War and Peace (17 page)
Authors: Leo Tolstoy
On the day that the young people were expected to arrive, Princess Marya went as usual at the fixed hour in the morning into the waiting-room to say good-morning to her father, and with dread in her heart crossed herself and mentally repeated a prayer. Every day she went in to her father in the same way, and every day she prayed that her interview with her father might pass off well that day. The old man-servant, wearing powder, softly got up from his seat in the waiting-room and whispered: “Walk in.”
Through the door came the regular sounds of the lathe. The princess kept timidly hold of the door, which opened smoothly and easily, and stood still in the doorway. The prince was working at his lathe, and glancing round, he went on with what he was doing.
The immense room was filled with things obviously in constant use. The large table, on which lay books and plans, the high bookcases with
keys in the glass-covered doors, the high table for the prince to write at, standing up, with an open manuscript-book upon it, the carpenter’s lathe, with tools ranged about it and shavings scattered around, all suggested continual, varied, and orderly activity. The movements of the prince’s small foot in its Tatar, silver-embroidered boot, the firm pressure of his sinewy, lean hand, showed the strength of vigorous old age still strong-willed and wiry. After making a few more turns, he took his foot from the pedal of the lathe, wiped the plane, dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and going up to the table called his daughter. He never gave the usual blessing to his children; he simply offered her his scrubby, not yet shaved cheek, and said sternly and yet at the same time with intense tenderness, as he looked her over: “Quite well?… All right, then, sit down!” He took a geometry exercise-book written by his own hand, and drew his chair up with his leg.
“For to-morrow,” he said quickly, turning to the page and marking it from one paragraph to the next with his rough nail. The princess bent over the exercise-book. “Stop, there’s a letter for you,” the old man said suddenly, pulling out of a pocket hanging over the table an envelope addressed in a feminine hand, and putting it on the table.
The princess’s face coloured red in patches at the sight of the letter. She took it hurriedly and bent over it.
“From Heloise?” asked the prince, showing his still strong, yellow teeth in a cold smile.
“Yes, from Julie,” said the princess, glancing timidly at him, and timidly smiling.
“Two more letters I’ll let pass, but the third I shall read,” said the prince severely. “I’m afraid you write a lot of nonsense. The third I shall read.”
“Read this one, father,” answered the princess, colouring still more and handing him the letter.
“The third, I said the third,” the prince cried shortly; pushing away the letter and leaning his elbow on the table, he drew up to him the book with the figures of geometry in it.
“Now, madam,” began the old man, bending over the book close to his daughter, and laying one arm on the back of the chair she was sitting on, so that the princess felt herself surrounded on all sides by the peculiar acrid smell of old age and tobacco, which she had so long associated with her father. “Come, madam, these triangles are equal: kindly look; the angle A B C.…”
The princess glanced in a scared way at her father’s eyes gleaming close beside her. The red patches overspread her whole face, and it was evident that she did not understand a word, and was so frightened that terror prevented her from understanding all the subsequent explanations her father offered her, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher’s fault or the pupil’s, every day the same scene was repeated. The princess’s eyes grew dim; she could see and hear nothing; she could feel nothing but the dry face of her stern father near her, his breath and the smell of him, and could think of nothing but how to escape as soon as possible from the study and to make out the problem in freedom in her room. The old man lost his temper; with a loud, grating noise he pushed back and drew up again the chair he was sitting on, made an effort to control himself, not to fly into a rage, and almost every time did fly into a rage, and scold, and sometimes flung the book away.
The princess answered a question wrong.
“Well, you are too stupid!” cried the prince, pushing away the book, and turning sharply away. But he got up immediately, walked up and down, laid his hand on the princess’s hair, and sat down again. He drew himself up to the table and continued his explanations. “This won’t do; it won’t do,” he said, when Princess Marya, taking the exercise-book with the lesson set her, and shutting it, was about to leave the room: “mathematics is a grand subject, madam. And to have you like the common run of our silly misses is what I don’t want at all. Patience, and you’ll get to like it.” He patted her on the cheek. “It will drive all the nonsense out of your head.” She would have gone; he stopped her with a gesture, and took a new, uncut book from the high table.
“Here’s a book, too, your Heloise sends you some sort of Key to the Mystery. Religious. But I don’t interfere with any one’s belief.… I have looked at it. Take it. Come, run along, run along.”
He patted her on the shoulder, and himself closed the door after her.
Princess Marya went back to her own room with that dejected, scared expression that rarely left her, and made her plain, sickly face even plainer. She sat down at her writing-table, which was dotted with miniature portraits, and strewn with books and manuscripts. The princess was as untidy as her father was tidy. She put down the geometry exercise-book and impatiently opened the letter. The letter was from the princess’s dearest friend from childhood; this friend was none other than Julie Karagin, who had been at the Rostovs’ name-day party.
Julie wrote in French:
“D
EAR AND EXCELLENT
F
RIEND
,—What a terrible and frightful thing is absence! I say to myself that half of my existence and of my happiness is in you, that notwithstanding the distance that separates us, our hearts are united by invisible bonds; yet mine rebels against destiny, and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me, I cannot overcome a certain hidden sadness which I feel in the bottom of my heart since our separation. Why are we not together as we were this summer in your great study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why can I not, as I did three months ago, draw new moral strength from that gentle, calm, penetrating look of yours, a look that I loved so well and that I seem to see before me as I write to you.”
When she reached this passage, Princess Marya sighed and looked round into the pier-glass that stood on her right. The glass reflected a feeble, ungraceful figure and a thin face. The eyes, always melancholy, were looking just now with a particularly hopeless expression at herself in the looking-glass. She flatters me, thought the princess, and she turned away and went on reading. But Julie did not flatter her friend: the princess’s eyes—large, deep, and luminous (rays of warm light seemed at times to radiate in streams from them), were really so fine, that very often in spite of the plainness of the whole face her eyes were more attractive than beauty. But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with every one, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking-glass.
She went on reading:
“All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on the march to the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg, and, people declare, intends to expose his precious existence to the risks of war. God grant that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may be brought low by the angel whom the Almighty in His mercy has given us as sovereign. Without speaking of my brothers, this war has deprived me of one of my heart’s dearest alliances. I mean the young Nicholas Rostov, whose enthusiasm could not endure inaction, and who has left the university to go and join the army. Well, dear Marie, I will own to you that, in spite of
his extreme youth, his departure for the army has been a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you in the summer, has so much nobility, so much real youthfulness, rarely to be met with in our age, among our old men of twenty. Above all, he has so much openness and so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that my acquaintance with him, though so transient, has been one of the dearest joys known by my poor heart, which has already had so much suffering. Some day I will tell you about our farewells and all that we said to each other as we parted. As yet, all that is too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are fortunate in not knowing these joys and these pains which are so poignant. You are fortunate, because the latter are generally stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too young ever to become more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship, this poetic and pure intimacy have fulfilled a need of my heart. No more of this. The great news of the day, with which all Moscow is taken up, is the death of old Count Bezuhov, and his inheritance. Fancy, the three princesses have hardly got anything, Prince Vassily nothing, and everything has been left to M. Pierre, who has been acknowledged as a legitimate son into the bargain, so that he is Count Bezuhov and has the finest fortune in Russia. People say that Prince Vassily behaved very badly in all these matters and that he has gone back to Petersburg quite cast down.
“I own that I understand very little about all these details of legacies and wills; what I know is that since the young man whom we all used to know as plain M. Pierre has become Count Bezuhov and owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to observe the change in the tone and the manners of mammas burdened with marriageable daughters and of those young ladies themselves, towards that individual—who I may say in passing has always seemed to me a poor creature. As people have amused themselves for the last two years in giving me husbands whom I don’t know, the matrimonial gossip of Moscow generally makes me Countess Bezuhov. But you, I am sure, feel that I have no desire to become so. About marriage, by the by, do you know that the
universal aunt
, Anna Mihalovna, has confided to me, under the seal of the deepest secrecy, a marriage scheme for you. It is no one more or less than Prince Vassily’s son, Anatole, whom they want to settle
by marrying him to some one rich and distinguished, and the choice of his relations has fallen on you. I don’t know what view you will take of the matter, but I thought it my duty to let you know beforehand. He is said to be very handsome and very wild; that is all I have been able to find out about him.
“But enough of gossip. I am finishing my second sheet and mamma is sending for me to go and dine with the Apraxins. Read the mystical book which I send you, and which is the rage here. Though there are things in this book, difficult for our human conceptions to attain to, it is an admirable book, and reading it calms and elevates the soul. Farewell. My respects to your father and my compliments to Mlle. Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.
J
ULIE
.
“
P.S
.—Let me hear news of your brother and his charming little wife.”
Princess Marya thought a minute, smiling dreamily (her face, lighted up by her luminous eyes, was completely transformed). Suddenly getting up, she crossed over to the table, treading heavily. She got out a sheet of paper and her hand began rapidly moving over it. She wrote the following answer:
“D
EAR AND EXCELLENT
F
RIEND
,—Your letter on the 13th gave me great delight. So you still love me, my poetic Julie. So, absence, which you so bitterly denounce, has not had its usual effect upon you. You complain of absence—what might I say, if I ventured to complain, I, deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we had not religion to console us, life would be very sad. Why do you suppose that I should look severe when you tell me of your affection for that young man? In such matters I am hard upon no one but myself. I understand such feelings in other people, and if, never having felt them, I cannot express approval, I do not condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian love, the love of our neighbour, the love of our enemies, is more meritorious, sweeter and more beautiful than those feelings that may be inspired in a poetic and loving young girl like you, by the fine eyes of a young man.
“The news of Count Bezuhov’s death reached us before your letter, and affected my father very much. He says that the count was the last representative but one of the great century and that it is his turn now; but that he will do his best to have his turn
come as late as possible. May God save us from that terrible misfortune. I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always appeared to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality that I most esteem in people. As to his inheritance and Prince Vassily’s behaviour about it, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine Saviour’s word, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven is a terribly true saying; I pity Prince Vassily, and I am yet more sorry for Pierre. So young and burdened with this wealth, to what temptations he will be exposed! If I were asked what I wished most in the world, it would be to be poorer than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the work you send me, and which is all the rage where you are. As, however, you tell me that amid many good things there are others to which our weak human understanding cannot attain, it seems to me rather useless to busy oneself in reading an unintelligible book, since for that very reason it cannot yield any profit. I have never been able to comprehend the passion which some people have for confusing their minds by giving themselves to the study of mystical books which only awaken their doubts, inflaming their imagination, and giving them a disposition to exaggeration altogether contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us read the Apostles and the Gospel. Do not let us seek to penetrate what is mysterious in these, for how can we dare presume, miserable sinners as we are, to enter into the terrible and sacred secrets of Providence, while we wear this carnal husk that raises an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us rather confine ourselves to studying those sublime principles which our divine Saviour has left us as guides for our conduct here below; let us seek to conform ourselves to those and follow them; let us persuade ourselves that the less range we give to our weak human understanding, the more agreeable it will be to God, who rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; that the less we seek to dive into that which He has pleased to hide from our knowledge the sooner will He discover it to us by means of His divine Spirit.
“My father has not spoken to me of the suitor, but has only told me that he has received a letter, and was expecting a visit from Prince Vassily. In regard to a marriage-scheme concerning
myself, I will tell you, my dear and excellent friend, that to my mind marriage is a divine institution to which we must conform. However painful it may be to me, if the Almighty should ever impose upon me the duties of a wife and mother, I shall try to fulfil them as faithfully as I can without disquieting myself by examining my feelings in regard to him whom He may give me for a husband.
“I have received a letter from my brother, who announces his coming to Bleak Hills with his wife. It will be a pleasure of brief duration, since he is leaving us to take part in this unhappy war into which we have been drawn, God knows how and why. It is not only with you, in the centre of business and society, that people talk of nothing except war, for here also, amid those rustic labours and that calm of nature, which townspeople generally imagine in the country, rumours of war are heard and are felt painfully. My father talks of nothing but marches and counter-marches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday, taking my usual walk in the village street, I witnessed a heartrending scene.… It was a convoy of recruits that had been enrolled in our district, and were being sent away to the army. You should have seen the state of the mothers, wives and children of the men who were going, and have heard the sobs on both sides. It seems as though humanity had forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and the forgiveness of offences, and were making the greatest merit to consist in the art of killing one another.
“Adieu, dear and good friend: may our divine Saviour and His most Holy Mother keep you in their holy and powerful care.
M
ARIE
.”
