The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion
of the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the
French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.
As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented
arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and
at the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It could be no one
else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over
a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding
a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered
saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did
so, Rostov, with his cavalryman’s eye, could not help noticing
that Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions
shouted "Hurrah!" and "Vive l’Empereur!" Napoleon said
something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each
other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and artificial
smile. Alexander was saying something affable to him.
In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which
were pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every movement
of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander
treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with
the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter
to him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached
the right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and came straight up to
the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close
to the Emperors that Rostov, standing in the front row, was afraid he
might be recognized.
"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the
bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating
every letter.
This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into
Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to
him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.
"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war," added
Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance
exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn
up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their
Emperor.
"Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?" said Alexander
and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the commander of
the battalion.
Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,
tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him
rushed forward and picked it up.
"To whom shall it be given?" the Emperor Alexander asked Kozlovski,
in Russian in a low voice.
"To whomever Your Majesty commands."
The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,
remarked:
"But we must give him an answer."
Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his
scrutiny.
"Can it be me?" thought Rostov.
"Lazarev!" the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the
first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices whispered to Lazarev who
did not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at
his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers
called before the ranks.
Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out
behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing
at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed
something from one to another, and a page - the same one Rostov
had seen the previous evening at Boris’ - ran forward and, bowing
respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a
moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking,
pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he
approached Lazarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his
own monarch), looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what
he was now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white
hand holding the Order touched one of Lazarev’s buttons. It was as if
Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch
that soldier’s breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded,
and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid
the cross on Lazarev’s breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward
Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it
really did.
Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and
fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little
man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing
motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander’s
eyes, as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do
something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in
that rigid position.
The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk battalion,
breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables
prepared for them.
Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced
him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and
civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French
voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square.
Two officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by
Rostov.
"What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate," one of them
was saying. "Have you seen Lazarev?"
"I have."
"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner."
"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs’ pension for
life."
"Here’s a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, donning a
shaggy French cap.
"It’s a fine thing! First-rate!"
"Have you heard the password?" asked one Guards’ officer of
another. "The day before yesterday it was ‘Napoleon, France,
bravoure’; yesterday, ‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.’ One day our
Emperor gives it and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send
a St. George’s Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be
done. He must respond in kind."
Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk
banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner of a
house.
"Rostov! How d’you do? We missed one another," he said, and could
not refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and
troubled was Rostov’s face.
"Nothing, nothing," replied Rostov.
"You’ll call round?"
"Yes, I will."
Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a
distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could
not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he
remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the
whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So
vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he
looked round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that
self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an
Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed
arms and legs and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev
rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself
harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and a sense of
hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to
eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.
There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself,
had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a
dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation
naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of
the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of
Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would
have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition.
Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a
couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on
tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to
his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the
officers’ saying that it was humiliating to look at the French,
Rostov began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to
the surprise of the officers:
"How can you judge what’s best?" he cried, the blood suddenly
rushing to his face. "How can you judge the Emperor’s actions? What
right have we to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor’s aims
or his actions!"
"But I never said a word about the Emperor!" said the officer,
justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov’s outburst,
except on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostov did not listen to him.
"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more,"
he went on. "If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we’re
punished, it means that we have deserved it, it’s not for us to judge.
If the Emperor pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude
an alliance with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If
once we begin judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred
will be left! That way we shall be saying there is no God - nothing!"
shouted Nicholas, banging the table - very little to the point as it
seemed to his listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own
thoughts.
"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That’s
all...." said he.
"And to drink," said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.
"Yes, and to drink," assented Nicholas. "Hullo there! Another
bottle!" he shouted.
In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with
the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was
much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.
CHAPTER XXII
In 1809 the intimacy between "the world’s two arbiters," as
Napoleon and Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared
war on Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with
our old enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and
in court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one
of Alexander’s sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of
foreign policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly
directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the
departments of government.
Life meanwhile - real life, with its essential interests of health and
sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought,
science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions - went on
as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity
with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.
BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10
CHAPTER I
Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.
All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates - and constantly
changing from one thing to another had never accomplished - were carried
out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty.
He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,
and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.
On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became
free agricultural laborers - this being one of the first examples of
the kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs’ compulsory labor was
commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Bogucharovo
at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to
the children of the peasants and household serfs.
Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his
son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in
"Bogucharovo Cloister," as his father called Prince Andrew’s
estate. Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had
expressed to Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received
many books, and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had
visitors from Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged
behind himself - who never left the country - in knowledge of what was
happening in home and foreign affairs.
Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of
books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of
our last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a
reform of the army rules and regulations.
In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates which had
been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.
Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche looking at the new
grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white
spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of
anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.
They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.
They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green
fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,
uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of
stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a
birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was
almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green
leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades
of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year’s leaves. The
coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there
among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the
forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.
Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.
But apparently the coachman’s sympathy was not enough for Peter, and
he turned on the box toward his master.
"How pleasant it is, your excellency!" he said with a respectful
smile.
"What?"
"It’s pleasant, your excellency!"
"What is he talking about?" thought Prince Andrew. "Oh, the
spring, I suppose," he thought as he turned round. "Yes, really
everything is green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and
alders too are coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is
one oak!"
At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the
birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as
tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a
man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been
broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling
unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,
stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the
dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,
refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or
the sunshine.
"Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say. "Are you not
weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the
same and always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look
at those cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out
my broken and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my
back or my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in
your hopes and your lies."
As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to
look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak,
too, were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,
misshapen, and grim as ever.
"Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right," thought Prince
Andrew. "Let others - the young - yield afresh to that fraud, but we
know life, our life is finished!"
A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose
in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as
it were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion,
restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything
anew - but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and
not disturbing himself or desiring anything.
CHAPTER II
Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district
in connection with the affairs of the Ryazan estate of which he was
trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, and in the middle of May
Prince Andrew went to visit him.
It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in
green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to
bathe.
Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which
he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds
of the Rostovs’ house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries
behind some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross
the path of his caleche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a
dark-haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with
a white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair
escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a
stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.
Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful,
the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl
did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and
cheerful in her own separate - probably foolish - but bright and happy
life. "What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of
the military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs’
quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?" Prince
Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.
In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as he had done
in former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with
hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince
Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying
the night.
During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by
his elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old
count’s house was crowded on account of an approaching name day),
Prince Andrew repeatedly glanced at Natasha, gay and laughing among the
younger members of the company, and asked himself each time, "What is
she thinking about? Why is she so glad?"
That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He
read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the
room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the
stupid old man (as he called Rostov), who had made him stay by assuring
him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he
was vexed with himself for having stayed.
He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the
shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst
into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and
very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking
black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the
trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit
leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a
roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly
white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its
full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his
elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.
His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also
awake. He heard female voices overhead.
"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew
recognized at once.
"But when are you coming to bed?" replied another voice.
"I won’t, I can’t sleep, what’s the use? Come now for the last
time."
Two girlish voices sang a musical passage - the end of some song.
"Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there’s an end of it."
"You go to sleep, but I can’t," said the first voice, coming
nearer to the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the
rustle of her dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything
was stone-still, like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince
Andrew, too, dared not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional
presence.
"Sonya! Sonya!" he again heard the first speaker. "Oh, how can
you sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,
Sonya!" she said almost with tears in her voice. "There never,
never was such a lovely night before!"
Sonya made some reluctant reply.
"Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here....
Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down
on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight,
as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this...."
"Take care, you’ll fall out."
He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sonya’s disapproving voice:
"It’s past one o’clock."
"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!"
Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting
there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.
"O God, O God! What does it mean?" she suddenly exclaimed. "To bed
then, if it must be!" and she slammed the casement.
"For her I might as well not exist!" thought Prince Andrew while he
listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she
might say something about him. "There she is again! As if it were on
purpose," thought he.
In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful
thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable
to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once.
CHAPTER III
Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not
waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.
It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove
into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and
memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded
yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was
thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest
did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood
around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.
The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only
a small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road
and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade,
the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely
swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales
trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.
"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed," thought
Prince Andrew. "But where is it?" he again wondered, gazing at
the left side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with
admiration at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured,
spreading out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and
slightly trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled
fingers nor old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in
evidence now. Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were
no twigs, leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old
veteran could have produced.
"Yes, it is the same oak," thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he
was seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All
the best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz
with the lofty heavens, his wife’s dead reproachful face, Pierre at
the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night
itself and the moon, and... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.
"No, life is not over at thirty-one!" Prince Andrew suddenly decided
finally and decisively. "It is not enough for me to know what I have
in me - everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to
fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be
lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that
it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!"
On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn
and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of
sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him
to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing
up in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have
doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month
before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country
could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his
experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to
some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not
even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical
arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if
he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe
in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness
or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey
to Ryazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer
interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up,
went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would
turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled à la
grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She
did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,
merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his
arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as
he reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a
crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with
fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman’s beauty
and love. And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was
particularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.
"My dear," Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say,
"little Nicholas can’t go out today, it’s very cold."
"If it were hot," Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly
to his sister, "he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he
must wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is
what follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who
needs fresh air should remain at home," he would add with extreme
logic, as if punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that
stirred within him.
At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries
men up.
CHAPTER IV
Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time
when the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his
reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same
August the Emperor was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and
remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and no
one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared
that so agitated society - abolishing court ranks and introducing
examinations to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and
State Councilor - and not merely these but a whole state constitution,
intended to change the existing order of government in Russia: legal,
administrative, and financial, from the Council of State down to the
district tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the
Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had tried to put
into effect with the aid of his associates, Czartoryski, Novosiltsev,
Kochubey, and Strogonov - whom he himself in jest had called his
Comite de salut public - were taking shape and being realized.
Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side, and
Arakcheev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a
gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The
Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word.
It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic
to the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality
generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he
now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained
the Emperor’s neglect of him by His Majesty’s displeasure at
Bolkonski’s not having served since 1805.
"I know myself that one cannot help one’s sympathies and
antipathies," thought Prince Andrew, "so it will not do to present
my proposal for the reform of the army regulations to the Emperor
personally, but the project will speak for itself."
He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend
of his father’s. The field marshal made an appointment to see him,
received him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few
days later Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the
Minister of War, Count Arakcheev.
On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev’s waiting
room at nine in the morning.
He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he
had heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.
"He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not
concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to
consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted," thought Prince
Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people
in Count Arakcheev’s waiting room.
During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the
anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms
were well known to him. Count Arakcheev’s anteroom had quite a
special character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their
turn for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of
those of higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered
by a mask of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and
the person for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and
down, others whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname
"Sila Andreevich" and the words, "Uncle will give it to us
hot," in reference to Count Arakcheev. One general (an important
personage), evidently feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat
crossing and uncrossing his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself.
But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all
faces - that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the
adjutant on duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and
was told that his turn would come in due course. After some others had
been shown in and out of the minister’s room by the adjutant on duty,
an officer who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air
was admitted at that terrible door. This officer’s audience lasted a
long time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard
from the other side of the door, and the officer - with pale face and
trembling lips - came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching
his head.
After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on
duty said in a whisper, "To the right, at the window."
Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of
forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,
scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red
nose. Arakcheev turned his head toward him without looking at him.
"What is your petition?" asked Arakcheev.
"I am not petitioning, your excellency," returned Prince Andrew
quietly.
Arakcheev’s eyes turned toward him.
"Sit down," said he. "Prince Bolkonski?"
"I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has
deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me..."
"You see, my dear sir, I have read your project," interrupted
Arakcheev, uttering only the first words amiably and then - again
without looking at Prince Andrew - relapsing gradually into a tone of
grumbling contempt. "You are proposing new military laws? There are
many laws but no one to carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody
designs laws, it is easier writing than doing."
"I came at His Majesty the Emperor’s wish to learn from your
excellency how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have
presented," said Prince Andrew politely.
"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the
committee. I do not approve of it," said Arakcheev, rising and taking
a paper from his writing table. "Here!" and he handed it to Prince
Andrew.
Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,
misspelled, and without punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed because
resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles
of War needlessly deviating."
"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?" inquired
Prince Andrew.
"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that
your honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary."
Prince Andrew smiled.
"I don’t want one."
"A member without salary," repeated Arakcheev. "I have the
honor... Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?" he shouted, bowing
to Prince Andrew.
CHAPTER V
While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee
Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he
knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now
experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when
troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling
circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was
being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the
uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation
of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose
existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in
Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in
chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was
supposed to be a man of genius - Speranski. And this movement of
reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski
its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question
of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his
consciousness.
Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the
highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming
party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because
he was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by
liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal.
The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations,
turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the
reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine
society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a
good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account
of his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this
the general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had
greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown
more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony,
and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about
him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him.
The day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrew spent
the evening at Count Kochubey’s. He told the count of his interview
with Sila Andreevich (Kochubey spoke of Arakcheev by that nickname
with the same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of
War’s anteroom).
"Mon cher, even in this case you can’t do without Michael
Mikhaylovich Speranski. He manages everything. I’ll speak to him. He
has promised to come this evening."
"What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?" asked Prince
Andrew.
Kochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkonski’s
simplicity.
"We were talking to him about you a few days ago," Kochubey
continued, "and about your freed plowmen."
"Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?" said an old man
of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkonski.
"It was a small estate that brought in no profit," replied Prince
Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man
uselessly.
"Afraid of being late..." said the old man, looking at Kochubey.
"There’s one thing I don’t understand," he continued. "Who
will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but
difficult to rule.... Just the same as now - I ask you, Count - who will
be heads of the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?"
"Those who pass the examinations, I suppose," replied Kochubey,
crossing his legs and glancing round.
"Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a
priceless man, but he’s sixty. Is he to go up for examination?"
"Yes, that’s a difficulty, as education is not at all general,
but..."
Count Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm,
and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open
forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was
just entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a
cross suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was
Speranski. Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb
within him, as happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from
respect, envy, or anticipation, he did not know. Speranski’s whole
figure was of a peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In
the society in which Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who
together with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and
self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression
as that in those half-closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that
expressed nothing; nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft
voice; above all he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face or
hands - hands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such
whiteness and softness Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of
soldiers who had been long in hospital. This was Speranski, Secretary
of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he
had more than once met and talked with Napoleon.
Speranski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people
involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to
speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and
he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.
Prince Andrew followed Speranski’s every word and movement with
particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men
who judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting
anyone new - especially anyone whom, like Speranski, he knew by
reputation - expected to discover in him the perfection of human
qualities.
Speranski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner
as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor
had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.
When Kochubey introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly turned
his eyes to Bolkonski with his customary smile and looked at him in
silence.
"I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as
everyone has," he said after a pause.
Kochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev had given
Bolkonski. Speranski smiled more markedly.
"The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend
Monsieur Magnitski," he said, fully articulating every word and
syllable, "and if you like I can put you in touch with him." He
paused at the full stop. "I hope you will find him sympathetic and
ready to co-operate in promoting all that is reasonable."
A circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man who had talked
about his subordinate Pryanichnikov addressed a question to him.
Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement
of Speranski’s: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity
student, who now, Bolkonski thought, held in his hands - those plump
white hands - the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the
extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski answered
the old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from
an immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud,
Speranski smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or
disadvantage of what pleased the sovereign.
Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speranski rose
and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the
room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in
Bolkonski.
"I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated
conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me," he said
with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he
and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom
he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. "I have known
of you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your
serfs, a first example, of which it is very desirable that there should
be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen
of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new
decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so
much gossip and tittle-tattle."
"No," said Prince Andrew, "my father did not wish me to take
advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade."
"Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our
contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely re-establishes
natural justice."
"I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,"
returned Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speranski’s influence, of
which he began to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in
everything and felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily
and well, he felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking
with Speranski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous
man’s personality.
"Grounds of personal ambition maybe," Speranski put in quietly.
"And of state interest to some extent," said Prince Andrew.
"What do you mean?" asked Speranski quietly, lowering his eyes.
"I am an admirer of Montesquieu," replied Prince Andrew, "and
his idea that le principe des monarchies est l’honneur me paraît
incontestable. Certains droits et privileges de la noblesse me
paraissent être des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment." *
* "The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me
incontestable. Certain rights and privileges for the
aristocracy appear to me a means of maintaining that
sentiment."
The smile vanished from Speranski’s white face, which was much
improved by the change. Probably Prince Andrew’s thought interested
him.
"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue," * he began,
pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower
than in Russian but quite calmly.
* "If you regard the question from that point of view."
Speranski went on to say that honor, l’honneur, cannot be upheld by
privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l’honneur, is either a
negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of
emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.
His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.
"An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one
similar to the Legion d’honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not
harmful but helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or
court privilege."
"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges
have attained the same end," returned Prince Andrew. "Every courtier
considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily."
"Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince,"
said Speranski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably
an argument which was embarrassing for his companion. "If you will
do me the honor of calling on me on Wednesday," he added, "I will,
after talking with Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and
shall also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you."
Closing his eyes, he bowed à la française, without taking leave, and
trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.
CHAPTER VI
During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the
whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite
overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.
On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four
or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism
of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere,
absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did
not even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked
successfully, of what he had thought while in the country.
He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same
remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for
whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking
of nothing.
As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey’s, Speranski
produced a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he
received him tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and
confidentially.
To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant
creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that
perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in
Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous
man. Had Speranski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed
the same breeding and traditions, Bolkonski would soon have discovered
his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speranski’s strange
and logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because
he did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speranski, either because he
appreciated the other’s capacity or because he considered it necessary
to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness
before Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which
goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption
that one’s companion is the only man besides oneself capable of
understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness
and profundity of one’s own ideas.
During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski more
than once remarked: "We regard everything that is above the common
level of rooted custom..." or, with a smile: "But we want the wolves
to be fed and the sheep to be safe..." or: "They cannot understand
this..." and all in a way that seemed to say: "We, you and I,
understand what they are and who we are."
This first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in Prince
Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.
He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by
his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely
for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew’s eyes Speranski was the
man he would himself have wished to be - one who explained all the facts
of life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and
was capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything
seemed so simple and clear in Speranski’s exposition that Prince
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