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You
ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my
wish
to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will
be
surprised
to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is
this:
my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand
any
contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as
you
know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure
the
notion
that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the
sovereigns
of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the
Great
Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but
from
my father's remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know
all
that
goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred on
Buonaparte,
who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not
accepted
as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father
cannot
stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his
political
views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow;
for
he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of
expressing
his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might
derive
from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the
disputes
about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will
be
decided very shortly.
Our
family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew's
absence.
He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After
his
sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has
again
become
as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that
heart
of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to
me,
that
life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he
has
grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more
nervous.
I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad
which
the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You
write
that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,
cultivated,
and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a
relation,
but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody
here,
from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his
arrival
in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the
way
rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones
as
that
you write about--I mean the report of my brother's betrothal to
the
little
Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and
certainly
not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely
speaks
about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too
deep
in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and
our
little
angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl
is
not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not
think
he
would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I
am
running
on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-bye, my
dear
friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear
friend,
Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.
MARY
CHAPTER
XXVI
In
the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected
letter
from
Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and
surprising
news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova.
The
whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender
and
confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never
loved
as
he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life
was.
He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his
resolve
when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it
to
his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask
her
father
to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt
of
his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides," he
wrote,
"the
matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father
then
insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of
that
period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If
the
doctors
did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but
as
it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me
and
my
relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and
always
shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his
anger,
now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would
destroy
half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same
question,
and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and
to
let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is
hope
that he may consent to reduce the term by four months."
After
long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the
letter
to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:
"Write
and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won't be
long--I
shall soon set him free."
The
princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her
speak
and,
raising his voice more and more, cried:
"Marry,
marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich, eh?
Yes,
a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him
that
he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas'
stepmother
and I'll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn't be
without
a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in
my
house--let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and
live
with him too?" he added, turning to Princess Mary. "Go in
heaven's
name!
Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!"
After
this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.
But
repressed vexation at his son's poor-spirited behavior found
expression
in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for
irony
a fresh one was now added--allusions to stepmothers and
amiabilities
to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"Why
shouldn't I marry her?" he asked his daughter. "She'll make a
splendid
princess!"
And
latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary noticed
that
her father was really associating more and more with the
Frenchwoman.
She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his
letter,
but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the
idea.
Little
Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were
Princess
Mary's joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone
must
have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest depths of
her
heart
had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation
of
her
life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God's
folk--
the
half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the
prince's
knowledge.
The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she
had
of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of
men
who
seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering,
struggling,
and harming one another, to obtain that impossible,
visionary,
sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his wife, she died,
but
that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness to another
woman.
Her father objected to this because he wanted a more
distinguished
and wealthier match for Andrew. And they all struggled and
suffered
and tormented one another and injured their souls, their
eternal
souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an
instant.
Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God,
came
down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and
is
a
probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it.
"How
is
it that no one realizes this?" thought Princess Mary. "No one
except
these
despised God's folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back
door,
afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by
him
but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and
all
the
cares of worldly welfare, in order without clinging to anything
to
wander
in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing
no
one any harm but praying for all--for those who drive one away as
well
as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth
there
is
no life or truth!"
There
was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called
Theodosia,
who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn
heavy
chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in
a
room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking
of
her
life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of
life
suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved
to
become
a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary
thought
about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,
strange
as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed
this
thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk,
and
he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the
pilgrims,
Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim's complete costume for
herself:
a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.
Often,
approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,
Princess
Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to
put
her project into execution.
Often,
listening to the pilgrims' tales, she was so stimulated by their
simple
speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning,
that
several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and
running
away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself by
Theodosia's
side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a wallet
on
her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from one
saint's
shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and
reaching
at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but
eternal
joy and bliss.
"I
shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to
get
used
to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on
till
my
legs fail, and I'll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last
reach
that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor
sighing..."
thought Princess Mary.
But
afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko
(Nicholas),
her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she
was
a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.
BOOK
SEVEN: 1810 - 11
CHAPTER
I
The
Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor--idleness--was a
condition
of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has
retained
a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only
because
we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because
our
moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An
inner
voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could
find
a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his
duty,
he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive
blessedness.
And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness
is
the lot of a whole class--the military. The chief attraction of
military
service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and
irreproachable
idleness.
Nicholas
Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when,
after
1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which
he
already
commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov.
Rostov
had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow
acquaintances
would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked
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