2014년 11월 27일 목요일

war and peace 21

war and peace 21


Rostov felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that
childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left
home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his
soul and his face.

"No, but listen," she said, "now you are quite a man, aren't you? I'm
awfully glad you're my brother." She touched his mustache. "I want to
know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?"

"Why did Sonya run away?" asked Rostov.

"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to her--
thou or you?"

"As may happen," said Rostov.

"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other time.
No, I'll tell you now. You know Sonya's my dearest friend. Such a friend
that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!"

She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long,
slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered
even by a ball dress.

"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the
fire and pressed it there!"

Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used
to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natasha's wildly bright eyes,
Rostov re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no meaning
for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life; and the
burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem to him
senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.

"Well, and is that all?" he asked.

"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just
nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it
for life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly."

"Well, what then?"

"Well, she loves me and you like that."

Natasha suddenly flushed.

"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to
forget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be
free.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?" asked
Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she
was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.

Rostov became thoughtful.

"I never go back on my word," he said. "Besides, Sonya is so charming
that only a fool would renounce such happiness."

"No, no!" cried Natasha, "she and I have already talked it over. We knew
you'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say that--if you
consider yourself bound by your promise--it will seem as if she had not
meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you
must, and that wouldn't do at all."

Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya had already
struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught
a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl
of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt
that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry
her, Rostov thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures and
interests before him! "Yes, they have taken a wise decision," he
thought, "I must remain free."

"Well then, that's excellent," said he. "We'll talk it over later on.
Oh, how glad I am to have you!"

"Well, and are you still true to Boris?" he continued.

"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natasha, laughing. "I don't think about him
or anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind."

"Dear me! Then what are you up to now?"

"Now?" repeated Natasha, and a happy smile lit up her face. "Have you
seen Duport?"

"No."

"Not seen Duport--the famous dancer? Well then, you won't understand.
That's what I'm up to."

Curving her arms, Natasha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back a
few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply
together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.

"See, I'm standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself on
her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone,
but will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone."

Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom, felt
envious and Natasha could not help joining in.

"No, but don't you think it's nice?" she kept repeating.

"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?"

Natasha flared up. "I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell him so
when I see him!"

"Dear me!" said Rostov.

"But that's all rubbish," Natasha chattered on. "And is Denisov nice?"
she asked.

"Yes, indeed!"

"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denisov?"

"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vaska is a splendid fellow."

"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?"

"Very."

"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together."

And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rostov met Sonya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how
to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of
meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not be
done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was
looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave with
her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you--Sonya.
But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks
asked him to forgive her for having dared, by Natasha's intermediacy, to
remind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His looks
thanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that one way or
another he would never cease to love her, for that would be impossible.

"How strange it is," said Vera, selecting a moment when all were silent,
"that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet like
strangers."

Vera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of
her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sonya,
Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who--dreading this
love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match--
blushed like a girl.

Denisov, to Rostov's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with pomaded
hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as he made
himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the ladies
and gentlemen than Rostov had ever expected to see him.




CHAPTER II

On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was welcomed by
his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling
Nikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young
man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good
dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.

The Rostovs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough
that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,
acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the
latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the
latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,
passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to
the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be at
home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His
despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from
Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly--he now
recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now
he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and
wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in
action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing
men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one
of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at
the Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski,
visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of
forty to whom Denisov had introduced him.

His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as
he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke
about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he
had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the
Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared
the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of
as the "angel incarnate."

During Rostov's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he did
not draw closer to Sonya, but rather drifted away from her. She was very
pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was at
the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no time
for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and prizes
his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he thought of
Sonya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, "Ah, there will
be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet
know. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but
now I have no time." Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women
was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies'
society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the
English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house--that
was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar!

At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy arranging
a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.

The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving
orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the club's head
cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for
this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the
club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the
arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so
well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and
still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of
their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.
The club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders with
pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they
so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing
several thousand rubles.

"Well then, mind and have cocks' comb in the turtle soup, you know!"

"Shall we have three cold dishes then?" asked the cook.

The count considered.

"We can't have less--yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one," said he,
bending down a finger.

"Then am I to order those large sterlets?" asked the steward.

"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was
forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he
clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,
Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who
appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set
the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be
brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here
on Friday."

Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his "little
countess" to have a rest, but remembering something else of importance,
he returned again, called back the cook and the club steward, and again
began giving orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were
heard at the door, and the young count, handsome, rosy, with a dark
little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by his easy life in
Moscow, entered the room.

"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile, as if
he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would only help a
bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but
shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that
sort of thing."

"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less before
the battle of Schon Grabern than you do now," said his son with a smile.

The old count pretended to be angry.

"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!"

And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful
expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and
son.

"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?" said he.
"Laughing at us old fellows!"

"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good
dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their
business!"

"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son
by both hands, he cried, "Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and pair
at once, and go to Bezukhov's, and tell him 'Count Ilya has sent you to
ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get them from
anyone else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in and ask the
princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay--the coachman Ipatka
knows--and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at Count
Orlov's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to
me."

"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?" asked Nicholas,
laughing. "Dear, dear!..."

At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,
preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna
Mikhaylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his
dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to
excuse his costume.

"No matter at all, my dear count," she said, meekly closing her eyes.
"But I'll go to Bezukhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall
get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case.
He has forwarded me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is now on the
staff."

The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna's taking upon herself one of
his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.

"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with him?"
he asked.

Anna Mikhaylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted
on her face.

"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate," she said. "If what we hear
is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we
were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young
Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what
consolation I can."

"Wh-what is the matter?" asked both the young and old Rostov.

Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.

"Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna's son," she said in a mysterious whisper, "has
compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to
his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that daredevil
after her!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for
Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her
sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called Dolokhov. "They say Pierre
is quite broken by his misfortune."

"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club--it will all blow
over. It will be a tremendous banquet."

Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred and
fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the
guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration, to
dinner.

On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had
been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories
that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it,
while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an
event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important,
and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in
December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though
all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in
conversation--Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count
Markov, and Prince Vyazemski--did not show themselves at the club, but
met in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took
their opinions from others--Ilya Rostov among them--remained for a while
without any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without
leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to
discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But
after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who
guided the club's opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking
clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-
of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear,
and in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These
reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat,
the treachery of the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron,
Kutuzov's incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience
of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people.
But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and
had achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals
were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished
by his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he
alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an
enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to
Bagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he had no
connections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor
was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections and
intrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian
campaign with the name of Suvorov. Moreover, paying such honor to
Bagration was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of
Kutuzov.

"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent
him," said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire. Kutuzov no
one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers, calling him a
court weathercock and an old satyr.

All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: "If you go on modeling
and modeling you must get smeared with clay," suggesting consolation for
our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the words of
Rostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by
highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them that it
is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian soldiers
only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and fresh
anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by our
officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had
killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded. Berg
was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when wounded in
the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone forward. Of
Bolkonski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him intimately
regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife with his
eccentric father.




CHAPTER III

On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled
with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime.
The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat,
stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress,
and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftans.
Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings,
stood at every door anxiously noting visitors' every movement in order
to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected
men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures
and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual
places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present
were casual guests--chiefly young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostov,
and Dolokhov--who was now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The
faces of these young people, especially those who were military men,
bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which
seems to say to the older generation, "We are prepared to respect and
honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us."

Nesvitski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his
wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went
about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here, as
elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his
wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he
treated them with absent-minded contempt.

By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth
and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and
so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men
were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully
to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round
Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how
the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to
force their way through them with bayonets.

Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from
Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.

In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply to
the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing close
by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently failed to
learn from Suvorov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a
cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him feel
that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of
Kutuzov.

Count Ilya Rostov, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft boots
between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the important and
unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all equals, while his
eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up young son, resting on
him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostov stood at a window with
Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made and highly valued. The
old count came up to them and pressed Dolokhov's hand.

"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together out
there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasili Ignatovich... How d'ye do,
old fellow?" he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but before
he had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a footman who
had run in announced, with a frightened face: "He's arrived!"

Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and--like rye shaken together
in a shovel--the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms
came together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the
ballroom.

Bagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword,
which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall
porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip
over his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of the battle
of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign
Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just
before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed,
which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naively
festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile
features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshev and Theodore
Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him, as
the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration was embarrassed, not
wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay
at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly
and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing
what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed
field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at
Schon Grabern--and he would have found that easier. The committeemen met
him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a
highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting
for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was
at first impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of
members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at
Bagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal.
Count Ilya Rostov, laughing and repeating the words, "Make way, dear
boy! Make way, make way!" pushed through the crowd more energetically
than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on
the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the club,
beset the new arrivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way through the
crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with
another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented
to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed
in the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in
dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should
submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver
with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who
had presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagration
(or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to
dinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses.

"Well, I will read them, then!" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing his
weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious
expression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading
them aloud. Bagration bowed his head and listened:


Bring glory then to Alexander's reign And on the throne our Titus
shield. A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, A Rhipheus at home,
a Caesar in the field! E'en fortunate Napoleon Knows by experience, now,
Bagration, And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...

But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced
that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came
the resounding strains of the polonaise:


Conquest's joyful thunder waken, Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...

and Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his
verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more
important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the rest, went
in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two
Alexanders--Bekleshev and Naryshkin--which was a significant allusion to
the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the
dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important
nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where
the land lies lowest.

Just before dinner, Count Ilya Rostov presented his son to Bagration,
who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward,
as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilya looked joyfully
and proudly around while Bagration spoke to his son.

Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov, sat
almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince
Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of the committee sat
facing Bagration and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality,
did the honors to the prince.

His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the
other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the
end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the
footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything
was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of
which Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen
began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish,
which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the
other committeemen. "There will be many toasts, it's time to begin," he
whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting
for what he would say.

"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he cried, and at the same
moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The
band immediately struck up "Conquest's joyful thunder waken..." All rose
and cried "Hurrah!" Bagration also rose and shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly
the same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schon Grabern.
Young Rostov's ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred
others. He nearly wept. "To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!"
he roared, "Hurrah!" and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to
the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued
for a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the
broken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had
made and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a
note lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, "To the health of the
hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration!" and again
his blue eyes grew moist. "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred voices
again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed
by Paul Ivanovich Kutuzov:


Russians! O'er all barriers on! Courage conquest guarantees; Have we not
Bagration? He brings foe men to their knees,... etc.

As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed
and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more glass was
smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshev,
Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the committee, to
all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count
Ilya Rostov separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast,
the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept
outright.




CHAPTER IV

Pierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. As usual, he ate and
drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that
some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through
dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and
a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his
nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear
nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some
depressing and unsolved problem.

The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the
princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's intimacy with his
wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in
the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly
through his spectacles, but that his wife's connection with Dolokhov was
a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the
princess' hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dolokhov,
who was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dolokhov's
handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous
rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his
wife's past and her relations with Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that
what was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be
true had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how
Dolokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the
campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself
of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dolokhov had
come straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him
money. Pierre recalled how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of
Dolokhov's living at their house, and how cynically Dolokhov had praised
his wife's beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had
not left them for a day.

"Yes, he is very handsome," thought Pierre, "and I know him. It would be
particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just
because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped
him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure
of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do
not believe it. I have no right to, and can't, believe it." He
remembered the expression Dolokhov's face assumed in his moments of
cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into
the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or
shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That expression was often on
Dolokhov's face when looking at him. "Yes, he is a bully," thought
Pierre, "to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that
everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that
I, too, am afraid of him--and in fact I am afraid of him," he thought,
and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul.
Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were now sitting opposite Pierre and
seemed very gay. Rostov was talking merrily to his two friends, one of
whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake,
and every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose
preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one
at the dinner. Rostov looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre
appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty,
and in a word--an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his
preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostov and had
not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor's health was drunk,
Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.

"What are you about?" shouted Rostov, looking at him in an ecstasy of
exasperation. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's health?"

Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till
all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostov.

"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But Rostov was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting "Hurrah!"

"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?" said Dolokhov to Rostov.

"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rostov.

"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women," said Denisov.

Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking
about him. He reddened and turned away.

"Well, now to the health of handsome women!" said Dolokhov, and with a
serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his
mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.

"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin--and their lovers!" he
added.

Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at
Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets
with Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal
guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov, leaning across,
snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at
Dolokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that
had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He
leaned his whole massive body across the table.

"How dare you take it?" he shouted.

Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvitski and the
neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.

"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whispered their frightened voices.

Dolokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that
smile of his which seemed to say, "Ah! This is what I like!"

"You shan't have it!" he said distinctly.

Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.

"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!" he ejaculated, and, pushing
back his chair, he rose from the table.

At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt
that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the
whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He
hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request
that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to be Dolokhov's
second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with
Nesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostov with Dolokhov
and Denisov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies
and other singers.

"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki," said Dolokhov, as he took leave
of Rostov in the club porch.

"And do you feel quite calm?" Rostov asked.

Dolokhov paused.

"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words.
If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write
affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be
killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm
intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and
then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma used to tell
me. 'Everyone fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see one your fear's
all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!' And that's
how it is with me. A demain, mon cher." *


* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.

Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the
Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov already there.
Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no
connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had
evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed
up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two
considerations: his wife's guilt, of which after his sleepless night he
had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dolokhov, who had
no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him.... "I
should perhaps have done the same thing in his place," thought Pierre.
"It's even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel,
this murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or
elbow, or knee. Can't I go away from here, run away, bury myself
somewhere?" passed through his mind. But just at moments when such
thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a particularly calm and
absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of the onlookers, "Will it
be long? Are things ready?"

When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,
and the pistols loaded, Nesvitski went up to Pierre.

"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and
should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in
choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I
did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground
for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were not right,
not quite in the right, you were impetuous..."

"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," said Pierre.

"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will
accept them," said Nesvitski (who like the others concerned in the
affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the
affair had come to an actual duel). "You know, Count, it is much more
honorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become irreparable.
There was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey...."

"No! What is there to talk about?" said Pierre. "It's all the same....
Is everything ready?" he added. "Only tell me where to go and where to
shoot," he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.

He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the
trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand--a fact that he
did not wish to confess.

"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot," said he.

"No apologies, none whatever," said Dolokhov to Denisov (who on his side
had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the
appointed place.

The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where
the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest
covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the
last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther
edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in
the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and
Nesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten
paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty paces' distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.

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