2014년 11월 27일 목요일

war and peace 14

war and peace 14


"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.

"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the artilleryman,
wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if apologizing for the
state of his gun.

It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the
infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It
had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces
off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the
right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in
the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers
who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the
village again, but Tushin's guns could not move, and the artillerymen,
Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their
fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out
of a side street.

"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one.

"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now," said
another.

"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing
could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to drink?"

The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in
the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded by the
humming infantry as by a frame.

In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing
always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of
hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the
wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness
of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their
groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.
After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a
white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing: "What
did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?" came eager
questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing closer
together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently
those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the middle of
the muddy road.

Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin,
having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing
station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the
soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged himself to the
fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole
body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by an
excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory
position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,
which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered
figure of Tushin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him.
Tushin's large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and
commiseration on Rostov, who saw that Tushin with his whole heart wished
to help him but could not.

From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who
were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of
voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud, the
crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.

It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the
gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.
Rostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and
around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held
his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.

"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my company,
your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!"

With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to
the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns moved a
trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to
the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying
to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.

"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them
shouted hoarsely.

Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg
band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.

"Must one die like a dog?" said he.

Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran
up, begging a little fire for the infantry.

"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow
countrymen. Thanks for the fire--we'll return it with interest," said
he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.

Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed
by the fire. One of them stumbled.

"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he.

"He's dead--why carry him?" said another.

"Shut up!"

And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.

"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.

"Yes."

"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here," said
a gunner, coming up to Tushin.

"Coming, friend."

Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight, walked
away from the fire.

Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared for
him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some commanding
officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the
half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the
general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a
glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet
ring, and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew,
pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.

In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and
the accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture, shaking his
head in perplexity--perhaps because the banner really interested him,
perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a
dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a
French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers
were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking the
individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our
losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was
informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn
from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the
French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and
had broken up the French troops.

"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was
disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come on
and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'--and that's
what I did."

The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed
to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps it
might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that
confusion what did or did not happen?

"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he continued--
remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last interview
with the gentleman-ranker--"that Private Dolokhov, who was reduced to
the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and
particularly distinguished himself."

"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency," chimed in
Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all that
day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. "They broke up
two squares, your excellency."

Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of his
usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the glory
of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious expression,
though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie devoid of any
foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel:

"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically: infantry,
cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the
center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince
Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew that all
the guns there had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.)
"I think I sent you?" he added, turning to the staff officer on duty.

"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I can't
understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just
left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added, modestly.

Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the
village and had already been sent for.

"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
Andrew.

"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff officer,
with a smile to Bolkonski.

"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly and
abruptly.

All were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way
timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the
generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the
sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and
stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.

"How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not so much
at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkov laughed
loudest.

Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt
and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present
themselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he
had not thought about it until that moment. The officers' laughter
confused him still more. He stood before Bagration with his lower jaw
trembling and was hardly able to mutter: "I don't know... your
excellency... I had no men... your excellency."

"You might have taken some from the covering troops."

Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that was
perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into
trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who has
blundered looks at an examiner.

The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not wishing
to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to
intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows and his
fingers twitched nervously.

"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt
voice, "you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I went
there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two guns
smashed, and no supports at all."

Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at Bolkonski,
who spoke with suppressed agitation.

"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he
continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that battery
and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company," and without
awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.

Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show distrust
in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it,
bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew went out
with him.

"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin.

Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt
sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.

"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will all
this end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows before him.
The pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible
drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the
impression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged
with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers--wounded and
unwounded--it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting
the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To
rid himself of them he closed his eyes.

For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things
appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand, Sonya's
thin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with his
voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with Telyanin and
Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the harsh
voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so agonizingly,
incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always dragging it in one
direction. He tried to get away from them, but they would not for an
instant let his shoulder move a hair's breadth. It would not ache--it
would be well--if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to
get rid of them.

He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less
than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were
fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the doctor had not
come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at
the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.

"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostov. "There is no one to help me or pity
me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He sighed and,
doing so, groaned involuntarily.

"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out
over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and added:
"What a lot of men have been crippled today--frightful!"

Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes
fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,
bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his
healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why did
I come here?" he wondered.

Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of
Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army.

BOOK THREE: 1805




CHAPTER I

Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.
Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was
merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had
become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted
to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were
constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the
circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one
or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves,
some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He
did not, for instance, say to himself: "This man now has influence, I
must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special
grant." Nor did he say to himself: "Pierre is a rich man, I must entice
him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need."
But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told
him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince
Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him,
become intimate with him, and finally make his request.

He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as
Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of
Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to
Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness,
yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing,
Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he
thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural and
shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both
above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward
those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in
seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.

Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man, felt
himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and
preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to
sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of
which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his
estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not even
wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended and
grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different people--
businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike--were all disposed to
treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they
were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was
always hearing such words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With
your excellent heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were
he as clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in
his own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so
as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he really
was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly been
spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle and
affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair
plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the
funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him she was
very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not now feel she
had a right to ask him for anything, except only for permission, after
the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks longer in the house
she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain
from weeping at these words. Touched that this statuesque princess could
so change, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without
knowing what for. From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward
Pierre and began knitting a striped scarf for him.

"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a
great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasili to him, handing him a
deed to sign for the princess' benefit.

Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw
this bone--a bill for thirty thousand rubles--to the poor princess that
it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the
inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess
grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him,
especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made
him feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him.

It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it
would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could
not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had no
time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He was
always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful
intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and
general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if
he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he
did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of
him, but still that happy result always remained in the future.

More than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's affairs
and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of Count
Bezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of a man
oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for
pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of
his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice
of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in
Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would call Pierre, or go to
him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of weariness
and assurance, as if he were adding every time: "You know I am
overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that I trouble
myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I propose is
the only thing possible."

"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince Vasili
one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking as if
he were saying something which had long since been agreed upon and could
not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a place in my
carriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is now
settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is something I have
received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and you have been
entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.
The diplomatic career now lies open before you."

Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words
were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career,
wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili interrupted him in the
special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting his
speech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was
needed.

"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience,
and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of
being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it up
tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to
Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible
recollections." Prince Vasili sighed. "Yes, yes, my boy. And my valet
can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting," he added. "You
know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so I have
received what was due from the Ryazan estate and will keep it; you won't
require it. We'll go into the accounts later."

By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasili meant several
thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the
prince had retained for himself.

In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of
gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the
rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for him, and
acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous
that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle,
and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never
attained.

Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg.
The Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been reduced to the
ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew
was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he
used to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with a
friend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time was
taken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's
house in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful
daughter Helene.

Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.

Formerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that what
he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that remarks
which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became foolish
as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest
remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was
charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he could see that she
wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty.

In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna
Pavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added: "You
will find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful to
see."

When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some
link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and
Helene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were
being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an
entertaining supposition.

Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the novelty she
offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a diplomatist fresh
from Berlin with the very latest details of the Emperor Alexander's
visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august friends had pledged
themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold the cause of justice
against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pavlovna received Pierre with
a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the young man's recent loss
by the death of Count Bezukhov (everyone constantly considered it a duty
to assure Pierre that he was greatly afflicted by the death of the
father he had hardly known), and her melancholy was just like the august
melancholy she showed at the mention of her most august Majesty the
Empress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre felt flattered by this. Anna Pavlovna
arranged the different groups in her drawing room with her habitual
skill. The large group, in which were Prince Vasili and the generals,
had the benefit of the diplomat. Another group was at the tea table.
Pierre wished to join the former, but Anna Pavlovna--who was in the
excited condition of a commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of
new and brilliant ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in
action--seeing Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying:

"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She
glanced at Helene and smiled at her.) "My dear Helene, be charitable to
my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten minutes.
And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count who will not
refuse to accompany you."

The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre, looking
as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.

"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately
beauty as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so young a
girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from her
heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men
would occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don't you think so? I
only wanted to know your opinion," and Anna Pavlovna let Pierre go.

Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's perfection of
manner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her beauty and her
remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in society.

The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed
desirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather to show
her fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if inquiring what
she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna Pavlovna again
touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't say that it is dull
in my house again," and she glanced at Helene.

Helene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the
possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt
coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see
Helene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome and the
same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation, Helene
turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave to
everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little meaning
for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just speaking of
a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre's father, Count
Bezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Helene asked to see the
portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.

"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a
celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the
snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.

He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox,
passing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to make room,
and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening parties,
wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and
back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so
close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the
living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need
only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious
of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the creaking of her
corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty forming a complete
whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body only covered by her
garments. And having once seen this he could not help being aware of it,
just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once seen through.

"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene seemed to
say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman who may
belong to anyone--to you too," said her glance. And at that moment
Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his wife, and that
it could not be otherwise.

He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the
altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not
even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,
that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.

Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see
her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every
day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more
than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the
mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has
once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.
She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any
barrier except the barrier of his own will.

"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pavlovna's
voice, "I see you are all right there."

And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything
reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone
knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.

A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna said
to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"

This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house
done up.

"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is good to
have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince Vasili. "I
know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so young. You need
advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old woman's privilege."

She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have
mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing," she
continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.

When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what
had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that
the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned
he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good looking," he had
understood that this woman might belong to him.

"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought. "There
is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites in me. I
have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she
with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's why he was sent
away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her father... It's
bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection
was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that
another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her
worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she
would love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and
heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter of
Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body only veiled by its gray
dress. "But no! Why did this thought never occur to me before?" and
again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be
something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this
marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words and looks
of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna Pavlovna's words
and looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of
such hints from Prince Vasili and others, and was seized by terror lest
he had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was
evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at the very time he was
expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her
image rose in all its womanly beauty.




CHAPTER II

In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in
four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to
visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole
where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas
Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that
rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,
Prince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had
latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasili's house
where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in
Helene's presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to
her.

"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili
to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who
was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not
behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well, God be
with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, "but it must
be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I
will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he
ought to do then it will be my affair--yes, my affair. I am her father."

Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" and after the sleepless night
when he had decided that to marry Helene would be a calamity and that he
ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not
left Prince Vasili's and felt with terror that in people's eyes he was
every day more and more connected with her, that it was impossible for
him to return to his former conception of her, that he could not break
away from her, and that though it would be a terrible thing he would
have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have been able to
free himself but that Prince Vasili (who had rarely before given
receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening party
at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general
pleasure and disappoint everyone's expectation. Prince Vasili, in the
rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre's hand in passing
and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-
shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: "Till tomorrow," or, "Be
in to dinner or I shall not see you," or, "I am staying in for your
sake," and so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed in (as he
said) for Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him,
Pierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one
and the same thing: "It is time I understood her and made up my mind
what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she
is not stupid, she is an excellent girl," he sometimes said to himself
"she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She says little,
but what she does say is always clear and simple, so she is not stupid.
She never was abashed and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad
woman!" He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her
company, and she had always answered him either by a brief but
appropriate remark--showing that it did not interest her--or by a silent
look and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her
superiority. She was right in regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.

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