has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to
medicine - not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so
on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the
innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple
thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard
that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their
lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best
years of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought
was kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were
really useful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostov family. Their
usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for
the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they
were given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and
indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and
of those who loved her - and that is why there are, and always will be,
pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied
that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that
something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They
satisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it
wants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself
and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching
spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child
cannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no
remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its
mother’s sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were
of use to Natasha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her
that it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist’s in
the Arbat and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble
and seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at
intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.
What would Sonya and the count and countess have done, how would they
have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills
to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the
other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which
supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would
the count have borne his dearly loved daughter’s illness had he not
known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not
grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her
illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take
her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain
the details of how Metivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms,
but Frise had, and Mudrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the
countess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid
for not strictly obeying the doctor’s orders?
"You’ll never get well like that," she would say, forgetting her grief
in her vexation, "if you won’t obey the doctor and take your medicine at
the right time! You mustn’t trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to
pneumonia," she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of
that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.
What would Sonya have done without the glad consciousness that she had
not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to
carry out all the doctor’s injunctions with precision, and that she
still kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the
slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered?
Even to Natasha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices
were being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine
at certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her
and that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to
show, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical
treatment and did not value her life.
The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and
regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had
gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he
assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though
there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and
one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And
the countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him,
slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient
with a more tranquil mind.
The symptoms of Natasha’s illness were that she ate little, slept
little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that
she could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the
stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the
country that summer of 1812.
In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out
of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of
such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of
the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natasha’s
grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased
to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past,
and she began to recover physically.
CHAPTER XVII
Natasha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external
forms of pleasure - balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters - but she
never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not
sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears
choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure
times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so
uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy.
Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy,
in face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to
coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no
man was more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon. Something stood
sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all
the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full
of hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, "Uncle," and the Christmas
holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest
and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a
single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at
the time had not deceived her - that that state of freedom and readiness
for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live
on.
It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly
imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But
this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, "What next?"
But there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was
passing. Natasha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to
anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in
the house and felt at ease only with her brother Petya. She liked to
be with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she
sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came
to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been
impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the
same time more seriously than did Count Bezukhov. Natasha unconsciously
felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But
she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre’s part
seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind
to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natasha
noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence,
especially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that
something they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She
noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness,
which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.
After those involuntary words - that if he were free he would have asked
on his knees for her hand and her love - uttered at a moment when she was
so strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natasha of his feelings;
and it seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted
her, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort
a crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because
Natasha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of
which she had experienced with Kuragin that it never entered her head
that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her
part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,
romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known
several instances.
Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a
country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at
the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast
and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea.
Despite the doctor’s orders that she should not go out early in the
morning, Natasha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,
not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostov family by attending
three services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivanovna did, by
going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,
Matins, or Mass.
The countess was pleased with Natasha’s zeal; after the poor results of
the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer
might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without
fear and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha’s wish and
entrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivanovna used to come to wake Natasha
at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was
afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on
her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natasha, shivering in the fresh
air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.
By Agrafena Ivanovna’s advice Natasha prepared herself not in their
own parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agrafena
Ivanovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were
never many people in the church; Natasha always stood beside Belova in
the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the
screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of
humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when
at that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin
illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light
falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which
she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her
personal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its
own. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that
the wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to
understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit
oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She
crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror
at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything,
everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered
herself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an
early hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men
sweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep,
Natasha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility
of correcting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of
happiness.
During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every
day. And the happiness of taking communion, or "communing" as Agrafena
Ivanovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natasha
so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.
But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in
white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for
many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life
that lay before her.
The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the
powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.
"She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening," said
he, evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. "Only, please be
particular about it.
"Be quite easy," he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold
coin in his palm. "She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The
last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened
up very much."
The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her
nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.
CHAPTER XVIII
At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war
began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to
the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as
up to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received,
exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of
Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was
in danger, it was said that Smolensk had surrendered, that Napoleon had
an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.
On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received
but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostovs’, promised
to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto
and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchin.
That Sunday, the Rostovs went to Mass at the Razumovskis’ private chapel
as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o’clock, when the Rostovs
got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of
hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves
of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white
trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on
the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that
summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which
is most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow
notabilities, all the Rostovs’ acquaintances, were at the Razumovskis’
chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families
who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that
summer. As Natasha, at her mother’s side, passed through the crowd
behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a
young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.
"That’s Rostova, the one who..."
"She’s much thinner, but all the same she’s pretty!"
She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kuragin and Bolkonski. But
she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone
who looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a
sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself
in a crowd, Natasha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace
walked - as women can walk - with the more repose and stateliness the
greater the pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she
was pretty, but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to.
On the contrary it tormented her more than anything else of late, and
particularly so on this bright, hot summer day in town. "It’s Sunday
again - another week past," she thought, recalling that she had been here
the Sunday before, "and always the same life that is no life, and the
same surroundings in which it used to be so easy to live. I’m pretty,
I’m young, and I know that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I
know I am good," she thought, "but yet my best years are slipping by
and are no good to anyone." She stood by her mother’s side and exchanged
nods with acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies’
dresses, condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not
crossing herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought
with vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others,
and suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own
vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to
her.
A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that
mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the
souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed,
the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice
pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not
understand, made Natasha’s breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive
feeling agitated her.
"Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good
forever, forever!" she pleaded.
The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and,
holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic
and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and
solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer....
"In peace let us pray unto the Lord."
"As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united
by brotherly love - let us pray!" thought Natasha.
"For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls."
"For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us," prayed
Natasha.
When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and
Denisov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she
remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her
all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us,
she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and
Sonya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward
them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they
prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and
people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her
enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her
father, and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she
remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm - and though he did not
hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did
she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole,
as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and
devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod,
she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself
that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at
any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.
When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his
breast and said, "Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ
the Lord!"
"Commit ourselves to God," Natasha inwardly repeated. "Lord God, I
submit myself to Thy will!" she thought. "I want nothing, wish for
nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take
me!" prayed Natasha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing
herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some
invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,
from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.
The countess looked round several times at her daughter’s softened face
and shining eyes and prayed God to help her.
Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order
Natasha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he
knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors
of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet
biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort.
Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another in
surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod - a prayer for
the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.
"Lord God of might, God of our salvation!" began the priest in that
voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy
read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.
"Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and
blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and
have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay
waste the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered
together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy
beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to
desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked
triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power?
"Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might
our most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich; be
mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his
righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his
counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by
Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou
gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over
Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who
have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength
for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us;
confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may
they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the
wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may
they be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid
in secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants’
feet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both
great and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee!
"God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness
which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our
unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not
our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew
a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our
hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of
spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and
to our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against
the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.
"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us
not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy
blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and
be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art
the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord,
and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice
in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath
the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor,
and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all
glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without
end. Amen."
In Natasha’s receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her
strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over
Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about
the destruction of "Thy Jerusalem," and she prayed to God with the
tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without
fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She
shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness,
for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation
by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under
foot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more
of them that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the
righteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She
felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the
punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own
sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to
give them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her
that God heard her prayer.
CHAPTER XIX
From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs’ with Natasha’s
grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to
be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own
horizon - from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all
earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented
itself. That terrible question "Why?" "Wherefore?" which had come to him
amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a
reply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or
himself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of
human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did
not ask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so
transient and incomprehensible - but he remembered her as he had last
seen her, and all his doubts vanished - not because she had answered
the questions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her
transferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual
activity in which no one could be justified or guilty - a realm of beauty
and love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness
presented itself to him, he said to himself:
"Well, supposing N. N. has swindled the country and the Tsar, and the
country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She
smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and
no one will ever know it." And his soul felt calm and peaceful.
Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle
and dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostovs’
there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and
acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along
irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came
from the seat of war and Natasha’s health began to improve and she
no longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an
ever-increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took
possession of him. He felt that the condition he was in could not
continue long, that a catastrophe was coming which would change his
whole life, and he impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that
approaching catastrophe. One of his brother Masons had revealed to
Pierre the following prophecy concerning Napoleon, drawn from the
Revelation of St. John.
In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of
the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six.
And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two
months.
The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the
Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others
tens, will have the following significance:
a b c d e f g h i k
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
lmnopqrs
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
tuvwxy
100 110 120 130 140 150
z
160
Writing the words L’Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that the
sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold
in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words
quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that "spoke
great things and blasphemies," the same number 666 was obtained; from
which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon’s power had come
in the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy
pleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an
end to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the
same system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an
answer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L’Empereur
Alexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums
were either more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he
wrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the
sum of the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling,
substituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still
without obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the
answer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would
also be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding
up the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was
represented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the
word Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the
answer he sought. L’russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him.
How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in
the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for
a moment. His love for Natasha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the
comet, 666, L’Empereur Napoleon, and L’russe Besuhof - all this had to
mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere
of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a
great achievement and great happiness.
* Forty-two.
On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had
promised the Rostovs to bring them, from Count Rostopchin whom he knew
well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the
morning, when he went to call at Rostopchin’s he met there a courier
fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at
Moscow balls.
"Do, please, for heaven’s sake, relieve me of something!" said the
courier. "I have a sackful of letters to parents."
Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostov to his father. Pierre
took that letter, and Rostopchin also gave him the Emperor’s appeal to
Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own
most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in
one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of
Nicholas Rostov, awarded a St. George’s Cross of the Fourth Class for
courage shown in the Ostrovna affair, and in the same order the name
of Prince Andrew Bolkonski, appointed to the command of a regiment of
Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostovs of Bolkonski,
Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their
son’s having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order
and Nicholas’ letter to the Rostovs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin,
and the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner.
His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter’s tone of anxious
hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly
things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in
Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised
to be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the
Emperor’s being expected to arrive next day - all aroused with fresh force
that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had been
conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially
since the beginning of the war.
He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so
had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of
Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual
peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he
saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking
patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief
reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the
vague idea that he was L’russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast,
666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the
power of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been
predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake
anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.
CHAPTER XX
A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostovs that day, as usual
on Sundays.
Pierre came early so as to find them alone.
He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he
not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his
bulk with evident ease.
He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did
not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was
at the Rostovs’ he stayed till midnight. The Rostovs’ footman rushed
eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and
stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the
anteroom.
The first person he saw in the house was Natasha. Even before he saw
her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa
exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her
illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He
opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at
church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he
opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised
face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.
"I want to try to sing again," she said, adding as if by way of excuse,
"it is, at least, something to do."
"That’s capital!"
"How glad I am you’ve come! I am so happy today," she said, with the old
animation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. "You know Nicholas
has received a St. George’s Cross? I am so proud of him."
"Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don’t want to interrupt you,"
he added, and was about to go to the drawing room.
Natasha stopped him.
"Count, is it wrong of me to sing?" she said blushing, and fixing her
eyes inquiringly on him.
"No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?"
"I don’t know myself," Natasha answered quickly, "but I should not like
to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You
don’t know how important you are to me, how much you’ve done for me...."
She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. "I
saw in that same army order that he, Bolkonski" (she whispered the name
hastily), "is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?" - she
was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail
her - "Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling
toward me? What do you think? What do you think?"
"I think..." Pierre replied, "that he has nothing to forgive.... If I
were in his place..."
By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day
when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but
the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her
hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession
of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him
time to say them.
"Yes, you... you..." she said, uttering the word you rapturously - "that’s
a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better than
you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too, I don’t
know what would have become of me, because..."
Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music
before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and
down the room.
Just then Petya came running in from the drawing room.
Petya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and
resembled Natasha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and
his friend Obolenski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.
Petya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair.
He had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the
hussars.
Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Petya
was saying.
Petya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.
"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirilych, for heaven’s sake! You are my
only hope," said Petya.
"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I’ll mention it, I’ll bring it
all up today."
"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?" asked the old count. "The
countess has been to Mass at the Razumovskis’ and heard the new prayer.
She says it’s very fine."
"Yes, I’ve got it," said Pierre. "The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...
there’s to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are
talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate
you!"
"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?"
"We are again retreating. They say we’re already near Smolensk," replied
Pierre.
"O Lord, O Lord!" exclaimed the count. "Where is the manifesto?"
"The Emperor’s appeal? Oh yes!"
Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find
them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess
who entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting
Natasha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing
room.
"On my word, I don’t know what I’ve done with it," he said.
"There he is, always losing everything!" remarked the countess.
Natasha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and
sat down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre’s
features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still
searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.
"No, really! I’ll drive home, I must have left them there. I’ll
certainly..."
"But you’ll be late for dinner."
"Oh! And my coachman has gone."
But Sonya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had
found them in Pierre’s hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the
lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.
"No, after dinner," said the old count, evidently expecting much
enjoyment from that reading.
At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new
chevalier of St. George, Shinshin told them the town news, of the
illness of the old Georgian princess, of Metivier’s disappearance from
Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchin
and accused of being a French "spyer" (so Count Rostopchin had told the
story), and how Rostopchin let him go and assured the people that he was
"not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin."
"People are being arrested..." said the count. "I’ve told the countess
she should not speak French so much. It’s not the time for it now."
"And have you heard?" Shinshin asked. "Prince Golitsyn has engaged a
master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in
the streets."
"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the militia,
you too will have to mount a horse," remarked the old count, addressing
Pierre.
Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not
to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.
"Oh yes, the war," he said. "No! What sort of warrior should I make? And
yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can’t make it out. I don’t
know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no
one can answer for himself."
After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and
with a serious face asked Sonya, who was considered an excellent reader,
to read the appeal.
"To Moscow, our ancient Capital!
"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He
comes to despoil our beloved country."
Sonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened
with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.
Natasha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and
now at Pierre.
Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess
shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression
in the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger
threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sarcastic
smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that
gave him the opportunity: Sonya’s reading, any remark of the count’s, or
even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.
After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the
Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,
Sonya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was
being paid to her, read the last words:
"We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital
and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction
of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy’s path and those
freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he
hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered
from bondage glorify the name of Russia!"
"Yes, that’s it!" cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing
repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he
added, "Let the Emperor but say the word and we’ll sacrifice everything
and begrudge nothing."
Before Shinshin had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the
count’s patriotism, Natasha jumped up from her place and ran to her
father.
"What a darling our Papa is!" she cried, kissing him, and she again
looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her
with her better spirits.
"There! Here’s a patriot for you!" said Shinshin.
"Not a patriot at all, but simply..." Natasha replied in an injured
tone. "Everything seems funny to you, but this isn’t at all a joke...."
"A joke indeed!" put in the count. "Let him but say the word and we’ll
all go.... We’re not Germans!"
"But did you notice, it says, ‘for consultation’?" said Pierre.
"Never mind what it’s for...."
At this moment, Petya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up
to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice
that was now deep and now shrill:
"Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it’s as you please,
but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I
can’t... that’s all...."
The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and
turned angrily to her husband.
"That comes of your talking!" said she.
But the count had already recovered from his excitement.
"Come, come!" said he. "Here’s a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must
study."
"It’s not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obolenski is younger than I, and he’s
going too. Besides, all the same I can’t study now when..." Petya
stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,
"when our Fatherland is in danger."
"That’ll do, that’ll do - nonsense...."
"But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything."
"Petya! Be quiet, I tell you!" cried the count, with a glance at his
wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.
"And I tell you - Peter Kirilych here will also tell you..."
"Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother’s milk has hardly dried on your lips
and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you," and the
count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread
them in his study before having a nap.
"Well, Peter Kirilych, let’s go and have a smoke," he said.
Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha’s unwontedly brilliant eyes,
continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced
him to this condition.
"No, I think I’ll go home."
"Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don’t
often come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine," said the count
good-naturedly, pointing to Natasha, "only brightens up when you’re
here."
"Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business..." said
Pierre hurriedly.
"Well, then, au revoir!" said the count, and went out of the room.
"Why are you going? Why are you upset?" asked Natasha, and she looked
challengingly into Pierre’s eyes.
"Because I love you!" was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it,
and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.
"Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply
I have business...."
"Why? No, tell me!" Natasha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.
They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried
to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently
kissed her hand and went out.
Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostovs’ any more.
CHAPTER XXI
After the definite refusal he had received, Petya went to his room
and there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,
silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to
notice anything.
Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostovs’
domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That
morning Petya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and
collar to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass,
gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word
to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to
avoid notice. Petya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and
to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor
to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostov,
in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be
no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While
dressing, Petya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the
gentleman-in-waiting.
It was on the very fact of being so young that Petya counted for success
in reaching the Emperor - he even thought how surprised everyone would be
at his youthfulness - and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair
and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man.
But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the
ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Kremlin, the less he remembered
to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached
the Kremlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck
out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he
was so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the
patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his
determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in,
rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a
footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some
time in the gateway, Petya tried to move forward in front of the others
without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely
working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who
was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at
him:
"What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don’t you see we’re all
standing still? Then why push?"
"Anybody can shove," said the footman, and also began working his elbows
to such effect that he pushed Petya into a very filthy corner of the
gateway.
Petya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp
collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man’s.
He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were
now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be
admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up
or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who
drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs’, and Petya thought of
asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a
manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd,
carrying Petya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin Square which
was already full of people. There were people not only in the square,
but everywhere - on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Petya found
himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous
voices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin.
For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,
and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Petya was being pressed so
that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!" Petya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see
nothing except the people about him.
All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A
tradesman’s wife standing beside Petya sobbed, and the tears ran down
her cheeks.
"Father! Angel! Dear one!" she kept repeating, wiping away her tears
with her fingers.
"Hurrah!" was heard on all sides.
For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush
forward.
Quite beside himself, Petya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes
ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting "hurrah!" as
if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but
on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed
forward and everybody shouted "hurrah!"
"So this is what the Emperor is!" thought Petya. "No, I can’t petition
him myself - that would be too bold." But in spite of this he continued
to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those
in front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth
spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back - the police
in front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the
procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of
the Assumption - and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side
and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim
before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a
man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of
his head and wearing a shabby blue cassock - probably a church clerk and
chanter - was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off
the pressure of the crowd with the other.
"You’ve crushed the young gentleman!" said the clerk. "What are you up
to? Gently!... They’ve crushed him, crushed him!"
The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread
out again more evenly, and the clerk led Petya - pale and breathless - to
the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Petya, and suddenly a
crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest
him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised
platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might
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