the character of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government;
chance contrives a plot against him which not only fails to harm him
but confirms his power. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and
unexpectedly causes him to kill him - thereby convincing the mob more
forcibly than in any other way that he had the right, since he had the
might. Chance contrives that though he directs all his efforts to
prepare an expedition against England (which would inevitably have
ruined him) he never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly
falls upon Mack and the Austrians, who surrender without a battle.
Chance and genius give him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance
all men, not only the French but all Europe - except England which does
not take part in the events about to happen - despite their former
horror and detestation of his crimes, now recognize his authority, the
title he has given himself, and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which
seems excellent and reasonable to them all.
As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement,
the western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806,
1807, and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of
people that had formed in France unites into one group with the
peoples of Central Europe. The strength of the justification of the
man who stands at the head of the movement grows with the increased
size of the group. During the ten-year preparatory period this man had
formed relations with all the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited
rulers of the world can oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate
Napoleonic ideal of glory and grandeur. One after another they
hasten to display their insignificance before him. The King of Prussia
sends his wife to seek the great man's mercy; the Emperor of Austria
considers it a favor that this man receives a daughter the Caesars
into his bed; the Pope, the guardian of all that the nations hold
sacred, utilizes religion for the aggrandizement of the great man.
It is not Napoleon who prepares himself for the accomplishment of
his role, so much as all those round him who prepare him to take on
himself the whole responsibility for what is happening and has to
happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud he commits, which in
the mouths of those around him is not at once represented as a great
deed. The most suitable fete the Germans can devise for him is a
celebration of Jena and Auerstadt. Not only is he great, but so are
his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his brothers-in-law.
Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his reason and
to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so too
are the forces.
The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal - Moscow.
That city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the
opposing armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to
Wagram. But suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which
hitherto had so consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of
successes to the predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of
inverse chances occur - from the cold in his head at Borodino to the
sparks which set Moscow on fire, and the frosts - and instead of
genius, stupidity and immeasurable baseness become evident.
The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are
now not for Napoleon but always against him.
A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a
remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.
Attempted drives from east to west - similar to the contrary
movements of 1805, 1807, and 1809 - precede the great westward
movement; there is the same coalescence into a group of enormous
dimensions; the same adhesion of the people of Central Europe to the
movement; the same hesitation midway, and the same increasing rapidity
as the goal is approached.
Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government
and army are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any
account; all his actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again
an inexplicable chance occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they
regard as the cause of their sufferings. Deprived of power and
authority, his crimes and his craft exposed, he should have appeared
to them what he appeared ten years previously and one year later - an
outlawed brigand. But by some strange chance no one perceives this.
His part is not yet ended. The man who ten years before and a year
later was considered an outlawed brigand is sent to an island two
days' sail from France, which for some reason is presented to him as
his dominion, and guards are given to him and millions of money are
paid him.
CHAPTER IV
The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The
waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies
are formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have
caused the floods to abate.
But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The
diplomatists think that their disagreements are the cause of this
fresh pressure of natural forces; they anticipate war between their
sovereigns; the position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they
feel to be rising does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises
again from the same point as before - Paris. The last backwash of the
movement from the west occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the
apparently insuperable diplomatic difficulties and ends the military
movement of that period of history.
The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without
any conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but
by strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man
they cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.
This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.
That act is performed.
The last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off
his powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.
And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to
himself in solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues
and lies when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to
the whole world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as
long as an unseen hand directed his actions.
The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the
actor shows him to us.
"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was
not he but I who moved you?"
But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people
understood this.
Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of
Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from
east to west.
What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head
of that movement from east to west?
What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with
European affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests;
a moral superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated
with him; a mild and attractive personality; and a personal
grievance against Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all
this had been prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life:
his education, his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded
him, and by Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.
During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed.
But as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented
itself he appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the
nations of Europe, led them to the goal.
The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses
all possible power. How does he use it?
Alexander I - the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early
years had striven only for his people's welfare, the originator of the
liberal innovations in his fatherland - now that he seemed to possess
the utmost power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing
about the welfare of his peoples - at the time when Napoleon in exile
was drawing up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made
mankind happy had he retained power - Alexander I, having fulfilled his
mission and feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes
the insignificance of that supposed power, turns away from it, and
gives it into the hands of contemptible men whom he despises, saying
only:
"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like
the rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of
God."
As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself,
and yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to
comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet
has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.
A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is
afraid of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet
admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it
exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee
collect pollen from flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it
exists to gather honey. Another beekeeper who has studied the life
of the hive more closely says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed
the young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate
its race. A botanist notices that the bee flying with the pollen of
a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this
the purpose of the bee's existence. Another, observing the migration
of plants, notices that the bee helps in this work, and may say that
in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the ultimate purpose of the
bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes
the human mind can discern. The higher the human intellect rises in
the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious it becomes, that the
ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension.
All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee
to other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of
historic characters and nations.
CHAPTER V
Natasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the
last happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov
died that same year and, as always happens, after the father's death
the family group broke up.
The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the
flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair, Petya's
death, and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old
count's head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of
all these events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if
expecting and inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed
now frightened and distraught and now unnaturally animated and
enterprising.
The arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a while. He
ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful,
but his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the
contrary it evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.
When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to
complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his
bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again,
despite the doctor's encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in
an armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave
him his medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last
day, sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for
having dissipated their property - that being the chief fault of
which he was conscious. After receiving communion and unction he
quietly died; and next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay
their last respects to the deceased filled the house rented by the
Rostovs. All these acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at
his house and had so often laughed at him, now said, with a common
feeling of self-reproach and emotion, as if justifying themselves:
"Well, whatever he may have been he was a most worthy man. You don't
meet such men nowadays.... And which of us has not weaknesses of his
own?"
It was just when the count's affairs had become so involved that
it was impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year
that he unexpectedly died.
Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his
father's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and
without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went
to Moscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite obvious a
month after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of
small debts the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts
amounted to double the value of the property.
Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance.
But he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which
he held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and
accepted the inheritance together with the obligation to pay the
debts.
The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but
powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count's
careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once.
As always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should
get paid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given
them as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors.
Nicholas was allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed
to pity the old man - the cause of their losses (if they were
losses) - now remorselessly pursued the young heir who had
voluntarily undertaken the debts and was obviously not guilty of
contracting them.
Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold
by auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained
unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his
brother-in-law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely
due for value received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the
remainder, as the creditors threatened, he re-entered the government
service.
He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel
at the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold
on life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people
who had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil
service, he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the
uniform of which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sonya
to a small house on the Sivtsev Vrazhek.
Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had
no clear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed money from
his brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from
him. His position was the more difficult because with his salary of
twelve hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and
Sonya, but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty.
The countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious
conditions she had been used to from childhood and, unable to
realize how hard it was for her son, kept demanding now a carriage
(which they did not keep) to send for a friend, now some expensive
article of food for herself, or wine for her son, or money to buy a
present as a surprise for Natasha or Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.
Sonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her
whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their
poverty from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably
indebted to Sonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly
admired her patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.
He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and
because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that
people are valued for, but little that could have made him love her.
He felt that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had
taken her at her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now
behaved as if all that had passed between them had been long forgotten
and could never in any case be renewed.
Nicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting
something aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he
not save anything, but to comply with his mother's demands he even
incurred some small debts. He could see no way out of this
situation. The idea of marrying some rich woman, which was suggested
to him by his female relations, was repugnant to him. The other way
out - his mother's death - never entered his head. He wished for nothing
and hoped for nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy
and stern satisfaction in an uncomplaining endurance of his
position. He tried to avoid his old acquaintances with their
commiseration and offensive offers of assistance; he avoided all
distraction and recreation, and even at home did nothing but play
cards with his mother, pace silently up and down the room, and smoke
one pipe after another. He seemed carefully to cherish within
himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled him to endure his
position.
CHAPTER VI
At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From
reports current in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and
how "the son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were
saying.
"I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to
herself, feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her
friendly relations with all the Rostovs which had made her almost a
member of the family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But
remembering her relations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy
about doing so. Making a great effort she did however go to call on
them a few weeks after her arrival in Moscow.
Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess' room could only
be reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure
as she had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a
cold, stiff, proud expression she had not seen on it before. He
inquired about her health, led the way to his mother, and having sat
there for five minutes left the room.
When the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her
again, and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to
the anteroom. To her remarks about his mother's health he made no
reply. "What's that to you? Leave me in peace," his looks seemed to
say.
"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can't bear
these ladies and all these civilities!" said he aloud in Sonya's
presence, evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the
princess' carriage had disappeared.
"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?" cried Sonya, hardly able
to conceal her delight. "She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!"
Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess
any more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several
times a day.
She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her,
expressed a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored
when she began to talk about her.
Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the
princess, but his silence irritated her.
"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman," said she,
"and you must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing
somebody, and I think it must be dull for you only seeing us."
"But I don't in the least want to, Mamma."
"You used to want to, and now you don't. Really I don't understand
you, my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see
anyone."
"But I never said I was dull."
"Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a
very admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now
suddenly you have got some notion or other in your head. You hide
everything from me."
"Not at all, Mamma."
"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now - but I only
ask you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required
it.... Well, I have asked you, and now I won't interfere any more
since you have secrets from your mother."
"Well, then, I'll go if you wish it."
"It doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake."
Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a
patience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic.
The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and
the day after that.
After her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception
by Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been
right in not wishing to be the first to call.
"I expected nothing else," she told herself, calling her pride to
her aid. "I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the
old lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many
obligations."
But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling
akin to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she
had firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the
whole matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position.
And when she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit
that it was her relation to Rostov. His cold, polite manner did not
express his feeling for her (she knew that) but it concealed
something, and until she could discover what that something was, she
felt that she could not be at ease.
One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her
nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. With a firm
resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she
sent for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.
Her first glance at Nicholas' face told her that he had only come to
fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain
the tone in which he addressed her.
They spoke of the countess' health, of their mutual friends, of
the latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety
had elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say
good-by.
With Mademoiselle Bourienne's help the princess had maintained the
conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he
rose, she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and
her mind was so full of the question why she alone was granted so
little happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat
still, her luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing
that he had risen.
Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her
abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then again
looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of
suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was
vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face
expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could
think of nothing to say.
"Good-by, Princess!" said he.
She started, flushed, and sighed deeply.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said as if waking up. "Are you going
already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the
countess!"
"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she
left the room.
They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.
"Yes, Princess," said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, "it doesn't
seem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water
has flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then,
yet I would give much to bring back that time... but there's no
bringing it back."
Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous
ones as he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden
meaning of his words which would explain his feeling for her.
"Yes, yes," said she, "but you have no reason to regret the past,
Count. As I understand your present life, I think you will always
recall it with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills
it now..."
"I cannot accept your praise," he interrupted her hurriedly. "On the
contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an
interesting or cheerful subject."
His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the
princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved,
and it was to him that she now spoke.
"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said. "I had
come so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would
not consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken," and
suddenly her voice trembled. "I don't know why," she continued,
recovering herself, "but you used to be different, and..."
"There are a thousand reasons why," laying special emphasis on the
why. "Thank you, Princess," he added softly. "Sometimes it is hard."
"So that's why! That's why!" a voice whispered in Princess Mary's
soul. "No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only
that handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble,
resolute, self-sacrificing spirit too," she said to herself. "Yes,
he is poor now and I am rich.... Yes, that's the only reason....
Yes, were it not for that..." And remembering his former tenderness,
and looking now at his kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood
the cause of his coldness.
"But why, Count, why?" she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer
to him. "Why? Tell me. You must tell me!"
He was silent.
"I don't understand your why, Count," she continued, "but it's
hard for me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of
our former friendship. And that hurts me." There were tears in her
eyes and in her voice. "I have had so little happiness in life that
every loss is hard for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!" and
suddenly she began to cry and was hurrying from the room.
"Princess, for God's sake!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her.
"Princess!"
She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one
another's eyes - and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly
became possible, inevitable, and very near.
CHAPTER VII
In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to
Bald Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya.
Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without
selling any of his wife's property, and having received a small
inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as
well.
In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs
that he was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was
negotiating to buy back Otradnoe - that being his pet dream.
Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it
that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas
was a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the
English ones then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical
treatises on estate management, disliked factories, the raising of
expensive products, and the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not
make a hobby of any particular part of the work on his estate. He
always had before his mind's eye the estate as a whole and not any
particular part of it. The chief thing in his eyes was not the
nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen in the air, nor manures, nor
special plows, but that most important agent by which nitrogen,
oxygen, manure, and plow were made effective - the peasant laborer.
When Nicholas first began farming and began to understand its
different branches, it was the serf who especially attracted his
attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool, but also a
judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he watched the serfs,
trying to understand their aims and what they considered good and bad,
and only pretended to direct them and give orders while in reality
learning from them their methods, their manner of speech, and their
judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he had understood the
peasants' tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk their
language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to
them did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform
toward them the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management
produced very brilliant results.
Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the
estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and
delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they
had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before
analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and
credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle
the peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He
kept the peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not
allowing the family groups to divide into separate households. He
was hard alike on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to
get them expelled from the commune.
He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and
corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and
harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did
Nicholas.
He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs - the
"drones" as he called them - and everyone said he spoiled them by his
laxity. When a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf,
especially if one had to be punished, he always felt undecided and
consulted everybody in the house; but when it was possible to have a
domestic serf conscripted instead of a land worker he did so without
the least hesitation. He never felt any hesitation in dealing with the
peasants. He knew that his every decision would be approved by them
all with very few exceptions.
He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to
make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined
to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he
should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and
definite in his own mind.
Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he
would say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?" and imagined
that he could not bear them.
Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way of life with his
whole soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated
the one way and manner of farming which produced good results.
Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and
regretted that she could not share it; but she could not understand
the joys and vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote
and alien. She could not understand why he was so particularly
animated and happy when, after getting up at daybreak and spending the
whole morning in the fields or on the threshing floor, he returned
from the sowing or mowing or reaping to have tea with her. She did not
understand why he spoke with such admiration and delight of the
farming of the thrifty and well-to-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who
with his family had carted corn all night; or of the fact that his
(Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked before anyone else had his
harvest in. She did not understand why he stepped out from the
window to the veranda and smiled under his mustache and winked so
joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall on the dry and thirsty
shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind carried away a
threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return from the
barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and
gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say:
"Well, one more day and my grain and the peasants' will all be under
cover."
Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready
to anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she
brought him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed
to her to be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should
obstinately refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what
was not her business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved
passionately and which had laws she had not fathomed.
Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work
he was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: "Not in the
least; it never entered my head and I wouldn't do that for their good!
That's all poetry and old wives' talk - all that doing good to one's
neighbor! What I want is that our children should not have to go
begging. I must put our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all.
And to do that, order and strictness are essential.... That's all
about it!" said he, clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of
course," he added, "for if the peasant is naked and hungry and has
only one miserable horse, he can do no good either for himself or
for me."
And all Nicholas did was fruitful - probably just because he
refused to allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for
virtue's sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring
estates came to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the
memory of his administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs.
"He was a master... the peasants' affairs first and then his own. Of
course he was not to be trifled with either - in a word, he was a
real master!"
CHAPTER VIII
One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas,
and that was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of
making free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in
this, but in the second year of his marriage his view of that form
of punishment suddenly changed.
Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a
man who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused
of dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the
porch to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few
replies the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch
Nicholas went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over
her embroidery frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had
been doing that morning. Among other things he spoke of the
Bogucharovo elder. Countess Mary turned red and then pale, but
continued to sit with head bowed and lips compressed and gave her
husband no reply.
"Such an insolent scoundrel!" he cried, growing hot again at the
mere recollection of him. "If he had told me he was drunk and did
not see... But what is the matter with you, Mary?" he suddenly asked.
Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked
down again and her lips puckered.
"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?"
The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in
tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow
or pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible
charm.
The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain
herself and began to cry.
"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!"
and she covered her face with her hands.
Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and
paced up and down the room. He understood what she was weeping
about, but could not in his heart at once agree with her that what
he had regarded from childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong.
"Is it just sentimentality, old wives' tales, or is she right?" he
asked himself. Before he had solved that point he glanced again at her
face filled with love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she
was right and that he had long been sinning against himself.
"Mary," he said softly, going up to her, "it will never happen
again; I give you my word. Never," he repeated in a trembling voice
like a boy asking for forgiveness.
The tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took
his hand and kissed it.
"Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?" she asked to change the
subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo
of Laocoon's head.
"Today - it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don't remind me of it!"
and again he flushed. "I give you my word of honor it shan't occur
again, and let this always be a reminder to me," and he pointed to the
broken ring.
After that, when in discussions with his village elders or
stewards the blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench,
Nicholas would turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his
eyes before the man who was making him angry. But he did forget
himself once or twice within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and
confess to his wife, and would again promise that this should really
be the very last time.
"Mary, you must despise me!" he would say. "I deserve it."
"You should go, go away at once, if you don't feel strong enough
to control yourself," she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her
husband.
Among the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not
liked. He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class,
and consequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid.
The whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with
the work on his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting with the
same business like seriousness - leaving home for a month, or even two,
with his hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent his
time reading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on
these he spent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he
said, a serious library, and he made it a rule to read through all the
books he bought. He would sit in his study with a grave air,
reading - a task he first imposed upon himself as a duty, but which
afterwards became a habit affording him a special kind of pleasure and
a consciousness of being occupied with serious matters. In winter,
except for business excursions, he spent most of his time at home
making himself one with his family and entering into all the details
of his children's relations with their mother. The harmony between him
and his wife grew closer and closer and he daily discovered fresh
spiritual treasures in her.
From the time of his marriage Sonya had lived in his house. Before
that, Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself
and Sonya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess
Mary to be gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized
the wrong he had done Sonya, felt herself to blame toward her, and
imagined that her wealth had influenced Nicholas' choice. She could
not find fault with Sonya in any way and tried to be fond of her,
but often felt ill-will toward her which she could not overcome.
Once she had a talk with her friend Natasha about Sonya and about
her own injustice toward her.
"You know," said Natasha, "you have read the Gospels a great deal-
there is a passage in them that just fits Sonya."
"What?" asked Countess Mary, surprised.
"'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not
shall be taken away.' You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I
don't know. Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is
taken away, and everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am