War and Peace (39 page)

“Very good, I will leave you in your little corner. I see you are very comfortable there,” said Anna Pavlovna’s voice. And Pierre, trying panic-stricken to think whether he had done anything reprehensible, looked about him, crimsoning. It seemed to him as though every one knew, as well as he did, what was passing in him. A little later, when he went up to the bigger group, Anna Pavlovna said to him:

“I am told you are making improvements in your Petersburg house.” (This was the fact: the architect had told him it was necessary, and Pierre, without knowing with what object, was having his immense house in Petersburg redecorated.) “That is all very well, but do not move from Prince Vassily’s. It is a good thing to have such a friend as the prince,” she said, smiling to Prince Vassily. “I know something about that. Don’t I? And you are so young. You need advice. You mustn’t be angry with me for making use of an old woman’s privileges.” She paused, as women always do pause, in anticipation of something, after speaking
of their age. “If you marry, it’s a different matter.” And she united them in one glance. Pierre did not look at Ellen, nor she at him. But she was still as terribly close to him.

He muttered something and blushed.

After Pierre had gone home, it was a long while before he could get to sleep; he kept pondering on what was happening to him. What was happening? Nothing. Simply he had grasped the fact that a woman, whom he had known as a child, of whom he had said, without giving her a thought, “Yes, she’s nice-looking,” when he had been told she was a beauty, he had grasped the fact that that woman might belong to him. “But she’s stupid, I used to say myself that she was stupid,” he thought. “There is something nasty in the feeling she excites in me, something not legitimate. I have been told that her brother, Anatole, was in love with her, and she in love with him, that there was a regular scandal, and that’s why Anatole was sent away. Her brother is Ippolit.… Her father is Prince Vassily.… That’s bad,” he mused; and at the very moment that he was reflecting thus (the reflections were not followed out to the end) he caught himself smiling, and became conscious that another series of reflections had risen to the surface across the first, that he was at the same time meditating on her worthlessness, and dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she might love him, how she might become quite different, and how all he had thought and heard about her might be untrue. And again he saw her, not as the daughter of Prince Vassily, but saw her whole body, only veiled by her grey gown. “But, no, why didn’t that idea ever occur to me before?” And again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be something nasty, unnatural, as it seemed to him, and dishonourable in this marriage. He recalled her past words and looks, and the words and looks of people, who had seen them together. He remembered the words and looks of Anna Pavlovna, when she had spoken about his house, he recollected thousands of such hints from Prince Vassily and other people, and he was overwhelmed with terror that he might have bound himself in some way to do a thing obviously wrong, and not what he ought to do. But at the very time that he was expressing this to himself, in another part of his mind her image floated to the surface in all its womanly beauty.

In the November of 1805 Prince Vassily was obliged to go on a tour of inspection through four provinces. He had secured this appointment for himself, in order to be able at the same time to visit his estates, which were in a neglected state. He intended to pick up his son, Anatole, on the way (where his regiment was stationed), and to pay a visit to Prince Nikolay Andreivitch Bolkonsky, with a view to marrying his son to the rich old man’s daughter. But before going away and entering on these new affairs, Prince Vassily wanted to settle matters with Pierre, who had, it was true, of late spent whole days at home, that is, at Prince Vassily’s, where he was staying, and was as absurd, as agitated, and as stupid in Ellen’s presence, as a young man in love should be, but still made no offer.

“This is all very fine, but the thing must come to a conclusion,” Prince Vassily said to himself one morning, with a melancholy sigh, recognising that Pierre, who was so greatly indebted to him (But there! God bless the fellow!), was not behaving quite nicely to him in the matter. “Youth … frivolity … well, God be with him,” thought Prince Vassily, enjoying the sense of his own goodness of heart, “but the thing must come to a conclusion. The day after to-morrow is Ellen’s name-day, I’ll invite some people, and if he doesn’t understand what he’s to do, then it will be my affair to see to it. Yes, my affair. I’m her father.”

Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna’s party, and the sleepless and agitated night after it, in which Pierre had made up his mind that a marriage with Ellen would be a calamity, and that he must avoid her and go away; six weeks after that decision Pierre had still not left Prince Vassily’s, and felt with horror that every day he was more and more connected with her in people’s minds, that he could not go back to his former view of her, that he could not tear himself away from her even, that it would be an awful thing, but that he would have to unite his life to hers. Perhaps he might have mastered himself, but not a day passed without a party at Prince Vassily’s (where receptions had not been frequent), and Pierre was bound to be present if he did not want to disturb the general satisfaction and disappoint every one. At the rare moments when Prince Vassily was at home, he took Pierre’s hand if he passed him, carelessly offered him his shaven, wrinkled cheek for a kiss, and said, “till to-morrow,” or “be in to dinner, or I shan’t see you,” or “I shall stay at home on your account,” or some such remark. But although, when Prince Vassily did stay at home for Pierre (as he said), he never spoke two words
to him, Pierre did not feel equal to disappointing him. Every day he said the same thing over and over to himself. “I must really understand her and make up my mind, what she is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she’s not stupid; no, she’s a good girl,” he said to himself sometimes. “She never makes a mistake, nor has said anything stupid. She says very little, but what she does say is always simple and clear. So she’s not stupid. She has never been abashed, and she is not abashed now. So she isn’t a bad woman.” It often happened that he began to make reflections, to think aloud in her company, and every time she had replied either by a brief, but appropriate remark, that showed she was not interested in the matter, or by a mute smile and glance, which more palpably than anything proved to Pierre her superiority. She was right in regarding all reflections as nonsense in comparison with that smile.

She always addressed him now with a glad, confiding smile—a smile having reference to him alone, and full of something more significant than the society smile that always adorned her face. Pierre knew that every one was only waiting for him to say one word, to cross a certain line, and he knew that sooner or later he would cross it. But a kind of uncomprehended horror seized upon him at the mere thought of this fearful step. A thousand times in the course of those six weeks, during which he felt himself being drawn on further and further toward the abyss that horrified him, Pierre had said to himself: “But what does it mean? I must act with decision! Can it be that I haven’t any?” He tried to come to a decision, but felt with dismay that he had not in this case the strength of will which he had known in himself and really did possess. Pierre belonged to that class of persons who are only strong when they feel themselves perfectly pure. And ever since the day when he had been overcome by the sensation of desire, that he had felt stooping over the snuff-box at Anna Pavlovna’s, an unconscious sense of the sinfulness of that impulse paralysed his will.

On Ellen’s name-day, Prince Vassily was giving a little supper party of just their own people, as his wife said, that is, of friends and relations. All these friends and relations were made to feel that the day was to be a momentous one in the young lady’s life. The guests were seated at supper. Princess Kuragin, a massive woman of imposing presence, who had once been beautiful, sat in the hostess’ place, with the most honoured guests on each side of her—an old general and his wife, and Anna Pavlovna Scherer. Towards the bottom of the table sat the less elderly
and less honoured guests, and there too sat as members of the family Pierre and Ellen, side by side. Prince Vassily did not take supper. He moved to and fro about the table, in excellent spirits, sitting down beside one guest after another. To every one he dropped a few careless and agreeable words, except to Pierre and Ellen, whose presence he seemed not to notice. Prince Vassily enlivened the whole company. The wax candles burned brightly, there was a glitter of silver and crystal on the table, of ladies’ ornaments and the gold and silver of epaulettes. The servants threaded their way in and out round the table in their red coats. There was a clatter of knives, glasses, and plates, and the sound of eager talk from several separate conversations round the table. The old kammerherr at one end could be heard asseverating to an elderly baroness his ardent love for her, while she laughed. At the other end an anecdote was being told of the ill-success of some Marya Viktorovna. In the centre Prince Vassily concentrated the attention on himself. With a playful smile on his lips, he was telling the ladies about the last Wednesday’s session of the privy council, at which Sergey Kuzmitch Vyazmitinov, the new military governor-general of Petersburg, had received and read a rescript—much talked of at the time—from the Emperor Alexander Pavlovitch. The Emperor, writing from the army to Sergey Kuzmitch, had said that on all sides he was receiving proofs of the devotion of his people, and that the testimony from Petersburg was particularly gratifying to him, that he was proud of the honour of being at the head of such a people, and would do his best to be worthy of it. This rescript began with the words: “Sergey Kuzmitch. From all sides reports reach me,” etc.

“So that he never got further with it than ‘Sergey Kuzmitch’?” one lady asked.

“No, no, not a syllable,” Prince Vassily answered laughing. “ ‘Sergey Kuzmitch … from all sides.’ ‘From all sides … Sergey Kuzmitch.…’ Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any further. Several times he started upon the letter again, but no sooner did he utter ‘Sergey,’ … than a sniff … ‘Kuz … mi … itch’—tears … and ‘from all sides’ is smothered in sobs, and he can get no further. And again the handkerchief and again ‘Sergey Kuzmitch from all sides’ and tears,… so that we begged some one else to read it.…”

“ ‘Kuzmitch … from all sides’ … and tears.…” some one repeated, laughing.

“Don’t be naughty,” said Anna Pavlovna, from the other end of the
table, shaking her finger at him. “He is such a worthy, excellent man, our good Vyazmitinov.”

Every one laughed heartily. At the upper end of the table, the place of honour, every one seemed in good spirits, under the influence of various enlivening tendencies. Only Pierre and Ellen sat mutely side by side almost at the bottom of the table. The faces of both wore a restrained but beaming smile that had no connection with Sergey Kuzmitch—the smile of bashfulness at their own feelings. Gaily as the others laughed and talked and jested, appetising as were the Rhine wine, the
sauté
, and the ices they were discussing, carefully as they avoided glancing at the young couple, heedless and unobservant as they seemed of them, yet it was somehow perceptible from the glances stolen at times at them, that the anecdote about Sergey Kuzmitch, and the laughter and the dishes, were all affectation, and that the whole attention of all the party was really concentrated simply on that pair—Pierre and Ellen. Prince Vassily mimicked the sniffs of Sergey Kuzmitch, and at the same time avoided glancing at his daughter, and at the very time that he was laughing, his expression seemed to say: “Yes, yes, it’s all going well, it will all be settled to-day.” Anna Pavlovna shook her finger at him for laughing at “our good Vyazmitinov,” but in her eyes, which at that second flashed a glance in Pierre’s direction, Prince Vassily read congratulation on his future son-in-law and his daughter’s felicity. Old Princess Kuragin, offering wine to the lady next her with a pensive sigh, looking angrily at her daughter, seemed in that sigh to be saying: “Yes, there’s nothing left for you and me now, my dear, but to drink sweet wine, now that the time has come for the young people to be so indecently, provokingly happy!” “And what stupid stuff it all is that I’m talking about, as though it interested me,” thought the diplomat, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers. “That’s happiness!”

Into the midst of the petty trivialities, the conventional interests, which made the common tie uniting that company, had fallen the simple feeling of the attraction of two beautiful and healthy young creatures to one another. And this human feeling dominated everything and triumphed over all their conventional chatter. The jests fell flat, the news was not interesting, the liveliness was unmistakably forced. Not the guests only, but the footmen waiting at table seemed to feel the same and forget their duties, glancing at the lovely Ellen with her radiant face and the broad, red, happy and uneasy face of Pierre. The very light of the candles seemed concentrated on those two happy faces.

Pierre felt that he was the centre of it all, and this position both pleased him and embarrassed him. He was like a man absorbed in some engrossing occupation. He had no clear sight, nor hearing; no understanding of anything. Only from time to time disconnected ideas and impressions of the reality flashed unexpectedly into his mind.

“So it is all over!” he thought. “And how has it all been done? So quickly! Now I know that not for her sake, nor for my sake alone, but for every one it must inevitably come to pass. They all expect it so, they are all so convinced that it will be, that I cannot, I cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I don’t know, but it will be infallibly, it will be!” mused Pierre, glancing at the dazzling shoulders that were so close to his eyes.

Then he suddenly felt a vague shame. He felt awkward at being the sole object of the general attention, at being a happy man in the eyes of others, with his ugly face being a sort of Paris in possession of a Helen. “But, no doubt, it’s always like this, and must be so,” he consoled himself. “And yet what have I done to bring it about? When did it begin? I came here from Moscow with Prince Vassily, then there was nothing. Afterwards what reason was there for not staying with him? Then I played cards with her and picked up her reticule, and went skating with her. When did it begin, when did it all come about?” And here he was sitting beside her as her betrothed, hearing, seeing, feeling her closeness, her breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it suddenly seemed to him that it was not she, but he who was himself extraordinarily beautiful, that that was why they were looking at him so, and he, happy in the general admiration, was drawing himself up, lifting his head and rejoicing in his happiness. All at once he heard a voice, a familiar voice, addressing him for the second time.