thoughts rather than the trend of the conversation—“and that’s a
great sin. How can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling
except veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so
contented and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I
am.”

Her brother shook his head incredulously.

“The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,
Andrew... is Father’s way of treating religious subjects. I don’t
understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is
as clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing
that makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of
improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a
monk he received and had a long talk with.”

“Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your
powder,” said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.

“Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me.
Andrew...” she said timidly after a moment’s silence, “I have a
great favor to ask of you.”

“What is it, dear?”

“No—promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble
and is nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise,
Andrúsha!...” said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet
taking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were
the subject of her request and must not be shown before the request was
granted.

She looked timidly at her brother.

“Even if it were a great deal of trouble...” answered Prince Andrew,
as if guessing what it was about.

“Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as
you please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father’s father, our
grandfather, wore it in all his wars.” (She still did not take out
what she was holding in her reticule.) “So you promise?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will
never take it off. Do you promise?”

“If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won’t break my neck...
To please you...” said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing
the pained expression his joke had brought to his sister’s face, he
repented and added: “I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad.”

“Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you
to Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace,” said she in a voice
trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her
brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold
setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.

She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.

“Please, Andrew, for my sake!...”

Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit
up the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother
would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,
crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for
he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.

“Thank you, my dear.” She kissed him on the forehead and sat down
again on the sofa. They were silent for a while.

“As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always
used to be. Don’t judge Lise harshly,” she began. “She is so
sweet, so good-natured, and her position now is a very hard one.”

“I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Másha, or blamed
her. Why do you say all this to me?”

Red patches appeared on Princess Mary’s face and she was silent as if
she felt guilty.

“I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And
I am sorry for that,” he went on.

The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to
say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little
princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings
about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her
fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen
asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.

“Know this, Másha: I can’t reproach, have not reproached, and never
shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself
with anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever
circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if
you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this
is so I don’t know...”

As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed
her forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and
unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over
her head toward the darkness of the open doorway.

“Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or—go and wake and I’ll
come in a moment. Petrúshka!” he called to his valet: “Come here,
take these away. Put this on the seat and this to the right.”

Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:
“Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him
to give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been
answered.”

“Well, maybe!” said Prince Andrew. “Go, Másha; I’ll come
immediately.”

On the way to his sister’s room, in the passage which connected one
wing with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling
sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and
artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.

“Oh! I thought you were in your room,” she said, for some reason
blushing and dropping her eyes.

Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly
came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead
and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the
Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his
sister’s room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying
one word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as
usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make
up for lost time.

“No, but imagine the old Countess Zúbova, with false curls and her
mouth full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age....
Ha, ha, ha! Mary!”

This very sentence about Countess Zúbova and this same laugh Prince
Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some
five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and
rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking
incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince
Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after
their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.

The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn
night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.
Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense
house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The
domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to
the young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the
reception hall: Michael Ivánovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess
Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his
father’s study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All
were waiting for them to come out.

When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age
spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his
son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.

“Going?” And he went on writing.

“I’ve come to say good-by.”

“Kiss me here,” and he touched his cheek: “Thanks, thanks!”

“What do you thank me for?”

“For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman’s apron strings.
The Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!” And he went on
writing, so that his quill spluttered and squeaked. “If you have
anything to say, say it. These two things can be done together,” he
added.

“About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your
hands....”

“Why talk nonsense? Say what you want.”

“When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let
him be here....”

The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his
stern eyes on his son.

“I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work,” said
Prince Andrew, evidently confused. “I know that out of a million
cases only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been
telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened.”

“Hm... Hm...” muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he
was writing. “I’ll do it.”

He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to
laugh.

“It’s a bad business, eh?”

“What is bad, Father?”

“The wife!” said the old prince, briefly and significantly.

“I don’t understand!” said Prince Andrew.

“No, it can’t be helped, lad,” said the prince. “They’re
all like that; one can’t unmarry. Don’t be afraid; I won’t tell
anyone, but you know it yourself.”

He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked
straight into his son’s face with keen eyes which seemed to see
through him, and again laughed his frigid laugh.

The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The
old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing
down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity.

“What’s to be done? She’s pretty! I will do everything. Make your
mind easy,” said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.

Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father
understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son.

“Listen!” said he; “don’t worry about your wife: what can be
done shall be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilariónovich. *
I have written that he should make use of you in proper places and not
keep you long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember
and like him. Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all
right—serve him. Nicholas Bolkónski’s son need not serve under
anyone if he is in disfavor. Now come here.”

     *Kutúzov.

He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son
was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the
lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his
bold, tall, close handwriting.

“I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs;
hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond
and a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of
Suvórov’s wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for
you to read when I am gone. You will find them useful.”

Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time
yet. He felt that he must not say it.

“I will do it all, Father,” he said.

“Well, now, good-by!” He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced
him. “Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me,
your old father...” he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous
voice suddenly shrieked: “but if I hear that you have not behaved like
a son of Nicholas Bolkónski, I shall be ashamed!”

“You need not have said that to me, Father,” said the son with a
smile.

The old man was silent.

“I also wanted to ask you,” continued Prince Andrew, “if I’m
killed and if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you—as I
said yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please.”

“Not let the wife have him?” said the old man, and laughed.

They stood silent, facing one another. The old man’s sharp eyes were
fixed straight on his son’s. Something twitched in the lower part of
the old prince’s face.

“We’ve said good-by. Go!” he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry
voice, opening his door.

“What is it? What?” asked both princesses when they saw for a moment
at the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white
dressing gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice.

Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.

“Well!” he said, turning to his wife.

And this “Well!” sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying: “Now
go through your performance.”

“Andrew, already!” said the little princess, turning pale and
looking with dismay at her husband.

He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.

He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face,
and carefully placed her in an easy chair.

“Adieu, Mary,” said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand
and kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.

The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing
her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked
with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince
Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From
the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man
angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study
door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white
dressing gown looked out.

“Gone? That’s all right!” said he; and looking angrily at the
unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed
the door.





BOOK TWO: 1805





CHAPTER I

In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of
the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from
Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the
inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of
the commander in chief, Kutúzov.

On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached
Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected
by the commander in chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the
locality and surroundings—fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs,
and hills in the distance—and despite the fact that the inhabitants
(who gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the
regiment had just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for
an inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.

On the evening of the last day’s march an order had been received that
the commander in chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though
the words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and
the question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or
not, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders
to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is
always better to “bow too low than not bow low enough.” So the
soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all
night long without closing their eyes, while the adjutants and
company commanders calculated and reckoned, and by morning the
regiment—instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on
its last march the day before—presented a well-ordered array of two
thousand men each of whom knew his place and his duty, had every button
and every strap in place, and shone with cleanliness. And not only
externally was all in order, but had it pleased the commander in chief
to look under the uniforms he would have found on every man a clean
shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed number of articles, “awl,
soap, and all,” as the soldiers say. There was only one circumstance
concerning which no one could be at ease. It was the state of the
soldiers’ boots. More than half the men’s boots were in holes. But
this defect was not due to any fault of the regimental commander, for
in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued by the Austrian
commissariat, and the regiment had marched some seven hundred miles.

The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and
thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from
chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform
showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes
which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He
had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of
his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled
himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander
admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was
engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military
matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his
thoughts.

“Well, Michael Mítrich, sir?” he said, addressing one of the
battalion commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that
they both felt happy). “We had our hands full last night. However, I
think the regiment is not a bad one, eh?”

The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.

“It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsarítsin
Meadow.”

“What?” asked the commander.

At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been
posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp
followed by a Cossack.

The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been
clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander in chief
wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on
the march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation
whatever.

A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutúzov the day
before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of
the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutúzov, not considering this
junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view,
to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops
arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment;
so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander
in chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these
circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the
men should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the
commander in chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the
regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and
spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.

“A fine mess we’ve made of it!” he remarked.

“There now! Didn’t I tell you, Michael Mítrich, that if it was said
‘on the march’ it meant in greatcoats?” said he reproachfully to
the battalion commander. “Oh, my God!” he added, stepping resolutely
forward. “Company commanders!” he shouted in a voice accustomed to
command. “Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?” he asked
the aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the
personage he was referring to.

“In an hour’s time, I should say.”

“Shall we have time to change clothes?”

“I don’t know, General....”

The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the
soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off
to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats
were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up
to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and
hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing
up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps
over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on
with upraised arms.

In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray
instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps
to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.

“Whatever is this? This!” he shouted and stood still. “Commander
of the third company!”

“Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to
the general... third company to the commander.” The words passed along
the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer.

When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in
a cry of: “The general to the third company,” the missing officer
appeared from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man
and not in the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his
toes toward the general. The captain’s face showed the uneasiness of
a schoolboy who is told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots
appeared on his nose, the redness of which was evidently due to
intemperance, and his mouth twitched nervously. The general looked the
captain up and down as he came up panting, slackening his pace as he
approached.

“You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?”
shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing
at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish
cloth, which contrasted with the others. “What have you been after?
The commander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I’ll
teach you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?”

The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,
pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this
pressure lay his only hope of salvation.

“Well, why don’t you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a
Hungarian?” said the commander with an austere gibe.

“Your excellency...”

“Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your
excellency?... nobody knows.”

“Your excellency, it’s the officer Dólokhov, who has been reduced
to the ranks,” said the captain softly.

“Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier?
If a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the
others.”

“Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march.”

“Gave him leave? Leave? That’s just like you young men,” said the
regimental commander cooling down a little. “Leave indeed.... One says
a word to you and you... What?” he added with renewed irritation, “I
beg you to dress your men decently.”

And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky
steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of
anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for
wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another
because his line was not straight, he reached the third company.

“H-o-o-w are you standing? Where’s your leg? Your leg?” shouted
the commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were
still five men between him and Dólokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.

Dólokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his
clear, insolent eyes in the general’s face.

“Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat...
the ras...” he did not finish.

“General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure...”
Dólokhov hurriedly interrupted.

“No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!”

“Not bound to endure insults,” Dólokhov concluded in loud, ringing
tones.

The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent,
angrily pulling down his tight scarf.

“I request you to have the goodness to change your coat,” he said as
he turned away.





CHAPTER II

“He’s coming!” shouted the signaler at that moment.

The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup
with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself,
drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening
his mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird
preening its plumage and became motionless.

“Att-ention!” shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking
voice which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and
welcome for the approaching chief.

Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high,
light blue Viennese calèche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn
by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the calèche galloped the suite
and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutúzov sat an Austrian general, in
a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The
calèche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutúzov and the Austrian
general were talking in low voices and Kutúzov smiled slightly as
treading heavily he stepped down from the carriage just as if those two
thousand men breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did
not exist.

The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a
jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the
feeble voice of the commander in chief was heard. The regiment roared,
“Health to your ex... len... len... lency!” and again all became
silent. At first Kutúzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he
and the general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the
ranks.

From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander in chief and
devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from
the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward
and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he
darted forward at every word or gesture of the commander in chief,
it was evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even
greater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and
assiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that
had reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There
were only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except
the boots.

Kutúzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few
friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes
also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his
head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression
which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help
noticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander
ran forward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the
commander in chief’s regarding the regiment. Behind Kutúzov, at a
distance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed
some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves
and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander in chief walked
a handsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkónski. Beside him was his
comrade Nesvítski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a
kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvítski could hardly
keep from laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked
beside him. This hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a
change in the expression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental
commander’s back and mimicked his every movement. Each time the
commander started and bent forward, the hussar started and bent forward
in exactly the same manner. Nesvítski laughed and nudged the others to
make them look at the wag.

Kutúzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were
starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the
third company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,
involuntarily came closer to him.

“Ah, Timókhin!” said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had
been reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.

One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself
more than Timókhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental
commander, but now that the commander in chief addressed him he drew
himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained
it had the commander in chief continued to look at him, and so Kutúzov,
who evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good,
quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his
scarred and puffy face.

“Another Ismail comrade,” said he. “A brave officer! Are you
satisfied with him?” he asked the regimental commander.

And the latter—unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar
officer as in a looking glass—started, moved forward, and answered:
“Highly satisfied, your excellency!”

“We all have our weaknesses,” said Kutúzov smiling and walking away
from him. “He used to have a predilection for Bacchus.”

The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did
not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed
captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose
with such exactitude that Nesvítski could not help laughing. Kutúzov
turned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face,
and while Kutúzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume
a most serious, deferential, and innocent expression.

The third company was the last, and Kutúzov pondered, apparently trying
to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the
suite and said in French:

“You told me to remind you of the officer Dólokhov, reduced to the
ranks in this regiment.”

“Where is Dólokhov?” asked Kutúzov.

Dólokhov, who had already changed into a soldier’s gray greatcoat,
did not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired
soldier, with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went
up to the commander in chief, and presented arms.

“Have you a complaint to make?” Kutúzov asked with a slight frown.

“This is Dólokhov,” said Prince Andrew.

“Ah!” said Kutúzov. “I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your
duty. The Emperor is gracious, and I shan’t forget you if you deserve
well.”

The clear blue eyes looked at the commander in chief just as boldly as
they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression
to tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander in chief
so widely from a private.

“One thing I ask of your excellency,” Dólokhov said in his firm,
ringing, deliberate voice. “I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault
and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!”

Kutúzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had
turned from Captain Timókhin again flitted over his face. He turned
away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dólokhov had said to
him and everything he could say had long been known to him, that he was
weary of it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and
went to the carriage.

The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed
quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and
to rest after their hard marches.

“You won’t bear me a grudge, Prokhór Ignátych?” said the
regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its
quarters and riding up to Captain Timókhin who was walking in front.
(The regimental commander’s face now that the inspection was happily
over beamed with irrepressible delight.) “It’s in the Emperor’s
service... it can’t be helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on
parade... I am the first to apologize, you know me!... He was very
pleased!” And he held out his hand to the captain.

“Don’t mention it, General, as if I’d be so bold!” replied the
captain, his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where
two front teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end
of a gun at Ismail.

“And tell Mr. Dólokhov that I won’t forget him—he may be quite
easy. And tell me, please—I’ve been meaning to ask—how is he
behaving himself, and in general...”

“As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;
but his character...” said Timókhin.

“And what about his character?” asked the regimental commander.

“It’s different on different days,” answered the captain. “One
day he is sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he’s
a wild beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew.”

“Oh, well, well!” remarked the regimental commander. “Still, one
must have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important
connections... Well, then, you just...”

“I will, your excellency,” said Timókhin, showing by his smile that
he understood his commander’s wish.

“Well, of course, of course!”

The regimental commander sought out Dólokhov in the ranks and, reining
in his horse, said to him:

“After the next affair... epaulettes.”

Dólokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking
smile on his lips change.

“Well, that’s all right,” continued the regimental commander. “A
cup of vodka for the men from me,” he added so that the soldiers
could hear. “I thank you all! God be praised!” and he rode past that
company and overtook the next one.

“Well, he’s really a good fellow, one can serve under him,” said
Timókhin to the subaltern beside him.

“In a word, a hearty one...” said the subaltern, laughing (the
regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).

The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the
soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers’ voices could be
heard on every side.

“And they said Kutúzov was blind of one eye?”

“And so he is! Quite blind!”

“No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands...
he noticed everything...”

“When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I...”

“And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were
smeared with chalk—as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as
they do the guns.”

“I say, Fédeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You
were near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau.”

“Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn’t
know! The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are
putting them down. When they’ve been put down, the war with Buonaparte
will begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you’re a fool.
You’d better listen more carefully!”

“What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is
turning into the village already... they will have their buckwheat
cooked before we reach our quarters.”

“Give me a biscuit, you devil!”

“And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That’s just it, friend! Ah,
well, never mind, here you are.”

“They might call a halt here or we’ll have to do another four miles
without eating.”

“Wasn’t it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still
and are drawn along.”

“And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all
seemed to be Poles—all under the Russian crown—but here they’re
all regular Germans.”

“Singers to the front” came the captain’s order.

And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A
drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing
his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers’ song, commencing with the
words: “Morning dawned, the sun was rising,” and concluding: “On
then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kámenski.” This song had
been composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the
only change being that the words “Father Kámenski” were replaced by
“Father Kutúzov.”

Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms
as if flinging something to the ground, the drummer—a lean, handsome
soldier of forty—looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his
eyes. Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him,
he raised both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious
object above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly
flung it down and began:

“Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!”

“Oh, my bower new...!” chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet
player, in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front
and, walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and
flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,
swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long
steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs,
and the tramp of horses’ hoofs were heard. Kutúzov and his suite were
returning to the town. The commander in chief made a sign that the
men should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed
pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing
soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file
from the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company,
a blue-eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dólokhov
marching with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and
looking at those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that
moment marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutúzov’s
suite who had mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the
carriage and rode up to Dólokhov.

Hussar cornet Zherkóv had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to
the wild set led by Dólokhov. Zherkóv had met Dólokhov abroad as a
private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutúzov had
spoken to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of
an old friend.

“My dear fellow, how are you?” said he through the singing, making
his horse keep pace with the company.

“How am I?” Dólokhov answered coldly. “I am as you see.”

The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
gaiety with which Zherkóv spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
Dólokhov’s reply.

“And how do you get on with the officers?” inquired Zherkóv.

“All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the
staff?”

“I was attached; I’m on duty.”

Both were silent.

“She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve,” went the
song, arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness.
Their conversation would probably have been different but for the effect
of that song.

“Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?” asked Dólokhov.

“The devil only knows! They say so.”

“I’m glad,” answered Dólokhov briefly and clearly, as the song
demanded.

“I say, come round some evening and we’ll have a game of faro!”
said Zherkóv.

“Why, have you too much money?”

“Do come.”

“I can’t. I’ve sworn not to. I won’t drink and won’t play till
I get reinstated.”

“Well, that’s only till the first engagement.”

“We shall see.”

They were again silent.

“Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the
staff...”

Dólokhov smiled. “Don’t trouble. If I want anything, I won’t
beg—I’ll take it!”

“Well, never mind; I only...”

“And I only...”

“Good-by.”

“Good health...”

        “It’s a long, long way.
        To my native land...”


Zherkóv touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from
foot to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped
past the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the
song.





CHAPTER III

On returning from the review, Kutúzov took the Austrian general into
his private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers
relating to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the
letters that had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of
the advanced army. Prince Andrew Bolkónski came into the room with the
required papers. Kutúzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath
were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.

“Ah!...” said Kutúzov glancing at Bolkónski as if by this
exclamation he was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the
conversation in French.

“All I can say, General,” said he with a pleasant elegance
of expression and intonation that obliged one to listen to each
deliberately spoken word. It was evident that Kutúzov himself listened
with pleasure to his own voice. “All I can say, General, is that if
the matter depended on my personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the
Emperor Francis would have been fulfilled long ago. I should long
ago have joined the archduke. And believe me on my honour that to me
personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command
of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful
general—of whom Austria has so many—and to lay down all this heavy
responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes too strong for us,
General.”

And Kutúzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, “You are quite at
liberty not to believe me and I don’t even care whether you do or
not, but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole
point.”

The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply
in the same tone.

“On the contrary,” he said, in a querulous and angry tone that
contrasted with his flattering words, “on the contrary, your
excellency’s participation in the common action is highly valued by
His Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid
Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been
accustomed to win in their battles,” he concluded his evidently
prearranged sentence.

Kutúzov bowed with the same smile.

“But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which
His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the
Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General
Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need
our aid,” said Kutúzov.

The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian
defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors
that were afloat, and so Kutúzov’s suggestion of an Austrian victory
sounded much like irony. But Kutúzov went on blandly smiling with the
same expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose
so. And, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack’s army
informed him of a victory and stated strategically the position of the
army was very favorable.

“Give me that letter,” said Kutúzov turning to Prince Andrew.
“Please have a look at it”—and Kutúzov with an ironical smile
about the corners of his mouth read to the Austrian general the
following passage, in German, from the Archduke Ferdinand’s letter:

We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with
which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also,
as we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of
commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not
cross the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line
of communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his
intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful
ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial
Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with
it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves.

Kutúzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the
member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.

“But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect
the worst,” said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done
with jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the
aide-de-camp.

“Excuse me, General,” interrupted Kutúzov, also turning to Prince
Andrew. “Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlóvski all the
reports from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and
here is one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are
these,” he said, handing him several papers, “make a neat memorandum
in French out of all this, showing all the news we have had of the
movements of the Austrian army, and then give it to his excellency.”

Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the
first not only what had been said but also what Kutúzov would have
liked to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both,
stepped softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.

Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he
had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face,
in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former
affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time
to think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with
agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction
with himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter
and more attractive.

Kutúzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly,
promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants,
and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions.
From Vienna Kutúzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew’s father.

Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,
firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a
subordinate by me.

On Kutúzov’s staff, among his fellow officers and in the army
generally, Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two
quite opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be
different from themselves and from everyone else, expected great things
of him, listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince
Andrew was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and
considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people
Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even
feared him.

Coming out of Kutúzov’s room into the waiting room with the papers in
his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty,
Kozlóvski, who was sitting at the window with a book.

“Well, Prince?” asked Kozlóvski.

“I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not
advancing.”

“And why is it?”

Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.

“Any news from Mack?”

“No.”

“If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come.”

“Probably,” said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.

But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the
order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,
who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.
Prince Andrew stopped short.

“Commander in Chief Kutúzov?” said the newly arrived general
speaking quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and
advancing straight toward the inner door.

“The commander in chief is engaged,” said Kozlóvski, going
hurriedly up to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door.
“Whom shall I announce?”

The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlóvski, who was
rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.

“The commander in chief is engaged,” repeated Kozlóvski calmly.

The general’s face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took
out a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the
leaf, gave it to Kozlóvski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw
himself into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, “Why
do they look at me?” Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as
if he intended to say something, but immediately, with affected
indifference, began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which
immediately broke off. The door of the private room opened and Kutúzov
appeared in the doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward
as though running away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides
with his thin legs, went up to Kutúzov.

“Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,” he uttered in a broken voice.

Kutúzov’s face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly
immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave
and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully,
closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed
the door himself behind him.

The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten
and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct.
Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with
orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been
inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.

Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest
lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the
details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost,
understood all the difficulties of the Russian army’s position, and
vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to
play. Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the
humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week’s time he might,
perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the
French since Suvórov met them. He feared that Bonaparte’s genius
might outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same
time could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.

Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his
room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor
he met Nesvítski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkóv;
they were as usual laughing.

“Why are you so glum?” asked Nesvítski noticing Prince Andrew’s
pale face and glittering eyes.

“There’s nothing to be gay about,” answered Bolkónski.

Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvítski and Zherkóv, there came toward
them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general
who was on Kutúzov’s staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian
army, and the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous
evening. There was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to
pass the three officers quite easily, but Zherkóv, pushing Nesvítski
aside with his arm, said in a breathless voice,

“They’re coming!... they’re coming!... Stand aside, make way,
please make way!”

The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid
embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkóv there suddenly
appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.

“Your excellency,” said he in German, stepping forward and
addressing the Austrian general, “I have the honor to congratulate
you.”

He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the
other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.

The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the
seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment’s
attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.

“I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite
well, only a little bruised just here,” he added, pointing with a
beaming smile to his head.

The general frowned, turned away, and went on.

“Gott, wie naiv!” * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.

     * “Good God, what simplicity!”


Nesvítski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
Bolkónski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
turned to Zherkóv. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance
of Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the
Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkóv’s untimely jest.

“If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself,” he said
sharply, with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, “I can’t prevent
your doing so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my
presence, I will teach you to behave yourself.”

Nesvítski and Zherkóv were so surprised by this outburst that they
gazed at Bolkónski silently with wide-open eyes.

“What’s the matter? I only congratulated them,” said Zherkóv.

“I am not jesting with you; please be silent!” cried Bolkónski,
and taking Nesvítski’s arm he left Zherkóv, who did not know what to
say.

“Come, what’s the matter, old fellow?” said Nesvítski trying to
soothe him.

“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in
his excitement. “Don’t you understand that either we are officers
serving our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and
grieving at the misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely
lackeys who care nothing for their master’s business. Quarante mille
hommes massacrés et l’armée de nos alliés détruite, et vous
trouvez là le mot pour rire,” * he said, as if strengthening his
views by this French sentence. “C’est bien pour un garçon de rien
comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas
pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could amuse himself in this
way,” he added in Russian—but pronouncing the word with a French
accent—having noticed that Zherkóv could still hear him.

     * “Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies
     destroyed, and you find that a cause for jesting!”

     * (2) “It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow
     of whom you have made a friend, but not for you, not for
     you.”


He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned
and went out of the corridor.





CHAPTER IV

The Pávlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
squadron in which Nicholas Rostóv served as a cadet was quartered in
the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
assigned to cavalry-captain Denísov, the squadron commander, known
throughout the whole cavalry division as Váska Denísov. Cadet Rostóv,
ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the
squadron commander.

On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news
of Mack’s defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was
proceeding as usual. Denísov, who had been losing at cards all night,
had not yet come home when Rostóv rode back early in the morning from
a foraging expedition. Rostóv in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his
horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple
youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to
part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly.

“Ah, Bondarénko, dear friend!” said he to the hussar who rushed up
headlong to the horse. “Walk him up and down, my dear fellow,” he
continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young
people show to everyone when they are happy.

“Yes, your excellency,” answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his
head.

“Mind, walk him up and down well!”

Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarénko had already
thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse’s head. It was
evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to
serve him. Rostóv patted the horse’s neck and then his flank, and
lingered for a moment.

“Splendid! What a horse he will be!” he thought with a smile, and
holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the
porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in
hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face
immediately brightened on seeing Rostóv. “Schön gut Morgen! Schön
gut Morgen!” * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased
to greet the young man.

    * “A very good morning! A very good morning!”


“Schon fleissig?” * said Rostóv with the same gay brotherly smile
which did not leave his eager face. “Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen!
Kaiser Alexander hoch!” *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by
the German landlord.

    * “Busy already?”

    * (2) “Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians!
     Hurrah for Emperor Alexander!”


The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and
waving it above his head cried:

“Und die ganze Welt hoch!” *

    * “And hurrah for the whole world!”


Rostóv waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing,
“Und vivat die ganze Welt!” Though neither the German cleaning his
cowshed nor Rostóv back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any
reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and
brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection,
and parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostóv
going to the cottage he occupied with Denísov.

“What about your master?” he asked Lavrúshka, Denísov’s orderly,
whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.

“Hasn’t been in since the evening. Must have been losing,”
answered Lavrúshka. “I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to
brag about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he’s lost and
will come back in a rage. Will you have coffee?”

“Yes, bring some.”

Ten minutes later Lavrúshka brought the coffee. “He’s coming!”
said he. “Now for trouble!” Rostóv looked out of the window and
saw Denísov coming home. Denísov was a small man with a red face,
sparkling black eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an
unfastened cloak, wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled
shako on the back of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging
his head.

“Lavwúska!” he shouted loudly and angrily, “take it off,
blockhead!”

“Well, I am taking it off,” replied Lavrúshka’s voice.

“Ah, you’re up already,” said Denísov, entering the room.

“Long ago,” answered Rostóv, “I have already been for the hay,
and have seen Fräulein Mathilde.”

“Weally! And I’ve been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a
damned fool!” cried Denísov, not pronouncing his r’s. “Such ill
luck! Such ill luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo
there! Tea!”

Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong
teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick
tangled black hair.

“And what devil made me go to that wat?” (an officer nicknamed
“the rat”) he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both
hands. “Just fancy, he didn’t let me win a single cahd, not one
cahd.”

He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his
fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he
continued to shout.

“He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;
gives the singles and snatches the doubles!”

He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away.
Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully
with his glittering, black eyes at Rostóv.

“If at least we had some women here; but there’s nothing foh one
to do but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who’s
there?” he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy
boots and the clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful
cough.

“The squadron quartermaster!” said Lavrúshka.

Denísov’s face puckered still more.

“Wetched!” he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it.
“Wostóv, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the
purse undah the pillow,” he said, and went out to the quartermaster.

Rostóv took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins
in separate piles, began counting them.

“Ah! Telyánin! How d’ye do? They plucked me last night,” came
Denísov’s voice from the next room.

“Where? At Bykov’s, at the rat’s... I knew it,” replied a piping
voice, and Lieutenant Telyánin, a small officer of the same squadron,
entered the room.

Rostóv thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand
which was offered him. Telyánin for some reason had been transferred
from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the
regiment but was not liked; Rostóv especially detested him and was
unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man.

“Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?” he asked. (Rook
was a young horse Telyánin had sold to Rostóv.)

The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the
face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.

“I saw you riding this morning...” he added.

“Oh, he’s all right, a good horse,” answered Rostóv, though the
horse for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half
that sum. “He’s begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg,” he
added.

“The hoof’s cracked! That’s nothing. I’ll teach you what to do
and show you what kind of rivet to use.”

“Yes, please do,” said Rostóv.

“I’ll show you, I’ll show you! It’s not a secret. And it’s a
horse you’ll thank me for.”

“Then I’ll have it brought round,” said Rostóv wishing to avoid
Telyánin, and he went out to give the order.

In the passage Denísov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold
facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostóv,
Denísov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his
thumb to the room where Telyánin was sitting, he frowned and gave a
shudder of disgust.

“Ugh! I don’t like that fellow,” he said, regardless of the
quartermaster’s presence.

Rostóv shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: “Nor do I, but
what’s one to do?” and, having given his order, he returned to
Telyánin.

Telyánin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostóv had
left him, rubbing his small white hands.

“Well there certainly are disgusting people,” thought Rostóv as he
entered.

“Have you told them to bring the horse?” asked Telyánin, getting up
and looking carelessly about him.

“I have.”

“Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denísov about
yesterday’s order. Have you got it, Denísov?”

“Not yet. But where are you off to?”

“I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse,” said
Telyánin.

They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant
explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.

When Rostóv went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the
table. Denísov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of
paper. He looked gloomily in Rostóv’s face and said: “I am witing
to her.”

He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,
evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to
write, told Rostóv the contents of his letter.

“You see, my fwiend,” he said, “we sleep when we don’t love. We
are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one
is pua’ as on the fihst day of cweation... Who’s that now? Send him
to the devil, I’m busy!” he shouted to Lavrúshka, who went up to
him not in the least abashed.

“Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It’s the
quartermaster for the money.”

Denísov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.

“Wetched business,” he muttered to himself. “How much is left in
the puhse?” he asked, turning to Rostóv.

“Seven new and three old imperials.”

“Oh, it’s wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you
sca’cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh,” he shouted to Lavrúshka.

“Please, Denísov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,”
said Rostóv, blushing.

“Don’t like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don’t,” growled
Denísov.

“But if you won’t accept money from me like a comrade, you will
offend me. Really I have some,” Rostóv repeated.

“No, I tell you.”

And Denísov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.

“Where have you put it, Wostóv?”

“Under the lower pillow.”

“It’s not there.”

Denísov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.

“That’s a miwacle.”

“Wait, haven’t you dropped it?” said Rostóv, picking up the
pillows one at a time and shaking them.

He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.

“Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept
it under your head like a treasure,” said Rostóv. “I put it just
here. Where is it?” he asked, turning to Lavrúshka.

“I haven’t been in the room. It must be where you put it.”

“But it isn’t?...”

“You’re always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget
it. Feel in your pockets.”

“No, if I hadn’t thought of it being a treasure,” said Rostóv,
“but I remember putting it there.”

Lavrúshka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under
the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the
room. Denísov silently watched Lavrúshka’s movements, and when the
latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found
Denísov glanced at Rostóv.

“Wostóv, you’ve not been playing schoolboy twicks...”

Rostóv felt Denísov’s gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and
instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested
somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not
draw breath.

“And there hasn’t been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and
yourselves. It must be here somewhere,” said Lavrúshka.

“Now then, you devil’s puppet, look alive and hunt for it!”
shouted Denísov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with
a threatening gesture. “If the purse isn’t found I’ll flog you,
I’ll flog you all.”

Rostóv, his eyes avoiding Denísov, began buttoning his coat, buckled
on his saber, and put on his cap.

“I must have that purse, I tell you,” shouted Denísov, shaking his
orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.

“Denísov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,” said Rostóv,
going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denísov paused, thought
a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostóv hinted at, seized
his arm.

“Nonsense!” he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood
out like cords. “You are mad, I tell you. I won’t allow it.
The purse is here! I’ll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be
found.”

“I know who has taken it,” repeated Rostóv in an unsteady voice,
and went to the door.

“And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!” shouted Denísov,
rushing at the cadet to restrain him.

But Rostóv pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though
Denísov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his
face.

“Do you understand what you’re saying?” he said in a trembling
voice. “There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it
is not so, then...”

He could not finish, and ran out of the room.

“Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody,” were the last words
Rostóv heard.

Rostóv went to Telyánin’s quarters.

“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said
Telyánin’s orderly. “Has something happened?” he added, surprised
at the cadet’s troubled face.

“No, nothing.”

“You’ve only just missed him,” said the orderly.

The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and
Rostóv, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostóv rode up to
it and saw Telyánin’s horse at the porch.

In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of
sausages and a bottle of wine.

“Ah, you’ve come here too, young man!” he said, smiling and
raising his eyebrows.

“Yes,” said Rostóv as if it cost him a great deal to utter the
word; and he sat down at the nearest table.

Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the
room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives
and the munching of the lieutenant.

When Telyánin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double
purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up
fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to
the waiter.

“Please be quick,” he said.

The coin was a new one. Rostóv rose and went up to Telyánin.

“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost
inaudible, voice.

With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyánin handed him the
purse.

“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly
pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”

Rostóv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and
looked at Telyánin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way
and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.

“If we get to Vienna I’ll get rid of it there but in these wretched
little towns there’s nowhere to spend it,” said he. “Well, let me
have it, young man, I’m going.”

Rostóv did not speak.

“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite
decently here,” continued Telyánin. “Now then, let me have it.”

He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostóv let go of
it. Telyánin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the
pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth
slightly open, as if to say, “Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my
pocket and that’s quite simple and is no one else’s business.”

“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted
brows he glanced into Rostóv’s eyes.

Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyánin’s eyes to
Rostóv’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.

“Come here,” said Rostóv, catching hold of Telyánin’s arm and
almost dragging him to the window. “That money is Denísov’s; you
took it...” he whispered just above Telyánin’s ear.

“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyánin.

But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for
pardon. As soon as Rostóv heard them, an enormous load of doubt
fell from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the
miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be
completed.

“Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine,” muttered
Telyánin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. “We
must have an explanation...”

“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostóv.

“I...”

Every muscle of Telyánin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising
to Rostóv’s face, and his sobs were audible.

“Count!... Don’t ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,
take it...” He threw it on the table. “I have an old father and
mother!...”

Rostóv took the money, avoiding Telyánin’s eyes, and went out of the
room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his
steps. “O God,” he said with tears in his eyes, “how could you do
it?”

“Count...” said Telyánin drawing nearer to him.

“Don’t touch me,” said Rostóv, drawing back. “If you need it,
take the money,” and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.





CHAPTER V

That same evening there was an animated discussion among the
squadron’s officers in Denísov’s quarters.

“And I tell you, Rostóv, that you must apologize to the colonel!”
said a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and
many wrinkles on his large features, to Rostóv who was crimson with
excitement.

The staff captain, Kírsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for
affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.

“I will allow no one to call me a liar!” cried Rostóv. “He told
me I lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me
on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make
me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it
beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then...”

“You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen,” interrupted
the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache.
“You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an
officer has stolen...”

“I’m not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of
other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am
not a diplomatist. That’s why I joined the hussars, thinking that here
one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying—so let him
give me satisfaction...”

“That’s all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that’s not the
point. Ask Denísov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to
demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?”

Denísov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the
conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the
staff captain’s question by a disapproving shake of his head.

“You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other
officers,” continued the staff captain, “and Bogdánich” (the
colonel was called Bogdánich) “shuts you up.”

“He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth.”

“Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must
apologize.”

“Not on any account!” exclaimed Rostóv.

“I did not expect this of you,” said the staff captain seriously and
severely. “You don’t wish to apologize, but, man, it’s not only to
him but to the whole regiment—all of us—you’re to blame all round.
The case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and
taken advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the
officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and
disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one
scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don’t see it like that. And
Bogdánich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true.
It’s not pleasant, but what’s to be done, my dear fellow? You landed
yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some
conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole
affair public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not
apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdánich may
be, anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You’re quick at
taking offense, but you don’t mind disgracing the whole regiment!”
The staff captain’s voice began to tremble. “You have been in the
regiment next to no time, my lad, you’re here today and tomorrow
you’ll be appointed adjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when
it is said ‘There are thieves among the Pávlograd officers!’ But
it’s not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denísov? It’s not the
same!”

Denísov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with
his glittering black eyes at Rostóv.

“You value your own pride and don’t wish to apologize,” continued
the staff captain, “but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God
willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the
regiment, and Bogdánich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And
all this is not right, it’s not right! You may take offense or not but
I always stick to mother truth. It’s not right!”

And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostóv.

“That’s twue, devil take it!” shouted Denísov, jumping up. “Now
then, Wostóv, now then!”

Rostóv, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer
and then at the other.

“No, gentlemen, no... you mustn’t think... I quite understand.
You’re wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of
the regiment I’d... Ah well, I’ll show that in action, and for me
the honor of the flag... Well, never mind, it’s true I’m to blame,
to blame all round. Well, what else do you want?...”

“Come, that’s right, Count!” cried the staff captain, turning
round and clapping Rostóv on the shoulder with his big hand.

“I tell you,” shouted Denísov, “he’s a fine fellow.”

“That’s better, Count,” said the staff captain, beginning to
address Rostóv by his title, as if in recognition of his confession.
“Go and apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!”

“Gentlemen, I’ll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me,”
said Rostóv in an imploring voice, “but I can’t apologize, by God I
can’t, do what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy
asking forgiveness?”

Denísov began to laugh.

“It’ll be worse for you. Bogdánich is vindictive and you’ll pay
for your obstinacy,” said Kírsten.

“No, on my word it’s not obstinacy! I can’t describe the feeling.
I can’t...”

“Well, it’s as you like,” said the staff captain. “And what has
become of that scoundrel?” he asked Denísov.

“He has weported himself sick, he’s to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow,” muttered Denísov.

“It is an illness, there’s no other way of explaining it,” said
the staff captain.

“Illness or not, he’d better not cwoss my path. I’d kill him!”
shouted Denísov in a bloodthirsty tone.

Just then Zherkóv entered the room.

“What brings you here?” cried the officers turning to the newcomer.

“We’re to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his
whole army.”

“It’s not true!”

“I’ve seen him myself!”

“What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?”

“Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how
did you come here?”

“I’ve been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil,
Mack. An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on
Mack’s arrival... What’s the matter, Rostóv? You look as if you’d
just come out of a hot bath.”

“Oh, my dear fellow, we’re in such a stew here these last two
days.”

The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by
Zherkóv. They were under orders to advance next day.

“We’re going into action, gentlemen!”

“Well, thank God! We’ve been sitting here too long!”





CHAPTER VI

Kutúzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over
the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the
Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian
baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling
through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.

It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out
before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the
bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and
then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could
be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below,
the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its
cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling
masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island,
and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of
the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the
Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green
treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a
wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the
enemy’s horse patrols could be discerned.

Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of
the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through
his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvítski, who had been sent to
the rearguard by the commander in chief, was sitting on the trail of a
gun carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack
and a flask, and Nesvítski was treating some officers to pies and real
doppelkümmel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their
knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.

“Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It’s
a fine place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?” Nesvítski
was saying.

“Thank you very much, Prince,” answered one of the officers, pleased
to be talking to a staff officer of such importance. “It’s a lovely
place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a
splendid house!”

“Look, Prince,” said another, who would have dearly liked to take
another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the
countryside—“See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there
in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something.
They’ll ransack that castle,” he remarked with evident approval.

“So they will,” said Nesvítski. “No, but what I should like,”
added he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, “would be
to slip in over there.”

He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and
gleamed.

“That would be fine, gentlemen!”

The officers laughed.

“Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls
among them. On my word I’d give five years of my life for it!”

“They must be feeling dull, too,” said one of the bolder officers,
laughing.

Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to
the general, who looked through his field glass.

“Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general angrily, lowering the
field glass and shrugging his shoulders, “so it is! They’ll be fired
on at the crossing. And why are they dawdling there?”

On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from
their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of
a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.

Nesvítski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.

“Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?” he said.

“It’s a bad business,” said the general without answering him,
“our men have been wasting time.”

“Hadn’t I better ride over, your excellency?” asked Nesvítski.

“Yes, please do,” answered the general, and he repeated the order
that had already once been given in detail: “and tell the hussars
that they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the
inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected.”

“Very good,” answered Nesvítski.

He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack
and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.

“I’ll really call in on the nuns,” he said to the officers who
watched him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the
hill.

“Now then, let’s see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!”
said the general, turning to an artillery officer. “Have a little fun
to pass the time.”

“Crew, to your guns!” commanded the officer.

In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began
loading.

“One!” came the command.

Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening
metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our
troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke
showing the spot where it burst.

The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got
up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly
visible as if but a stone’s throw away, and the movements of the
approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully
out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot
and the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and
spirited impression.





CHAPTER VII

Two of the enemy’s shots had already flown across the bridge, where
there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvítski, who had
alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the
railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few
steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince
Nesvítski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again
and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.

“What a fine fellow you are, friend!” said the Cossack to a convoy
soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. “What a fellow!
You can’t wait a moment! Don’t you see the general wants to pass?”

But the convoyman took no notice of the word “general” and shouted
at the soldiers who were blocking his way. “Hi there, boys! Keep to
the left! Wait a bit.” But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to
shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense
mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvítski saw the rapid, noisy
little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of
the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally
uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos,
knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with
broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and
feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the
bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of
white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with
a type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along;
sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot,
an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry;
and sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers’ or
company’s baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on
all sides, moved across the bridge.

“It’s as if a dam had burst,” said the Cossack hopelessly. “Are
there many more of you to come?”

“A million all but one!” replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat,
with a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.

“If he” (he meant the enemy) “begins popping at the bridge now,”
said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, “you’ll forget to
scratch yourself.”

That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.

“Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?” said an
orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.

And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who
had evidently been drinking.

“And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt
end of his gun...” a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said
gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.

“Yes, the ham was just delicious...” answered another with a loud
laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvítski did not learn who
had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.

“Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they’ll
all be killed,” a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.

“As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean,” said a young soldier
with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, “I felt like
dying of fright. I did, ‘pon my word, I got that frightened!” said
he, as if bragging of having been frightened.

That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone
before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and
seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with
a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned
baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks
were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were
allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers
turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace
all the soldiers’ remarks related to the two young ones. Every face
bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the
women.

“Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!”

“Sell me the missis,” said another soldier, addressing the German,
who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast
eyes.

“See how smart she’s made herself! Oh, the devils!”

“There, Fedótov, you should be quartered on them!”

“I have seen as much before now, mate!”

“Where are you going?” asked an infantry officer who was eating an
apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.

The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.

“Take it if you like,” said the officer, giving the girl an apple.

The girl smiled and took it. Nesvítski like the rest of the men on the
bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When
they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same
kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of
a convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole
crowd had to wait.

“And why are they stopping? There’s no proper order!” said the
soldiers. “Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can’t you wait?
It’ll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here’s an officer jammed
in too”—different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked
at one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.

Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvítski
suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...
something big, that splashed into the water.

“Just see where it carries to!” a soldier near by said sternly,
looking round at the sound.

“Encouraging us to get along quicker,” said another uneasily.

The crowd moved on again. Nesvítski realized that it was a cannon ball.

“Hey, Cossack, my horse!” he said. “Now, then, you there! get out
of the way! Make way!”

With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting
continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way
for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those
nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still
harder from behind.

“Nesvítski, Nesvítski! you numskull!” came a hoarse voice from
behind him.

Nesvítski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated
by the living mass of moving infantry, Váska Denísov, red and shaggy,
with his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily
over his shoulder.

“Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!” shouted Denísov
evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot
whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small
bare hand as red as his face.

“Ah, Váska!” joyfully replied Nesvítski. “What’s up with
you?”

“The squadwon can’t pass,” shouted Váska Denísov, showing his
white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which
twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting
white foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his
hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let
him. “What is this? They’re like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the
way!... Let us pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I’ll hack
you with my saber!” he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its
scabbard and flourishing it.

The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and
Denísov joined Nesvítski.

“How’s it you’re not drunk today?” said Nesvítski when the
other had ridden up to him.

“They don’t even give one time to dwink!” answered Váska
Denísov. “They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they
mean to fight, let’s fight. But the devil knows what this is.”

“What a dandy you are today!” said Nesvítski, looking at
Denísov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.

Denísov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused
a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvítski’s nose.

“Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, bwushed my teeth,
and scented myself.”

The imposing figure of Nesvítski followed by his Cossack, and
the determination of Denísov who flourished his sword and shouted
frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through
to the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the
bridge Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,
and having done this he rode back.

Having cleared the way Denísov stopped at the end of the bridge.
Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the
ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw
nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in
front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge
on his side of it.

The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the
trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,
estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually
encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in
regular order.

“Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!” said one.

“What good are they? They’re led about just for show!” remarked
another.

“Don’t kick up the dust, you infantry!” jested an hussar whose
prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.

“I’d like to put you on a two days’ march with a knapsack! Your
fine cords would soon get a bit rubbed,” said an infantryman, wiping
the mud off his face with his sleeve. “Perched up there, you’re more
like a bird than a man.”

“There now, Zíkin, they ought to put you on a horse. You’d look
fine,” said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under
the weight of his knapsack.

“Take a stick between your legs, that’ll suit you for a horse!”
the hussar shouted back.





CHAPTER VIII

The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing
together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last
the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last
battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denísov’s squadron of hussars
remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could
be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from
the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the
river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away.
At the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our
Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high
ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the
French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All
the officers and men of Denísov’s squadron, though they tried to talk
of other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what
was there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches
appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy’s troops.
The weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending
brightly upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and
at intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard
from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy
except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred
yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that
stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates
two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.

“One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing
the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And
what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree, that
roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear
and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must
be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will
inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are
strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such
excitedly animated and healthy men.” So thinks, or at any rate
feels, anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives
a particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that
takes place at such moments.

On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose,
and a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The
officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The
hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole
squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron
commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon
ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls
with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell
somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound
of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its
rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the
ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers
without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their
comrades’ impression. Every face, from Denísov’s to that of the
bugler, showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and
excitement, around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking
at the soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mirónov ducked
every time a ball flew past. Rostóv on the left flank, mounted on his
Rook—a handsome horse despite its game leg—had the happy air of a
schoolboy called up before a large audience for an examination in which
he feels sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone
with a clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly
he sat under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same
indication of something new and stern showed round the mouth.

“Who’s that curtseying there? Cadet Miwónov! That’s not wight!
Look at me,” cried Denísov who, unable to keep still on one spot,
kept turning his horse in front of the squadron.

The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Váska Denísov, and his whole
short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in
which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually
did, especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he
was only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds
when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his
good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the
saddle, he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in
a hoarse voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to
Kírsten. The staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a
walk to meet him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always,
only his eyes were brighter than usual.

“Well, what about it?” said he to Denísov. “It won’t come to a
fight. You’ll see—we shall retire.”

“The devil only knows what they’re about!” muttered Denísov.
“Ah, Wostóv,” he cried noticing the cadet’s bright face,
“you’ve got it at last.”

And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostóv
felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge.
Denísov galloped up to him.

“Your excellency! Let us attack them! I’ll dwive them off.”

“Attack indeed!” said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his
face as if driving off a troublesome fly. “And why are you stopping
here? Don’t you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron
back.”

The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without
having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front
line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side
of the river.

The two Pávlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the
hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdánich Schubert, came
up to Denísov’s squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostóv,
without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the
first time since their encounter concerning Telyánin. Rostóv, feeling
that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now
admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the
colonel’s athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red
neck. It seemed to Rostóv that Bogdánich was only pretending not
to notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet’s
courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it
seemed to him that Bogdánich rode so near in order to show him his
courage. Next he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a
desperate attack just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined how,
after the attack, Bogdánich would come up to him as he lay wounded and
would magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.

The high-shouldered figure of Zherkóv, familiar to the Pávlograds as
he had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel.
After his dismissal from headquarters Zherkóv had not remained in the
regiment, saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he
could get more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded
in attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagratión. He now
came to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear
guard.

“Colonel,” he said, addressing Rostóv’s enemy with an air of
gloomy gravity and glancing round at his comrades, “there is an order
to stop and fire the bridge.”

“An order to who?” asked the colonel morosely.

“I don’t myself know ‘to who,’” replied the cornet in a
serious tone, “but the prince told me to ‘go and tell the colonel
that the hussars must return quickly and fire the bridge.’”

Zherkóv was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the
colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvítski
came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his
weight.

“How’s this, Colonel?” he shouted as he approached. “I told you
to fire the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all
beside themselves over there and one can’t make anything out.”

The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvítski.

“You spoke to me of inflammable material,” said he, “but you said
nothing about firing it.”

“But, my dear sir,” said Nesvítski as he drew up, taking off his
cap and smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand,
“wasn’t I telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material
had been put in position?”

“I am not your ‘dear sir,’ Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell
me to burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders
strictly to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would
burn it, I could not know by the holy spirit!”

“Ah, that’s always the way!” said Nesvítski with a wave of the
hand. “How did you get here?” said he, turning to Zherkóv.

“On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!”

“You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer...” continued the colonel in an
offended tone.

“Colonel,” interrupted the officer of the suite, “You must be
quick or the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot.”

The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout
staff officer, and at Zherkóv, and he frowned.

“I will the bridge fire,” he said in a solemn tone as if to announce
that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still
do the right thing.

Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame
for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second
squadron, that in which Rostóv was serving under Denísov, to return to
the bridge.

“There, it’s just as I thought,” said Rostóv to himself. “He
wishes to test me!” His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his
face. “Let him see whether I am a coward!” he thought.

Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression
appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostóv watched his enemy,
the colonel, closely—to find in his face confirmation of his own
conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostóv, and looked
as he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word
of command.

“Look sharp! Look sharp!” several voices repeated around him.

Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the
hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men
were crossing themselves. Rostóv no longer looked at the colonel, he
had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid
that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into
an orderly’s charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with
a thud. Denísov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something.
Rostóv saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs
catching and their sabers clattering.

“Stretchers!” shouted someone behind him.

Rostóv did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,
trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not
looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,
and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.

“At boss zides, Captain,” he heard the voice of the colonel, who,
having ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a
triumphant, cheerful face.

Rostóv wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and
was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front
the better. But Bogdánich, without looking at or recognizing Rostóv,
shouted to him:

“Who’s that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come
back, Cadet!” he cried angrily; and turning to Denísov, who, showing
off his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:

“Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount,” he said.

“Oh, every bullet has its billet,” answered Váska Denísov, turning
in his saddle.


Meanwhile Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer of the suite were
standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small
group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord,
and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at
what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the blue
uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.

“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who’ll get there first? Will they
get there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot
range and wipe them out?” These were the questions each man of the
troops on the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself
with a sinking heart—watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright
evening light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with
their bayonets and guns.

“Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!” said Nesvítski; “they are
within grapeshot range now.”

“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the
suite.

“True enough,” answered Nesvítski; “two smart fellows could have
done the job just as well.”

“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkóv, his eyes fixed on the
hussars, but still with that naïve air that made it impossible to know
whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. “Ah, your excellency!
How you look at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the
Vladímir medal and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the
squadron may be recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our
Bogdánich knows how things are done.”

“There now!” said the officer of the suite, “that’s
grapeshot.”

He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached
and hurriedly removed.

On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke
appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the
moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two
reports one after another, and a third.

“Oh! Oh!” groaned Nesvítski as if in fierce pain, seizing the
officer of the suite by the arm. “Look! A man has fallen! Fallen,
fallen!”

“Two, I think.”

“If I were Tsar I would never go to war,” said Nesvítski, turning
away.

The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue
uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again
but at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the
bridge. But this time Nesvítski could not see what was happening there,
as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in
setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no
longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was
someone to fire at.

The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars
got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too
high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and
knocked three of them over.

Rostóv, absorbed by his relations with Bogdánich, had paused on the
bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he
had always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the
bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the
other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a
rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest
to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostóv ran up to him with
the others. Again someone shouted, “Stretchers!” Four men seized the
hussar and began lifting him.

“Oooh! For Christ’s sake let me alone!” cried the wounded man, but
still he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.

Nicholas Rostóv turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed
into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the
sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep!
How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the
waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway
blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and
the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace
and happiness... “I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I
were there,” thought Rostóv. “In myself alone and in that sunshine
there is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and
this uncertainty and hurry... There—they are shouting again, and
again are all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it,
death, is here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never
again see the sun, this water, that gorge!...”

At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other
stretchers came into view before Rostóv. And the fear of death and of
the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one
feeling of sickening agitation.

“O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect
me!” Rostóv whispered.

The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices
sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.

“Well, fwiend? So you’ve smelt powdah!” shouted Váska Denísov
just above his ear.

“It’s all over; but I am a coward—yes, a coward!” thought
Rostóv, and sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting
one foot, from the orderly and began to mount.

“Was that grapeshot?” he asked Denísov.

“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denísov. “You worked like wegular
bwicks and it’s nasty work! An attack’s pleasant work! Hacking
away at the dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them
shooting at you like a target.”

And Denísov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostóv, composed
of the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer from the suite.

“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostóv. And this
was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation
which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.

“Here’s something for you to report,” said Zherkóv. “See if I
don’t get promoted to a sublieutenancy.”

“Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!” said the colonel
triumphantly and gaily.

“And if he asks about the losses?”

“A trifle,” said the colonel in his bass voice: “two hussars
wounded, and one knocked out,” he added, unable to restrain a happy
smile, and pronouncing the phrase “knocked out” with ringing
distinctness.





CHAPTER IX

Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command
of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it,
losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies,
and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had
been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded
by Kutúzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where
overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as
necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.
There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the
courage and endurance—acknowledged even by the enemy—with which the
Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more
rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had
joined Kutúzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and
Kutúzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The
defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an
offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the
modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutúzov when he was in
Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable
aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were
advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.

On the twenty-eighth of October Kutúzov with his army crossed to the
left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time
with the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the
thirtieth he attacked Mortier’s division, which was on the left bank,
and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken:
banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a
fortnight’s retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight
had not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the
troops were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number
in killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and
wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter
in which Kutúzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and
though the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military
hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the
stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of
the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters
most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach
of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of
the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.

Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian
General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been
wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark
of the commander in chief’s special favor he was sent with the news of
this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was
threatened by the French) but at Brünn. Despite his apparently delicate
build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many
very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived
at Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhtúrov to
Kutúzov, he was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brünn.
To be so sent meant not only a reward but an important step toward
promotion.

The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that
had fallen the previous day—the day of the battle. Reviewing his
impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the
impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off
given him by the commander in chief and his fellow officers, Prince
Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a
man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon
as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the
wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that
the Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he
quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that
this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He
again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage
during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark
starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was
thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides
of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.

At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded.
The Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front
cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of
the long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being
jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian
words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked
silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy
hurrying past them.

Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what
action they had been wounded. “Day before yesterday, on the Danube,”
answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the
soldier three gold pieces.

“That’s for them all,” he said to the officer who came up.

“Get well soon, lads!” he continued, turning to the soldiers.
“There’s plenty to do still.”

“What news, sir?” asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a
conversation.

“Good news!... Go on!” he shouted to the driver, and they galloped
on.

It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved
streets of Brünn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the
lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that
atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a
soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,
Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and
alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly
and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and
rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer
dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself
stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual
questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He
expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance
to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and
learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.

“To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find
the adjutant on duty,” said the official. “He will conduct you to
the Minister of War.”

The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went
in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing
with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a
corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The
adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any
attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.

Prince Andrew’s joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he
approached the door of the minister’s room. He felt offended, and
without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into
one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly
suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise
the adjutant and the minister. “Away from the smell of powder, they
probably think it easy to gain victories!” he thought. His eyes
narrowed disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with
peculiarly deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened
when he saw the minister seated at a large table reading some papers
and making pencil notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes
taking no notice of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the
minister’s bent bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading
to the end, without raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the
sound of footsteps.

“Take this and deliver it,” said he to his adjutant, handing him the
papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.

Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutúzov’s army
interested the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was
concerned with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that
impression. “But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me,” he
thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them
evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive
head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent
expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and
habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which
does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is
continually receiving many petitioners one after another.

“From General Field Marshal Kutúzov?” he asked. “I hope it is
good news? There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was
high time!”

He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it
with a mournful expression.

“Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!” he exclaimed in German. “What a
calamity! What a calamity!”

Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked
at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.

“Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is
not captured.” Again he pondered. “I am very glad you have brought
good news, though Schmidt’s death is a heavy price to pay for the
victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I
thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the
parade. However, I will let you know.”

The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,
reappeared.

“Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to
see you,” he added, bowing his head.

When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest
and happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the
indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The
whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed
the memory of a remote event long past.





CHAPTER X

Prince Andrew stayed at Brünn with Bilíbin, a Russian acquaintance of
his in the diplomatic service.

“Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,”
said Bilíbin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. “Franz, put the
prince’s things in my bedroom,” said he to the servant who was
ushering Bolkónski in. “So you’re a messenger of victory, eh?
Splendid! And I am sitting here ill, as you see.”

After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat’s
luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilíbin
settled down comfortably beside the fire.

After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of
all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince
Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such
as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,
after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian
(for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he
supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was
then particularly strong.

Bilíbin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as
Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but
had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutúzov.
Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high
in the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilíbin gave
promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He was still a young man but
no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age
of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather
important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador
in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many
diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,
avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those,
who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would
sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well
whatever the import of his work. It was not the question “What for?”
but the question “How?” that interested him. What the diplomatic
matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to
prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and
elegantly. Bilíbin’s services were valued not only for what he wrote,
but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the
highest spheres.

Bilíbin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be
made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say
something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was
possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,
finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the
inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so
that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to
drawing room. And, in fact, Bilíbin’s witticisms were hawked about
in the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters
considered important.

His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always
looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one’s fingers after a
Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play
of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds
and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and
deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always
twinkled and looked out straight.

“Well, now tell me about your exploits,” said he.

Bolkónski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the
engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.

“They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of
skittles,” said he in conclusion.

Bilíbin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.

“Cependant, mon cher,” he remarked, examining his nails from a
distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, “malgré la haute
estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que
votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.” *

     * “But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox
     Russian army, I must say that your victory was not
     particularly victorious.”


He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in
Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.

“Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier
and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!
Where’s the victory?”

“But seriously,” said Prince Andrew, “we can at any rate say
without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm...”

“Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?”

“Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness
of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by
seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon.”

“And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have
been there at seven in the morning,” returned Bilíbin with a smile.
“You ought to have been there at seven in the morning.”

“Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic
methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?” retorted Prince Andrew
in the same tone.

“I know,” interrupted Bilíbin, “you’re thinking it’s very
easy to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but
still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only
the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and
King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor
secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my
joy to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the
Prater... True, we have no Prater here...”

He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his
forehead.

“It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon cher,” said Bolkónski.
“I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic
subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can’t make it
out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke
Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutúzov
alone at last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the
invincibility of the French, and the Minister of War does not even care
to hear the details.”

“That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see it’s hurrah for the Tsar,
for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but
what do we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring
us nice news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one
archduke’s as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only
over a fire brigade of Bonaparte’s, that will be another story and
we’ll fire off some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done
on purpose to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke
Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its
defense—as much as to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but heaven help you
and your capital!’ The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you
expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit
that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived.
It’s as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose
you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a
victory, what effect would that have on the general course of events?
It’s too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!”

“What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?”

“Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count,
our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.”

After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and
especially after having dined, Bolkónski felt that he could not take in
the full significance of the words he heard.

“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilíbin continued,
“and showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna
was fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that
your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can’t be
received as a savior.”

“Really I don’t care about that, I don’t care at all,” said
Prince Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle
before Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as
the fall of Austria’s capital. “How is it Vienna was taken? What of
the bridge and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard
reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?” he said.

“Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is
defending us—doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending
us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been
taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been
given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the
mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad
quarter of an hour between two fires.”

“But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,” said
Prince Andrew.

“Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they
daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign,
it won’t be your skirmishing at Dürrenstein, or gunpowder at all,
that will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilíbin
quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and
pausing. “The only question is what will come of the meeting between
the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia
joins the Allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will be war.
If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of
the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up.”

“What an extraordinary genius!” Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, “and what
luck the man has!”

“Buonaparte?” said Bilíbin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead
to indicate that he was about to say something witty. “Buonaparte?”
he repeated, accentuating the u: “I think, however, now that he lays
down laws for Austria at Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grâce de
l’u! * I shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply
Bonaparte!”

    * “We must let him off the u!”


“But joking apart,” said Prince Andrew, “do you really think the
campaign is over?”

“This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is
not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the
first place because her provinces have been pillaged—they say the Holy
Russian army loots terribly—her army is destroyed, her capital
taken, and all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And
therefore—this is between ourselves—I instinctively feel that we
are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and
projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.”

    * Fine eyes.

“Impossible!” cried Prince Andrew. “That would be too base.”

“If we live we shall see,” replied Bilíbin, his face again becoming
smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.

When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a
clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he
felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far
away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery,
Bonaparte’s new triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and the
audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.

He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry
and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now
again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,
the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode
forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,
and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since
childhood.

He woke up...

“Yes, that all happened!” he said, and, smiling happily to himself
like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.





CHAPTER XI

Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first
thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented
to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite
Austrian adjutant, Bilíbin, and last night’s conversation. Having
dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he
had not worn for a long time, he went into Bilíbin’s study fresh,
animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four
gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kurágin,
who was a secretary to the embassy, Bolkónski was already acquainted.
Bilíbin introduced him to the others.

The gentlemen assembled at Bilíbin’s were young, wealthy, gay society
men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilíbin, their
leader, called les nôtres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of
diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with
war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to
the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince
Andrew as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From
politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions
about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry
jests and gossip.

    * Ours.

“But the best of it was,” said one, telling of the misfortune of
a fellow diplomat, “that the Chancellor told him flatly that his
appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.
Can you fancy the figure he cut?...”

“But the worst of it, gentlemen—I am giving Kurágin away to
you—is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is
taking advantage of it!”

Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its
arm. He began to laugh.

“Tell me about that!” he said.

“Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!” cried several voices.

“You, Bolkónski, don’t know,” said Bilíbin turning to Prince
Andrew, “that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of
the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing
among the women!”

“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,” * announced Prince
Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.

    * “Woman is man’s companion.”


Bilíbin and the rest of “ours” burst out laughing in Hippolyte’s
face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom—he had to
admit—he had almost been jealous on his wife’s account, was the butt
of this set.

“Oh, I must give you a treat,” Bilíbin whispered to Bolkónski.
“Kurágin is exquisite when he discusses politics—you should see his
gravity!”

He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking
to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these
two.

“The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance,” began
Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, “without
expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless
His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...

“Wait, I have not finished...” he said to Prince Andrew, seizing
him by the arm, “I believe that intervention will be stronger than
nonintervention. And...” he paused. “Finally one cannot impute the
nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end.”
And he released Bolkónski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.

“Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
mouth!” said Bilíbin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with
satisfaction.

Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently
distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild
laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.

“Well now, gentlemen,” said Bilíbin, “Bolkónski is my guest in
this house and in Brünn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I
can, with all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would
be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult,
and I beg you all to help me. Brünn’s attractions must be shown him.
You can undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course
the women.”

“We must let him see Amelie, she’s exquisite!” said one of
“ours,” kissing his finger tips.

“In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane
interests,” said Bilíbin.

“I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,
gentlemen, it is already time for me to go,” replied Prince Andrew
looking at his watch.

“Where to?”

“To the Emperor.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“Well, au revoir, Bolkónski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back early to
dinner,” cried several voices. “We’ll take you in hand.”

“When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way
that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated,” said Bilíbin,
accompanying him to the hall.

“I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts,
I can’t,” replied Bolkónski, smiling.

“Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving
audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can’t do it, as
you will see.”





CHAPTER XII

At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had
been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his
face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was
over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed
Bolkónski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor
Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the
conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor
seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.

“Tell me, when did the battle begin?” he asked hurriedly.

Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:
“Was Kutúzov well? When had he left Krems?” and so on. The Emperor
spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions—the
answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest
him.

“At what o’clock did the battle begin?” asked the Emperor.

“I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o’clock the battle began at
the front, but at Dürrenstein, where I was, our attack began after
five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkónski growing more animated and
expecting that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which
he had ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor
smiled and interrupted him.

“How many miles?”

“From where to where, Your Majesty?”

“From Dürrenstein to Krems.”

“Three and a half miles, Your Majesty.”

“The French have abandoned the left bank?”

“According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the
night.”

“Is there sufficient forage in Krems?”

“Forage has not been supplied to the extent...”

The Emperor interrupted him.

“At what o’clock was General Schmidt killed?”

“At seven o’clock, I believe.”

“At seven o’clock? It’s very sad, very sad!”

The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and
was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he
saw friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday’s adjutant
reproached him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him
his own house. The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the
Maria Theresa Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring
on him. The Empress’ chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The
archduchess also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and
for a few seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador
took him by the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to
him.

Contrary to Bilíbin’s forecast the news he had brought was joyfully
received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutúzov was awarded
the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.
Bolkónski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning
calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five
in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to
Bilíbin’s house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle
and his visit to Brünn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of
luggage. Franz, Bilíbin’s man, was dragging a portmanteau with some
difficulty out of the front door.

Before returning to Bilíbin’s Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop
to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some
time in the shop.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, your excellency!” said Franz, with difficulty rolling the
portmanteau into the vehicle, “we are to move on still farther. The
scoundrel is again at our heels!”

“Eh? What?” asked Prince Andrew.

Bilíbin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.

“There now! Confess that this is delightful,” said he. “This
affair of the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without
striking a blow!”

Prince Andrew could not understand.

“But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the
town knows?”

“I come from the archduchess’. I heard nothing there.”

“And you didn’t see that everybody is packing up?”

“I did not... What is it all about?” inquired Prince Andrew
impatiently.

“What’s it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that
Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat
is now rushing along the road to Brünn and will be here in a day or
two.”

“What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was
mined?”

“That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why.”

Bolkónski shrugged his shoulders.

“But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It
will be cut off,” said he.

“That’s just it,” answered Bilíbin. “Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those
gentlemen, messieurs les maréchaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard,
mount and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)
‘Gentlemen,’ says one of them, ‘you know the Thabor Bridge is
mined and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its
head and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up
the bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the
Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take
it!’ ‘Yes, let’s!’ say the others. And off they go and take the
bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the
Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication.”

    * The marshalls.

“Stop jesting,” said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news
grieved him and yet he was pleased.

As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless
situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it
out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from
the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!
Listening to Bilíbin he was already imagining how on reaching the army
he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one
that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the
executing of the plan.

“Stop this jesting,” he said.

“I am not jesting,” Bilíbin went on. “Nothing is truer or sadder.
These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs;
they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on
their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the
tête-de-pont. * They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that
the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with
Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The
officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack
jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to
the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into
the water, and approaches the tête-de-pont. At length appears the
lieutenant general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself.
‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars!
Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another’s hand.... The
Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg’s
acquaintance.’ In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so
bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly
established intimacy with the French marshals, and so dazzled by the
sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich plumes, qu’il n’y voit que du
feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire faire sur l’ennemi!” *(2)
In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilíbin did not forget to
pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation. “The
French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the
bridge is taken! But what is best of all,” he went on, his excitement
subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, “is that the
sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire
the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French
troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes
stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,
goes up to Auersperg and says: ‘Prince, you are being deceived, here
are the French!’ Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is
allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a
true Gascon) and says: ‘I don’t recognize the world-famous Austrian
discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!’ It
was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and
orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair
of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor
rascality....”

     * Bridgehead.

     * (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that
     he ought to be firing at the enemy.

“It may be treachery,” said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the
gray overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing,
and the glory that awaited him.

“Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light,” replied
Bilíbin. “It’s not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is
just as at Ulm... it is...”—he seemed to be trying to find the right
expression. “C’est... c’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackés (It is...
it is a bit of Mack. We are Macked),” he concluded, feeling that he
had produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His
hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a
slight smile he began to examine his nails.

“Where are you off to?” he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had
risen and was going toward his room.

“I am going away.”

“Where to?”

“To the army.”

“But you meant to stay another two days?”

“But now I am off at once.”

And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to
his room.

“Do you know, mon cher,” said Bilíbin following him, “I have been
thinking about you. Why are you going?”

And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles
vanished from his face.

Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.

“Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to
the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is
heroism!”

“Not at all,” said Prince Andrew.

“But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other
side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,
is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for
anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been
dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our
ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmütz, and Olmütz is a
very decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my calèche.”

“Do stop joking, Bilíbin,” cried Bolkónski.

“I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are
you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two
things,” and the skin over his left temple puckered, “either you
will not reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will
share defeat and disgrace with Kutúzov’s whole army.”

And Bilíbin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was
insoluble.

“I cannot argue about it,” replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he
thought: “I am going to save the army.”

“My dear fellow, you are a hero!” said Bilíbin.





CHAPTER XIII

That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkónski
set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and
fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.

In Brünn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy
baggage was already being dispatched to Olmütz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince
Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with
great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed
with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew
took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and
weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the
commander in chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the
position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of
the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.

“Cette armée russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportée des
extrémités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même
sort—(le sort de l’armée d’Ulm).” * He remembered these words
in Bonaparte’s address to his army at the beginning of the campaign,
and they awoke in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling
of wounded pride, and a hope of glory. “And should there be nothing
left but to die?” he thought. “Well, if need be, I shall do it no
worse than others.”

     * “That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of
     the earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same
     fate—(the fate of the army at Ulm).”


He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,
carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all
kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and
sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear
could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts
and gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the
urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.
All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some
flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers
sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their
companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or
returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At
each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the
din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud
pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,
traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers
directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their
voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces
that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.

“Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army,” thought Bolkónski,
recalling Bilíbin’s words.

Wishing to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up to
a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,
evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and
looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calèche.
A soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the
apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up
and was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention
was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An
officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving
the woman’s vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes
of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed
piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron
and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:

“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven’s sake... Protect
me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh
Chasseurs.... They won’t let us pass, we are left behind and have lost
our people...”

“I’ll flatten you into a pancake!” shouted the angry officer to
the soldier. “Turn back with your slut!”

“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?” screamed the
doctor’s wife.

“Kindly let this cart pass. Don’t you see it’s a woman?” said
Prince Andrew riding up to the officer.

The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the
soldier. “I’ll teach you to push on!... Back!”

“Let them pass, I tell you!” repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his
lips.

“And who are you?” cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy
rage, “who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here,
not you! Go back or I’ll flatten you into a pancake,” repeated he.
This expression evidently pleased him.

“That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp,” came a voice
from behind.

Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless,
tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his
championship of the doctor’s wife in her queer trap might expose him
to what he dreaded more than anything in the world—to ridicule; but
his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence
Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised
his riding whip.

“Kind...ly let—them—pass!”

The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.

“It’s all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there’s
this disorder,” he muttered. “Do as you like.”

Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the
doctor’s wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with
a sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he
galloped on to the village where he was told who the commander in chief
was.

On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,
intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort
out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. “This
is a mob of scoundrels and not an army,” he was thinking as he went
up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by
name.

He turned round. Nesvítski’s handsome face looked out of the little
window. Nesvítski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and
flourishing his arm, called him to enter.

“Bolkónski! Bolkónski!... Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick...” he
shouted.

Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvítski and another adjutant
having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he
had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm.
This was particularly noticeable on Nesvítski’s usually laughing
countenance.

“Where is the commander in chief?” asked Bolkónski.

“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.

“Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?” asked
Nesvítski.

“I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could
do to get here.”

“And we, my dear boy! It’s terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack,
we’re getting it still worse,” said Nesvítski. “But sit down and
have something to eat.”

“You won’t be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,
Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is,” said the other
adjutant.

“Where are headquarters?”

“We are to spend the night in Znaim.”

“Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses,” said
Nesvítski. “They’ve made up splendid packs for me—fit to cross
the Bohemian mountains with. It’s a bad lookout, old fellow! But
what’s the matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that,” he
added, noticing that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.

“It’s nothing,” replied Prince Andrew.

He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor’s wife and
the convoy officer.

“What is the commander in chief doing here?” he asked.

“I can’t make out at all,” said Nesvítski.

“Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable,
abominable, quite abominable!” said Prince Andrew, and he went off to
the house where the commander in chief was.

Passing by Kutúzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of
his suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutúzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagratión and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian
general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlóvski was
squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned
up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlóvski’s
face looked worn—he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced
at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.

“Second line... have you written it?” he continued dictating to the
clerk. “The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian...”

“One can’t write so fast, your honor,” said the clerk, glancing
angrily and disrespectfully at Kozlóvski.

Through the door came the sounds of Kutúzov’s voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlóvski looked at him, the
disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and
Kozlóvski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander
in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the
horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and
disastrous was about to happen.

He turned to Kozlóvski with urgent questions.

“Immediately, Prince,” said Kozlóvski. “Dispositions for
Bagratión.”

“What about capitulation?”

“Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle.”

Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard.
Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and
Kutúzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.
Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutúzov but the expression of
the commander in chief’s one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied
with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He
looked straight at his adjutant’s face without recognizing him.

“Well, have you finished?” said he to Kozlóvski.

“One moment, your excellency.”

Bagratión, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,
impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in chief.

“I have the honor to present myself,” repeated Prince Andrew rather
loudly, handing Kutúzov an envelope.

“Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”

Kutúzov went out into the porch with Bagratión.

“Well, good-by, Prince,” said he to Bagratión. “My blessing, and
may Christ be with you in your great endeavor!”

His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left
hand he drew Bagratión toward him, and with his right, on which he wore
a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently
habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagratión kissed him on the
neck instead.

“Christ be with you!” Kutúzov repeated and went toward his
carriage. “Get in with me,” said he to Bolkónski.

“Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain
with Prince Bagratión’s detachment.”

“Get in,” said Kutúzov, and noticing that Bolkónski still delayed,
he added: “I need good officers myself, need them myself!”

They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.

“There is still much, much before us,” he said, as if with an old
man’s penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkónski’s
mind. “If a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,”
he added as if speaking to himself.

Prince Andrew glanced at Kutúzov’s face only a foot distant from him
and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near
his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty
eye socket. “Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men’s
death,” thought Bolkónski.

“That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,” he said.

Kutúzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been
saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying
on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew.
There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he
questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the
Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems
affair, and about some ladies they both knew.





CHAPTER XIV

On November 1 Kutúzov had received, through a spy, news that the army
he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that
the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in
immense force upon Kutúzov’s line of communication with the troops
that were arriving from Russia. If Kutúzov decided to remain at Krems,
Napoleon’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him
off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he
would find himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutúzov decided
to abandon the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia,
he would have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian
mountains, defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and
abandoning all hope of a junction with Buxhöwden. If Kutúzov decided
to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmütz, to unite with the
troops arriving from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road
by the French who had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his
baggage and transport, having to accept battle on the march against an
enemy three times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.

Kutúzov chose this latter course.

The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were
advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles
off on the line of Kutúzov’s retreat. If he reached Znaim before the
French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the
French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a
disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall
the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French
from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the
Russians from Krems to Znaim.

The night he received the news, Kutúzov sent Bagratión’s vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim
to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagratión was to make this march without
resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he
succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as