Kutuzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers,
calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr.
All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: "If you go on
modeling and modeling you must get smeared with clay," suggesting
consolation for our defeat by the memory of former victories; and
the words of Rostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to
battle by highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to
show them that it is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but
that Russian soldiers only need to be restrained and held back! On all
sides, new and fresh anecdotes were heard of individual examples of
heroism shown by our officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a
standard, another had killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five
cannon singlehanded. Berg was mentioned, by those who did not know
him, as having, when wounded in the right hand, taken his sword in the
left, and gone forward. Of Bolkonski, nothing was said, and only those
who knew him intimately regretted that he had died so young, leaving a
pregnant wife with his eccentric father.
CHAPTER III
On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were
filled with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in
springtime. The members and guests of the Club wandered hither and
thither, sat, stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in
evening dress, and a few here and there with powdered hair and in
Russian kaftans. Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and
smart stockings, stood at every door anxiously noting visitors'
every movement in order to offer their services. Most of those present
were elderly, respected men with broad, self-confident faces, fat
fingers, and resolute gestures and voices. This class of guests and
members sat in certain habitual places and met in certain habitual
groups. A minority of those present were casual guests - chiefly
young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostov, and Dolokhov - who was
now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The faces of these young
people, especially those who were militarymen, bore that expression of
condescending respect for their elders which seems to say to the older
generation, "We are prepared to respect and honor you, but all the
same remember that the future belongs to us."
Nesvitski was there as an old member of the Club. Pierre, who at his
wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles,
went about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull.
Here, as elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience
to his wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people,
he treated them with absent-minded contempt.
By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his
wealth and connections he belonged to the groups old and honored
guests, and so he went from one group to another. Some of the most
important old men were the center of groups which even strangers
approached respectfully to hear the voices of well-known men. The
largest circles formed round Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and
Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how the Russians had been
overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to force their way through
them with bayonets.
Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from
Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.
In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply
to the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing
close by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently
failed to learn from Suvorov even so simple a thing as the art of
crowing like a cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the
wit, making him feel that in that place and on that day, it was
improper to speak so of Kutuzov.
Count Ilya Rostov, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft
boots between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the
important and unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all
equals, while his eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up
young son, resting on him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostov
stood at a window with Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made
and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed
Dolokhov's hand.
"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been
together out there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasili
Ignatovich... How d'ye do, old fellow?" he said, turning to an old man
who was passing, but before he had finished his greeting there was a
general stir, and a footman who had run in announced, with a
frightened face: "He's arrived!"
Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and - like rye shaken
together in a shovel - the guests who had been scattered about in
different rooms came together and crowded in the large drawing room by
the door of the ballroom.
Bagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or
sword, which, in accord with the Club custom, he had given up to the
hall porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded
whip over his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of
the battle of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian
and foreign Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast.
Evidently just before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and
whiskers trimmed, which changed his appearance for the worse. There
was something naively festive in his air, which, in conjunction with
his firm and virile features, gave him a rather comical expression.
Bekleshev and Theodore Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the
doorway to allow him, as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration
was embarrassed, not wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and
this caused some delay at the doors, but after all he did at last
enter first. He walked shyly and awkwardly over the parquet floor of
the reception room, not knowing what to do with his hands; he was more
accustomed to walk over a plowed field under fire, as he had done at
the head of the Kursk regiment at Schon Grabern - and he would have
found that easier. The committeemen met him at the first door and,
expressing their delight at seeing such a highly honored guest, took
possession of him as it were, without waiting for his reply,
surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was at first
impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of members and
guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at Bagration
over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal. Count
Ilya Rostov, laughing and repeating the words, "Make way, dear boy!
Make way, make way!" pushed through the crowd more energetically
than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them
on the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the
Club, beset the new arrivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way
through the crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a
minute later with another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver
which he presented to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some
verses composed and printed in the hero's honor. Bagration, on
seeing the salver, glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help.
But all eyes demanded that he should submit. Feeling himself in
their power, he resolutely took the salver with both hands and
looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who had presented it
to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagration (or he
would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to dinner
with it) and drew his attention to the verses.
"Well, I will read them, then!" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing
his weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and
serious expression. But the author himself took the verses and began
reading them aloud. Bagration bowed his bead and listened:
Bring glory then to Alexander's reign
And on the throne our Titus shield.
A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man,
A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field!
E'en fortunate Napoleon
Knows by experience, now, Bagration,
And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...
But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo
announced that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the
dining room came the resounding strains of the polonaise:
Conquest's joyful thunder waken,
Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...
and Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading
his verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was
more important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the
rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between
two Alexanders - Bekleshev and Naryshkin - which was a significant
allusion to the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took
their seats in the dining room, according to their rank and
importance: the more important nearer to the honored guest, as
naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest.
Just before dinner, Count Ilya Rostov presented his son to
Bagration, who recognized him and said a few words to him,
disjointed and awkward, as were all the words he spoke that day, and
Count Ilya looked joyfully and proudly around while Bagration spoke to
his son.
Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov,
sat almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre,
beside Prince Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of
the committee sat facing Bagration and, as the very personification of
Moscow hospitality, did the honors to the prince.
His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and
the other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till
the end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions
to the footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety.
Everything was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet
(at sight of which Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious
pleasure), the footmen began popping corks and filling the champagne
glasses. After the fish, which made a certain sensation, the count
exchanged glances with the other committeemen. "There will be many
toasts, it's time to begin," he whispered, and taking up his glass, he
rose. All were silent, waiting for what he would say.
"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he cried, and at
the same moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and
enthusiasm. The band immediately struck up "Conquest's joyful
thunder waken..." All rose and cried "Hurrah!" Bagration also rose and
shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted it
on the field at Schon Grabern. Young Rostov's ecstatic voice could
be heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. "To the
health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he roared, "Hurrah!" and
emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many
followed his example, and the loud shouting continued for a long time.
When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass
and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had made and
exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a note
lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, "To the health of the
hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration!" and
again his blue eyes grew moist. "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred
voices again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a
cantata composed by Paul Ivanovich Kutuzov:
Russians! O'er all barriers on!
Courage conquest guarantees;
Have we not Bagration?
He brings foe men to their knees,... etc.
As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was
proposed and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more
glass was smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to
Bekleshev, Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the
committee, to all the Club members and to all the Club guests, and
finally to Count Ilya Rostov separately, as the organizer of the
banquet. At that toast, the count took out his handkerchief and,
covering his face, wept outright.
CHAPTER IV
Pierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. As usual, he ate
and drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed
that some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all
through dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed
eyes and a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge
of his nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and
hear nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by
some depressing and unsolved problem.
The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by
the princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's intimacy
with his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that
morning, which in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters
said that he saw badly through his spectacles, but that his wife's
connection with Dolokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre
absolutely disbelieved both the princess' hints and the letter, but he
feared now to look at Dolokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every
time he chanced to meet Dolokhov's handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt
something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly
away. Involuntarily recalling his wife's past and her relations with
Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be
true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his
wife. He involuntarily remembered how Dolokhov, who had fully
recovered his former position after the campaign, had returned to
Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations
with Pierre as a boon companion, Dolokhov had come straight to his
house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled
how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of Dolokhov's living at
their house, and how cynically Dolokhov had praised his wife's
beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had not left
them for a day.
"Yes, he is very handsome," thought Pierre, "and I know him. It
would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule
me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended
him, and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add
to the pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it
were true, but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can't,
believe it." He remembered the expression Dolokhov's face assumed in
his moments of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and
dropping them into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel
without any reason, or shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That
expression was often on Dolokhov's face when looking at him. "Yes,
he is a bully," thought Pierre, "to kill a man means nothing to him.
It must seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must
please him. He must think that I, too, am afraid of him - and in fact I
am afraid of him," he thought, and again he felt something terrible
and monstrous rising in his soul. Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were
now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostov was talking
merrily to his two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the
other a notorious duelist and rake, and every now and then he
glanced ironically at Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and
massive figure was a very noticeable one at the dinner. Rostov
looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre appeared to his
hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty, and in a
word - an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his preoccupation
and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostov and had not
responded to his greeting. When the Emperor's health was drunk,
Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.
"What are you about?" shouted Rostov, looking at him in an ecstasy
of exasperation. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's
health?"
Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting
till all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostov.
"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But Rostov was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting "Hurrah!"
"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?" said Dolokhov to Rostov.
"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rostov.
"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women," said Denisov.
Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were
talking about him. He reddened and turned away.
"Well, now to the health of handsome women!" said Dolokhov, and with
a serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his
mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.
"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin - and their
lovers!" he added.
Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking
at Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing
leaflets with Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of
the principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov,
leaning across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre
looked at Dolokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and
monstrous that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took
possession of him. He leaned his whole massive body across the table.
"How dare you take it?" he shouted.
Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvitski
and the neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.
"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whispered their frightened
voices.
Dolokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that
smile of his which seemed to say, "Ah! This is what I like!"
"You shan't have it!" he said distinctly.
Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.
"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!" he ejaculated, and,
pushing back his chair, he rose from the table.
At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt
that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him
the whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative.
He hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's
request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to
be Dolokhov's second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements
for the duel with Nesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home,
but Rostov with Dolokhov and Denisov stayed on at the Club till
late, listening to the gypsies and other singers.
"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki," said Dolokhov, as he took
leave of Rostov in the Club porch.
"And do you feel quite calm?" Rostov asked.
Dolokhov paused.
"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two
words. If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write
affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be
killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the
firm intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as
possible, and then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma
used to tell me. 'Everyone fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see
one your fear's all gone, and your only thought is not to let him
get away!' And that's how it is with me. A demain, mon cher."*
*Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.
Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the
Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov already
there. Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations
which had no connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face
was yellow. He had evidently not slept that night. He looked about
distractedly and screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He
was entirely absorbed by two considerations: his wife's guilt, of
which after his sleepless night he had not the slightest doubt, and
the guiltlessness of Dolokhov, who had no reason to preserve the honor
of a man who was nothing to him.... "I should perhaps have done the
same thing in his place," thought Pierre. "It's even certain that I
should have done the same, then why this duel, this murder? Either I
shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee.
Can't I go away from here, run away, bury myself somewhere?" passed
through his mind. But just at moments when such thoughts occurred to
him, he would ask in a particularly calm and absent-minded way,
which inspired the respect of the onlookers, "Will it be long? Are
things ready?"
When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the
barriers, and the pistols loaded, Nesvitski went up to Pierre.
"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and
should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in
choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment
I did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient
ground for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were
not right, not quite in the right, you were impetuous..."
"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," said Pierre.
"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your
opponent will accept them," said Nesvitski (who like the others
concerned in the affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not
yet believe that the affair had come to an actual duel). "You know,
Count, it is much more honorable to admit one's mistake than to let
matters become irreparable. There was no insult on either side.
Allow me to convey...."
"No! What is there to talk about?" said Pierre. "It's all the
same.... Is everything ready?" he added. "Only tell me where to go and
where to shoot," he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.
He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of
the trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand - a fact
that he did not to confess.
"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot," said he.
"No apologies, none whatever," said Dolokhov to Denisov (who on
his side had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to
the appointed place.
The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road,
where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine
forest covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up
during the last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at
the farther edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces,
left tracks in the deep wet snow between the place where they had been
standing and Nesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck
intothe ground ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and
misty; at forty paces' distance nothing could be seen. For three
minutes all had been ready, but they still delayed and all were
silent.
CHAPTER V
"Well begin!" said Dolokhov.
"All right," said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling
of dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly
begun could no longer be averted but was taking its course
independently of men's will.
Denisov first went to the barrier and announced: "As the adve'sawies
have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols,
and at the word thwee begin to advance.
"O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!" he shouted angrily and stepped aside.
The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and
nearer to one another, beginning to see one another through the
mist. They had the right to fire when they liked as they approached
the barrier. Dolokhov walked slowly without raising his pistol,
looking intently with his bright, sparkling blue eyes into his
antagonist's face. His mouth wore its usual semblance of a smile.
"So I can fire when I like!" said Pierre, and at the word "three,"
he went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into
the deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm's length,
apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held
carefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it
and knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed
off the track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then
quickly glanced at Dolokhov and, bending his finger as he had been
shown, fired. Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre
shuddered at the sound and then, smiling at his own sensations,
stood still. The smoke, rendered denser by the mist, prevented him
from seeing anything for an instant, but there was no second report as
he had expected. He only heard Dolokhov's hurried steps, and his
figure came in view through the smoke. He was pressing one hand to his
left side, while the other clutched his drooping pistol. His face
was pale. Rostov ran toward him and said something.
"No-o-o!" muttered Dolokhov through his teeth, "no, it's not
over." And after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the
saber, he sank on the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he
wiped it on his coat and supported himself with it. His frowning
face was pallid and quivered.
"Plea..." began Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.
"Please," he uttered with an effort.
Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov
and was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov
cried:
"To your barrier!" and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by
his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov lowered his head to
the snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself,
drew in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He
sucked and swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but
his eyes, still smiling, glittered with effort and exasperation as
he mustered his remaining strength. He raised his pistol and aimed.
"Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!" ejaculated Nesvitski.
"Cover yourself!" even Denisov cried to his adversary.
Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs
helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing
Dolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski
closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and
Dolokhov's angry cry.
"Missed!" shouted Dolokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards on
the snow.
Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,
trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:
"Folly... folly! Death... lies..." he repeated, puckering his face.
Nesvitski stopped him and took him home.
Rostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov.
The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not
answer a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering
Moscow he suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort,
took Rostov, who was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was
struck by the totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender
expression on Dolokhov's face.
"Well? How do you feel?" he asked.
"Bad! But it's not that, my friend-" said Dolokhov with a gasping
voice. "Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have
killed her, killed... She won't get over it! She won't survive...."
"Who?" asked Rostov.
"My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother," and
Dolokhov pressed Rostov's hand and burst into tears.
When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that
he was living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not
survive it. He implored Rostov to go on and prepare her.
Rostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise
learned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov the bully, lived in Moscow
with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most
affectionate of sons and brothers.
CHAPTER VI
Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg
and in Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after
the duel he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained
in his father's room, that huge room in which Count Bezukhov had died.
He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that
had happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,
thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not
fall asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace
the room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early
days of their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid,
passionate look on her face, and then immediately he saw beside her
Dolokhov's handsome, insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen
it at the banquet, and then that same face pale, quivering, and
suffering, as it had been when he reeled and sank on the snow.
"What has happened?" he asked himself. "I have killed her lover,
yes, killed my wife's lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come
to do it?" - "Because you married her," answered an inner voice.
"But in what was I to blame?" he asked. "In marrying her without
loving her; in deceiving yourself and her." And he vividly recalled
that moment after supper at Prince Vasili's, when he spoke those words
he had found so difficult to utter: "I love you." "It all comes from
that! Even then I felt it," he thought. "I felt then that it was not
so, that I had no right to do it. And so it turns out."
He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.
Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection
of how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into
his study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his
head steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and
at his dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing
respectful understanding of his employer's happiness.
"But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic
beauty and social tact," thought he; "been proud of my house, in
which she received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and
beauty. So this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did
not understand her. How often when considering her character I have
told myself that I was to blame for not understanding her, for not
understanding that constant composure and complacency and lack of
all interests or desires, and the whole secret lies in the terrible
truth that she is a depraved woman. Now I have spoken that terrible
word to myself all has become clear.
"Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss
her naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself
be kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she
replied with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous:
'Let him do what he pleases,' she used to say of me. One day I asked
her if she felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed
contemptuously and said she was not a fool to want to have children,
and that she was not going to have any children by me."
Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and
the vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though
she had been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.
"I'm not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous
promener,"* she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with
young and old men and women Pierre could not understand why he did not
love her.
*"You clear out of this."
"Yes, I never loved her," said he to himself; "I knew she was a
depraved woman," he repeated, "but dared not admit it to myself. And
now there's Dolokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and
perhaps dying, while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!"
Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of
what is called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their
troubles. He digested his sufferings alone.
"It is all, all her fault," he said to himself; "but what of that?
Why did I bind myself to her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime'* to her,
which was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must
endure... what? A slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that's
nonsense," he thought. "The slur on my name and honor - that's all
apart from myself.
*I love you.
"Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and
a criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view
they were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a
martyr's death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a
despot. Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive-
live: tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is
it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in
comparison with eternity?"
But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such
reflections, she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments
when he had most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he
felt the blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move
about and break and tear whatever came to his hand. "Why did I tell
her that 'Je vous aime'?" he kept repeating to himself. And when he
had said it for the tenth time, Molibre's words: "Mais que diable
alloit-il faire dans cette galere?" occurred to him, and he began to
laugh at himself.
In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to
Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He
resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his
intention to part from her forever.
Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee,
Pierre was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.
He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled
expression, unable to realize where he was.
"The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at
home," said the valet.
But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the
countess herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with
silver and with simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round
her lovely head like a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic,
except that there was a wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent
marble brow. With her imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in
front of the valet. She knew of the duel and had come to speak about
it. She waited till the valet had set down the coffee things and
left the room. Pierre looked at her timidly over his spectacles, and
like a hare surrounded by hounds who lays back her ears and
continues to crouch motionless before her enemies, he tried to
continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless and impossible,
he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down but looked at
him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to go.
"Well, what's this now? What have you been up to now, I should
like to know?" she asked sternly.
"I? What have I...?" stammered Pierre.
"So it seems you're a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel
about? What is it meant to prove? What? I ask you."
Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth,
but could not reply.
"If you won't answer, I'll tell you..." Helene went on. "You believe
everything you're told. You were told..." Helene laughed, "that
Dolokhov was my lover," she said in French with her coarse plainness
of speech, uttering the word amant as casually as any other word, "and
you believed it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel
prove? That you're a fool, que vous etes un sot, but everybody knew
that. What will be the result? That I shall be the laughingstock of
all Moscow, that everyone will say that you, drunk and not knowing
what you were about, challenged a man you are jealous of without
cause." Helene raised her voice and became more and more excited, "A
man who's a better man than you in every way..."
"Hm... Hm...!" growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her,
and not moving a muscle.
"And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like
his company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should
prefer yours."
"Don't speak to me... I beg you," muttered Pierre hoarsely.
"Why shouldn't I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you
plainly that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who
would not have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so,"
said she.
Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose
strange expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He
was suffering physically at that moment, there was a weight on his
chest and he could not breathe. He knew that he must do something to
put an end to this suffering, but what he wanted to do was too
terrible.
"We had better separate," he muttered in a broken voice.
"Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune," said
Helene. "Separate! That's a thing to frighten me with!"
Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.
"I'll kill you!" he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table
with a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her
brandishing the slab.
Helene's face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His
father's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and
delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down
on her with outstretched hands shouted, "Get out!" in such a
terrible voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows
what he would have done at that moment had Helene not fled from the
room.
A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his
estates in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property,
and left for Petersburg alone.
CHAPTER VII
Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz
and the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite
of the letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his
body had not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What
was worst of all for his relations was the fact that there was still a
possibility of his having been picked up on the battlefield by the
people of the place and that he might now be lying, recovering or
dying, alone among strangers and unable to send news of himself. The
gazettes from which the old prince first heard of the defeat at
Austerlitz stated, as usual very briefly and vaguely, that after
brilliant engagements the Russians had had to retreat and had made
their withdrawal in perfect order. The old prince understood from this
official report that our army had been defeated. A week after the
gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz came a letter from
Kutuzov informing the prince of the fate that had befallen his son.
"Your son," wrote Kutuzov, "fell before my eyes, a standard in his
hand and at the head of a regiment - he fell as a hero, worthy of his
father and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the
whole army it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort
myself and you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise
he would have been mentioned among the officers found on the field
of battle, a list of whom has been sent me under flag of truce."
After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone
in his study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next