Just then another visitor entered the drawing
room: Prince Andrew Bolkonski, the little princess' husband. He was
a very handsome young man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut
features. Everything about him, from his weary, bored expression to
his quiet, measured step, offered a most striking contrast to his
quiet, little wife. It was evident that he not only knew everyone
in the drawing room, but had found them to be so tiresome that it
wearied him to look at or listen to them. And among all these faces
that he found so tedious, none seemed to bore him so much as that
of his pretty wife. He turned away from her with a grimace that
distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pavlovna's hand, and
screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.
"You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna Pavlovna.
"General Kutuzov," said Bolkonski, speaking French and
stressing the last syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman,
"has been pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp...."
"And Lise, your wife?"
"She will go to the country."
"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?"
"Andre," said his wife, addressing her husband in the same
coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, "the vicomte has
been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and
Buonaparte!"
Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre,
who from the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him
with glad, affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before
he looked round Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his
annoyance with whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw
Pierre's beaming face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant
smile.
"There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he
to Pierre.
"I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to
supper with you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to
disturb the vicomte who was continuing his story.
"No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing
Pierre's hand to show that there was no need to ask the question.
He wished to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasili
and his daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let
them pass.
"You must excuse me, dear Vicomte," said Prince Vasili to the
Frenchman, holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to
prevent his rising. "This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's
deprives me of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you. I am
very sorry to leave your enchanting party," said he, turning to
Anna Pavlovna.
His daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs,
lightly holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone
still more radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her
with rapturous, almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.
"Very lovely," said Prince Andrew.
"Very," said Pierre.
In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to
Anna Pavlovna: "Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with
me a whole month and this is the first time I have seen him in
society. Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of
clever women."
Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She
knew his father to be a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly
lady who had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and
overtook Prince Vasili in the anteroom. All the affectation of
interest she had assumed had left her kindly and tear-worn face and
it now expressed only anxiety and fear.
"How about my son Boris, Prince?" said she, hurrying after
him into the anteroom. "I can't remain any longer in Petersburg.
Tell me what news I may take back to my poor boy."
Although Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very
politely to the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she
gave him an ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand
that he might not go away.
"What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and
then he would be transferred to the Guards at once?" said she.
"Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can," answered
Prince Vasili, "but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I
should advise you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn.
That would be the best way."
The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one
of the best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long
been out of society had lost her former influential connections.
She had now come to Petersburg to procure an appointment in the
Guards for her only son. It was, in fact, solely to meet Prince
Vasili that she had obtained an invitation to Anna Pavlovna's
reception and had sat listening to the vicomte's story. Prince
Vasili's words frightened her, an embittered look clouded her once
handsome face, but only for a moment; then she smiled again and
clutched Prince Vasili's arm more tightly.
"Listen to me, Prince," said she. "I have never yet asked you
for anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you
of my father's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's
sake to do this for my son—and I shall always regard you as a
benefactor," she added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry, but promise!
I have asked Golitsyn and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man
you always were," she said, trying to smile though tears were in
her eyes.
"Papa, we shall be late," said Princess Helene, turning her
beautiful head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as
she stood waiting by the door.
Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be
economized if it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and having
once realized that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him,
he would soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of
using his influence. But in Princess Drubetskaya's case he felt,
after her second appeal, something like qualms of conscience. She
had reminded him of what was quite true; he had been indebted to
her father for the first steps in his career. Moreover, he could
see by her manners that she was one of those women—mostly
mothers—who, having once made up their minds, will not rest until
they have gained their end, and are prepared if necessary to go on
insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even to make
scenes. This last consideration moved him.
"My dear Anna Mikhaylovna," said he with his usual
familiarity and weariness of tone, "it is almost impossible for me
to do what you ask; but to prove my devotion to you and how I
respect your father's memory, I will do the impossible—your son
shall be transferred to the Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you
satisfied?"
"My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you—I knew
your kindness!" He turned to go.
"Wait—just a word! When he has been transferred to the
Guards..." she faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael
Ilarionovich Kutuzov... recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I
shall be at rest, and then..."
Prince Vasili smiled.
"No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutuzov is
pestered since his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me
himself that all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all
their sons as adjutants."
"No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear
benefactor..."
"Papa," said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as
before, "we shall be late."
"Well, au revoir! Good-bye! You hear her?"
"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?"
"Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don't promise."
"Do promise, do promise, Vasili!" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as
he went, with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time
probably came naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her
careworn face.
Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit
employed all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had
gone her face resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She
returned to the group where the vicomte was still talking, and
again pretended to listen, while waiting till it would be time to
leave. Her task was accomplished.
CHAPTER V
"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the
coronation at Milan?" asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of
the people of Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before
Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne
and granting the petitions of the nations? Adorable! It is enough
to make one's head whirl! It is as if the whole world had gone
crazy."
Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with
a sarcastic smile.
"'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!' * They say he was
very fine when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in
Italian: "'Dio mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'"
* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!
"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run
over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to
endure this man who is a menace to everything."
"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte,
polite but hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done
for Louis XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!"
and he became more animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the
reward of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why,
they are sending ambassadors to compliment the usurper."
And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some
time through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward
the little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing
the Conde coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with
as much gravity as if she had asked him to do it.
"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d'azur—maison Conde,"
said he.
The princess listened, smiling.
"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year
longer," the vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a
matter with which he is better acquainted than anyone else, does
not listen to others but follows the current of his own thoughts,
"things will have gone too far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and
executions, French society—I mean good French society—will have
been forever destroyed, and then..."
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre
wished to make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but
Anna Pavlovna, who had him under observation, interrupted:
"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which
always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family,
"has declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves
to choose their own form of government; and I believe that once
free from the usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself
into the arms of its rightful king," she concluded, trying to be
amiable to the royalist emigrant.
"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte
quite rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I
think it will be difficult to return to the old regime."
"From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking
into the conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone
over to Bonaparte's side."
"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte
without looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to
know the real state of French public opinion."
"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a
sarcastic smile.
It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was
aiming his remarks at him, though without looking at him.
"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow
it,'" Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting
Napoleon's words. "'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.'
I do not know how far he was justified in saying so."
"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of
the duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to
some people," he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, "he ever was a
hero, after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in
heaven and one hero less on earth."
Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would say
something inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.
"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien," declared Monsieur
Pierre, "was a political necessity, and it seems to me that
Napoleon showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself
the whole responsibility of that deed."
"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified
whisper.
"What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination
shows greatness of soul?" said the little princess, smiling and
drawing her work nearer to her.
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed several voices.
"Capital!" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began
slapping his knee with the palm of his hand.
The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked
solemnly at his audience over his spectacles and continued.
"I say so," he continued desperately, "because the Bourbons
fled from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and
Napoleon alone understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for
the general good, he could not stop short for the sake of one man's
life."
"Won't you come over to the other table?" suggested Anna
Pavlovna.
But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.
"No," cried he, becoming more and more eager, "Napoleon is
great because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its
abuses, preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship
and freedom of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did
he obtain power."
"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of
it to commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I
should have called him a great man," remarked the vicomte.
"He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he
might rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a
great man. The Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur
Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his
extreme youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.
"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after
that... But won't you come to this other table?" repeated Anna
Pavlovna.
"Rousseau's Contrat Social," said the vicomte with a tolerant
smile.
"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas."
"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide," again
interjected an ironical voice.
"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most
important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation
from prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas
Napoleon has retained in full force."
"Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously, as
if at last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish
his words were, "high-sounding words which have long been
discredited. Who does not love liberty and equality? Even our
Saviour preached liberty and equality. Have people since the
Revolution become happier? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but
Buonaparte has destroyed it."
Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre
to the vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first
moment of Pierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social
experience, was horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's
sacrilegious words had not exasperated the vicomte, and had
convinced herself that it was impossible to stop him, she rallied
her forces and joined the vicomte in a vigorous attack on the
orator.
"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre," said she, "how do you explain
the fact of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man
who—is innocent and untried?"
"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask how monsieur
explains the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a
swindle, and not at all like the conduct of a great man!"
"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!"
said the little princess, shrugging her shoulders.
"He's a low fellow, say what you will," remarked Prince
Hippolyte.
Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and
smiled. His smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When
he smiled, his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously
replaced by another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look,
which seemed to ask forgiveness.
The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw
clearly that this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words
suggested. All were silent.
"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?" said
Prince Andrew. "Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to
distinguish between his acts as a private person, as a general, and
as an emperor. So it seems to me."
"Yes, yes, of course!" Pierre chimed in, pleased at the
arrival of this reinforcement.
"One must admit," continued Prince Andrew, "that Napoleon as
a man was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at
Jaffa where he gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but... but
there are other acts which it is difficult to justify."
Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the
awkwardness of Pierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife
that it was time to go.
Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone
to attend, and asking them all to be seated began:
"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you
to it. Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point
will be lost...." And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in
such Russian as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year
in Russia. Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he
demand their attention to his story.
"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy.
She must have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones.
That was her taste. And she had a lady's maid, also big. She
said..."
Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas
with difficulty.
"She said... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put on a
livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make
some calls.'"
Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long
before his audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the
narrator. Several persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna
Pavlovna, did however smile.
"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her
hat and her long hair came down...." Here he could contain himself
no longer and went on, between gasps of laughter: "And the whole
world knew...."
And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why
he had told it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna
Pavlovna and the others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social tact
in so agreeably ending Pierre's unpleasant and unamiable outburst.
After the anecdote the conversation broke up into insignificant
small talk about the last and next balls, about theatricals, and
who would meet whom, and when and where.
CHAPTER VI
Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming
soiree, the guests began to take their leave.
Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad,
with huge red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to
enter a drawing room and still less how to leave one; that is, how
to say something particularly agreeable before going away. Besides
this he was absent-minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead
of his own, the general's three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling
at the plume, till the general asked him to restore it. All his
absent-mindedness and inability to enter a room and converse in it
was, however, redeemed by his kindly, simple, and modest
expression. Anna Pavlovna turned toward him and, with a Christian
mildness that expressed forgiveness of his indiscretion, nodded and
said: "I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will change
your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre."
When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but
again everybody saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps,
"Opinions are opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured
fellow I am." And everyone, including Anna Pavlovna, felt this.
Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his
shoulders to the footman who was helping him on with his cloak,
listened indifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte
who had also come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to
the pretty, pregnant princess, and stared fixedly at her through
his eyeglass.
"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold," said the little
princess, taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. "It is settled," she added
in a low voice.
Anna Pavlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the
match she contemplated between Anatole and the little princess'
sister-in-law.
"I rely on you, my dear," said Anna Pavlovna, also in a low
tone. "Write to her and let me know how her father looks at the
matter. Au revoir!"—and she left the hall.
Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending
his face close to her, began to whisper something.
Two footmen, the princess' and his own, stood holding a shawl
and a cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened
to the French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air
of understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess
as usual spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.
"I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador's," said
Prince Hippolyte "-so dull-. It has been a delightful evening, has
it not? Delightful!"
"They say the ball will be very good," replied the princess,
drawing up her downy little lip. "All the pretty women in society
will be there."
"Not all, for you will not be there; not all," said Prince
Hippolyte smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the
footman, whom he even pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the
princess. Either from awkwardness or intentionally (no one could
have said which) after the shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm
around her for a long time, as though embracing her.
Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and
glancing at her husband. Prince Andrew's eyes were closed, so weary
and sleepy did he seem.
"Are you ready?" he asked his wife, looking past her.
Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the
latest fashion reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran
out into the porch following the princess, whom a footman was
helping into the carriage.
"Princesse, au revoir," cried he, stumbling with his tongue
as well as with his feet.
The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in
the dark carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince
Hippolyte, under pretense of helping, was in everyone's way.
"Allow me, sir," said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold,
disagreeable tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.
"I am expecting you, Pierre," said the same voice, but gently
and affectionately.
The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince
Hippolyte laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting
for the vicomte whom he had promised to take home.
"Well, mon cher," said the vicomte, having seated himself
beside Hippolyte in the carriage, "your little princess is very
nice, very nice indeed, quite French," and he kissed the tips of
his fingers. Hippolyte burst out laughing.
"Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent
airs," continued the vicomte. "I pity the poor husband, that little
officer who gives himself the airs of a monarch."
Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, "And
you were saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the
French? One has to know how to deal with them."
Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's
study like one quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down
on the sofa, took from the shelf the first book that came to his
hand (it was Caesar's Commentaries), and resting on his elbow,
began reading it in the middle.
"What have you done to Mlle Scherer? She will be quite ill
now," said Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his
small white hands.
Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He
lifted his eager face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.
"That abbe is very interesting but he does not see the thing
in the right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible
but—I do not know how to express it... not by a balance of
political power...."
It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such
abstract conversation.
"One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well,
have you at last decided on anything? Are you going to be a
guardsman or a diplomatist?" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary
silence.
Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.
"Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the
other."
"But you must decide on something! Your father expects it."
Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbe as
tutor, and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned
to Moscow his father dismissed the abbe and said to the young man,
"Now go to Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I
will agree to anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasili, and here
is money. Write to me all about it, and I will help you in
everything." Pierre had already been choosing a career for three
months, and had not decided on anything. It was about this choice
that Prince Andrew was speaking. Pierre rubbed his forehead.
"But he must be a Freemason," said he, referring to the abbe
whom he had met that evening.
"That is all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him,
"let us talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?"
"No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and
wanted to tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were
a war for freedom I could understand it and should be the first to
enter the army; but to help England and Austria against the
greatest man in the world is not right."
Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's
childish words. He put on the air of one who finds it impossible to
reply to such nonsense, but it would in fact have been difficult to
give any other answer than the one Prince Andrew gave to this naive
question.
"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would
be no wars," he said.
"And that would be splendid," said Pierre.
Prince Andrew smiled ironically.
"Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come
about..."
"Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre.
"What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going..."
He paused. "I am going because the life I am leading here does not
suit me!"
CHAPTER VII
The rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the
next room. Prince Andrew shook himself as if waking up, and his
face assumed the look it had had in Anna Pavlovna's drawing room.
Pierre removed his feet from the sofa. The princess came in. She
had changed her gown for a house dress as fresh and elegant as the
other. Prince Andrew rose and politely placed a chair for her.
"How is it," she began, as usual in French, settling down
briskly and fussily in the easy chair, "how is it Annette never got
married? How stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse
me for saying so, but you have no sense about women. What an
argumentative fellow you are, Monsieur Pierre!"
"And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand
why he wants to go to the war," replied Pierre, addressing the
princess with none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young
men in their intercourse with young women.
The princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to
the quick.
"Ah, that is just what I tell him!" said she. "I don't
understand it; I don't in the least understand why men can't live
without wars. How is it that we women don't want anything of the
kind, don't need it? Now you shall judge between us. I always tell
him: Here he is Uncle's aide-de-camp, a most brilliant position. He
is so well known, so much appreciated by everyone. The other day at
the Apraksins' I heard a lady asking, 'Is that the famous Prince
Andrew?' I did indeed." She laughed. "He is so well received
everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp to the Emperor. You
know the Emperor spoke to him most graciously. Annette and I were
speaking of how to arrange it. What do you think?"
Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not
like the conversation, gave no reply.
"When are you starting?" he asked.
"Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken
of," said the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which
she had spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so
plainly ill-suited to the family circle of which Pierre was almost
a member. "Today when I remembered that all these delightful
associations must be broken off... and then you know, Andre..."
(she looked significantly at her husband) "I'm afraid, I'm afraid!"
she whispered, and a shudder ran down her back.
Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that
someone besides Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed
her in a tone of frigid politeness.
"What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand,"
said he.
"There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just
for a whim of his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and
locks me up alone in the country."
"With my father and sister, remember," said Prince Andrew
gently.
"Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me
not to be afraid."
Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her
not a joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused
as if she felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before
Pierre, though the gist of the matter lay in that.
"I still can't understand what you are afraid of," said
Prince Andrew slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.
The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of
despair.
"No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you
have..."
"Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier," said Prince
Andrew. "You had better go."
The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip
quivered. Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked
about the room.
Pierre looked over his spectacles with naive surprise, now at
him and now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his
mind.
"Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?" exclaimed the
little princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by
a tearful grimace. "I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you
have changed so to me? What have I done to you? You are going to
the war and have no pity for me. Why is it?"
"Lise!" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word
expressed an entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she
would herself regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:
"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did
you behave like that six months ago?"
"Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince Andrew still more
emphatically.
Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he
listened to all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed
unable to bear the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.
"Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because... I
assure you I myself have experienced... and so... because... No,
excuse me! An outsider is out of place here... No, don't distress
yourself... Good-bye!"
Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.
"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to
deprive me of the pleasure of spending the evening with you."
"No, he thinks only of himself," muttered the princess
without restraining her angry tears.
"Lise!" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the
pitch which indicates that patience is exhausted.
Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess'
pretty face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her
beautiful eyes glanced askance at her husband's face, and her own
assumed the timid, deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly
but feebly wags its drooping tail.
"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she muttered, and lifting her dress
with one hand she went up to her husband and kissed him on the
forehead.
"Good night, Lise," said he, rising and courteously kissing
her hand as he would have done to a stranger.
CHAPTER VIII
The friends were silent. Neither cared to
begin talking. Pierre continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince
Andrew rubbed his forehead with his small hand.
"Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to
the door.
They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious
dining room. Everything from the table napkins to the silver,
china, and glass bore that imprint of newness found in the
households of the newly married. Halfway through supper Prince
Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and, with a look of nervous
agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on his face, began
to talk—as one who has long had something on his mind and suddenly
determines to speak out.
"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never
marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are
capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your
choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a
cruel and irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for
nothing—or all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will
all be wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such
surprise. If you marry expecting anything from yourself in the
future, you will feel at every step that for you all is ended, all
is closed except the drawing room, where you will be ranged side by
side with a court lackey and an idiot!... But what's the good?..."
and he waved his arm.
Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem
different and the good-natured expression still more apparent, and
gazed at his friend in amazement.
"My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman,
one of those rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O
God, what would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first
and only one to whom I mention this, because I like you."
As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that
Bolkonski who had lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with
half-closed eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth.
Every muscle of his thin face was now quivering with nervous
excitement; his eyes, in which the fire of life had seemed
extinguished, now flashed with brilliant light. It was evident that
the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more impassioned
he became in these moments of almost morbid irritation.
