"Natasha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about you."
They were silent awhile.
"But why go to Petersburg?" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily replied
to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He must...."
FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20
CHAPTER I
Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had
subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the
mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of
their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.
Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement
of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups
of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of
kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation.
The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as
previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not
borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed
to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies,
who formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars,
campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political
and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.
The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the
reaction."
In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical
personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the
reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and
Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand,
and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or
condemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction.
According to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in Russia
also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who according
to them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement
of his reign, being the savior of Russia.
There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to
learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for
things he did wrong at this period of his reign.
"He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he did
well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of
his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution
to Poland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakcheev,
favoring Golitsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius.
He also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and
disbanding the Semenov regiment."
It would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the
historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for
humanity.
What do these reproaches mean?
Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I
(the liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with
Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813)
flow from the same sources - the circumstances of his birth, education,
and life - that made his personality what it was and from which the
actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of
Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?
In what does the substance of those reproaches lie?
It lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I,
standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the
blinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those
strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception
inseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life
felt a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not
a fictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal
habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth - that
this character - though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not
accuse him of that) - had not the same conception of the welfare of
humanity fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his
youth upwards has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and
lectures and with taking notes from them.
But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in
his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that
the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some
time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.
This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching
the movement of history, we see that every year and with each new
writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what
once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is
more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to
what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a
constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in
Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.
The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or
harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful.
If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does
not agree with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the
preservation of my father’s house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian
arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the
freedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in
Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called "progress" appear
to me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides these things the
action of every historic character has other more general purposes
inaccessible to me.
But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all
contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by
which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander
could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance
from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the
movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to
the program his present accusers would have given him - of nationality,
freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground). Let
us assume that this program was possible and had then been formulated,
and that Alexander had acted on it. What would then have become of the
activity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in
the government - an activity that in the opinion of the historians was
good and beneficent? Their activity would not have existed: there would
have been no life, there would have been nothing.
If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of
life is destroyed.
CHAPTER II
If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the
attainment of certain ends - the greatness of Russia or of France,
the balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the
Revolution, general progress, or anything else - then it is impossible
to explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of
chance and genius.
If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth
century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been
accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. If
the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained
without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the aim was the
dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that
much better than warfare. If the aim was the progress of civilization,
it is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization
more expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives.
Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?
Because it happened so! "Chance created the situation; genius utilized
it," says history.
But what is chance? What is genius?
The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and
therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of
understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I
think that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about
chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary
human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of
genius.
To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a
special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others
must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction
of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram,
who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a
special enclosure where there are oats - that this very ram, swelling with
fat, is killed for meat.
But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them
happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only
admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken,
and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened
to the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose
they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the
ram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer need the conceptions
of chance or genius.
Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately
intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our
ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of
historic characters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce
(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the words
chance and genius become superfluous.
We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European
convulsions and that we know only the facts - that is, the murders, first
in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain,
and in Russia - and that the movements from the west to the east and from
the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events, and
not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in
Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to
be anything but like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have
recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made
these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small
events were inevitable.
By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall
clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for
any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is
impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the
smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon and
Alexander with all their antecedents.
CHAPTER III
The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the
beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of
the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west.
The commencement of that movement was the movement from west to east.
For the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement
to Moscow it was necessary: (1) that they should form themselves into
a military group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike
military group of the east, (2) that they should abandon all established
traditions and customs, and (3) that during their military movement they
should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them
the deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed
during that movement.
And beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large
group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step
by step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and
traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the
coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done.
A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without
a name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges - by what seem the strangest
chances - from among all the seething French parties, and without joining
anyone of them is borne forward to a prominent position.
The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of
his opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and
self-confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the
army. The brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy,
his opponents’ reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and
self-confidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so-called chances
accompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the
rulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his
predestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian
service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. During
the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction and
each time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various diplomatic
considerations the Russian armies - just those which might have destroyed
his prestige - do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there.
On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process
of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped
out and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position
presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition
to Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta
surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with
success. The enemy’s fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat
pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of
outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the
men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves
that this is admirable, this is glory - it resembles Caesar and Alexander
the Great and is therefore good.
This ideal of glory and grandeur - which consists not merely in
considering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every
crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural
significance - that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates,
had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The
plague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not
imputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and
ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is
set down to his credit, and again the enemy’s fleet twice lets him slip
past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully,
he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a
year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and
his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can
only serve to exalt him - and though he himself has no plan, he is quite
ready for his new rôle.
He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at
him and demanded his participation.
He alone - with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and
Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in
lying - he alone could justify what had to be done.
He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from
his will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his
mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and
the conspiracy is crowned with success.
He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to
flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and
says senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud
and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are
even more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have
said to destroy him and retain their power.
Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by
agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters
of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character
of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives
a plot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his
power. Chance puts the Duc d’Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly
causes him to kill him - thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than
in any other way that he had the right, since he had the might.
Chance contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an
expedition against England (which would inevitably have ruined him) he
never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and
the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance and genius give
him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men, not only the
French but all Europe - except England which does not take part in the
events about to happen - despite their former horror and detestation of
his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given
himself, and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and
reasonable to them all.
As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the
western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807,
and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of people that
had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central
Europe. The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the
head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During
the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all
the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can
oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of
glory and grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their
insignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek
the great man’s mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that
this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the
guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the
aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself
for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who
prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is
happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud
he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once
represented as a great deed. The most suitable fête the Germans can
devise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstädt. Not only is he
great, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his
brothers-in-law. Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his
reason and to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so
too are the forces.
The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal - Moscow. That
city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing
armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to Wagram. But
suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which hitherto had
so consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the
predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur - from
the cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks which set Moscow on
fire, and the frosts - and instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable
baseness become evident.
The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now
not for Napoleon but always against him.
A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a
remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.
Attempted drives from east to west - similar to the contrary movements of
1805, 1807, and 1809 - precede the great westward movement; there is the
same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same adhesion
of the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same hesitation
midway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached.
Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army
are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all his
actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable chance
occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the cause of
their sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his
craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared ten
years previously and one year later - an outlawed brigand. But by some
strange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet ended. The man
who ten years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand
is sent to an island two days’ sail from France, which for some reason
is presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him and
millions of money are paid him.
CHAPTER IV
The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The
waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are
formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have
caused the floods to abate.
But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The diplomatists
think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure
of natural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns; the
position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be rising
does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from the same
point as before - Paris. The last backwash of the movement from the west
occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable
diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of
history.
The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any
conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by
strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they
cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.
This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.
That act is performed.
The last rôle is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his
powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.
And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself
in solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies
when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole
world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an
unseen hand directed his actions.
The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor
shows him to us.
"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he
but I who moved you?"
But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people
understood this.
Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of
Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from
east to west.
What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of
that movement from east to west?
What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European
affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral
superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him;
a mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against
Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been
prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education,
his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by
Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.
During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But
as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he
appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of
Europe, led them to the goal.
The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all
possible power. How does he use it?
Alexander I - the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years
had striven only for his people’s welfare, the originator of the liberal
innovations in his fatherland - now that he seemed to possess the utmost
power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the
welfare of his peoples - at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing
up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy
had he retained power - Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and
feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance
of that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives it into the hands
of contemptible men whom he despises, saying only:
"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like the
rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God."
As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and
yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to
comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet
has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.
A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid
of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the
bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the
fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from
flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey.
Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely
says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear
a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices
that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil
fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee’s
existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the
bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the
bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first,
the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The
higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes,
the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our
comprehension.
All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to
other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic
characters and nations.
CHAPTER V
Natasha’s wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the last
happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov died
that same year and, as always happens, after the father’s death the
family group broke up.
The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight
from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha’s despair, Petya’s death,
and the old countess’ grief fell blow after blow on the old count’s
head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these
events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and
inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened
and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising.
The arrangements for Natasha’s marriage occupied him for a while. He
ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but
his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it
evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.
When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to
complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his
bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite
the doctor’s encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an
armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him
his medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,
sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having
dissipated their property - that being the chief fault of which he was
conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and
next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects
to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostovs. All these
acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so
often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach
and emotion, as if justifying themselves: "Well, whatever he may have
been he was a most worthy man. You don’t meet such men nowadays.... And
which of us has not weaknesses of his own?"
It was just when the count’s affairs had become so involved that it was
impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he
unexpectedly died.
Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his
father’s death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and
without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to
Moscow. The state of the count’s affairs became quite obvious a month
after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small
debts the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to
double the value of the property.
Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But
he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father’s memory, which he
held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the
inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.
The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague
but powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count’s
careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As
always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get
paid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given them
as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was
allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity
the old man - the cause of their losses (if they were losses) - now
remorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the
debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them.
Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by
auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained
unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his
brother-in-law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due
for value received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as
the creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.
He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at
the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on
life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who
had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service,
he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of
which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sonya to a small
house on the Sivtsev Vrazhok.
Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no
clear idea of Nicholas’ circumstances. Having borrowed money from his
brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him.
His position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve
hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sonya,
but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The
countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she
had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was
for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to
send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or
wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha or
Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.
Sonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her
whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty
from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted
to Sonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her
patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.
He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and
because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people
are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt
that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at
her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all
that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in
any case be renewed.
Nicholas’ position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something
aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save
anything, but to comply with his mother’s demands he even incurred some
small debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of
marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female
relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out - his mother’s
death - never entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped
for nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern
satisfaction in an uncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried
to avoid his old acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive
offers of assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and
even at home did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently
up and down the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed
carefully to cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled
him to endure his position.
CHAPTER VI
At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports
current in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and how "the
son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were saying.
"I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to herself,
feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her friendly
relations with all the Rostovs which had made her almost a member of the
family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But remembering her
relations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy about doing so. Making
a great effort she did however go to call on them a few weeks after her
arrival in Moscow.
Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess’ room could only be
reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as she
had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff,
proud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her
health, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes
left the room.
When the princess came out of the countess’ room Nicholas met her again,
and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom.
To her remarks about his mother’s health he made no reply. "What’s that
to you? Leave me in peace," his looks seemed to say.
"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can’t bear these
ladies and all these civilities!" said he aloud in Sonya’s presence,
evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess’ carriage
had disappeared.
"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?" cried Sonya, hardly able to
conceal her delight. "She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!"
Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any
more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a
day.
She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed
a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she
began to talk about her.
Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess,
but his silence irritated her.
"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman," said she, "and you
must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody, and I
think it must be dull for you only seeing us."
"But I don’t in the least want to, Mamma."
"You used to want to, and now you don’t. Really I don’t understand you,
my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see anyone."
"But I never said I was dull."
"Why, you said yourself you don’t want even to see her. She is a very
admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you
have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from
me."
"Not at all, Mamma."
"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now - but I only ask
you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it....
Well, I have asked you, and now I won’t interfere any more since you
have secrets from your mother."
"Well, then, I’ll go if you wish it."
"It doesn’t matter to me. I only wish it for your sake."
Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a
patience, trying to divert his mother’s attention to another topic.
The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and the
day after that.
After her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by
Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in
not wishing to be the first to call.
"I expected nothing else," she told herself, calling her pride to her
aid. "I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the
old lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many
obligations."
But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin
to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had
firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole
matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when
she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her
relation to Rostov. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling
for her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could
discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at
ease.
One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her
nephew’s lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. With a firm
resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent
for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.
Her first glance at Nicholas’ face told her that he had only come to
fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain
the tone in which he addressed her.
They spoke of the countess’ health, of their mutual friends, of the
latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had
elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by.
With Mademoiselle Bourienne’s help the princess had maintained the
conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose,
she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her
mind was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little
happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her
luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen.
Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her
abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then
again looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of
suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was
vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face
expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could
think of nothing to say.
"Good-by, Princess!" said he.
She started, flushed, and sighed deeply.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said as if waking up. "Are you going
already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the
countess!"
"Wait a moment, I’ll fetch it," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she
left the room.
They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.
"Yes, Princess," said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, "it doesn’t
seem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water
has flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet
I would give much to bring back that time... but there’s no bringing it
back."
Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones
as he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of
his words which would explain his feeling for her.
"Yes, yes," said she, "but you have no reason to regret the past, Count.
As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it
with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now..."
"I cannot accept your praise," he interrupted her hurriedly. "On the
contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an
interesting or cheerful subject."
His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the
princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it
was to him that she now spoke.
"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said. "I had come
so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would not
consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken," and suddenly her
voice trembled. "I don’t know why," she continued, recovering herself,
"but you used to be different, and..."
"There are a thousand reasons why," laying special emphasis on the why.
"Thank you, Princess," he added softly. "Sometimes it is hard."
"So that’s why! That’s why!" a voice whispered in Princess Mary’s soul.
"No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that
handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute,
self-sacrificing spirit too," she said to herself. "Yes, he is poor now
and I am rich.... Yes, that’s the only reason.... Yes, were it not for
that..." And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his
kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness.
"But why, Count, why?" she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to
him. "Why? Tell me. You must tell me!"
He was silent.
"I don’t understand your why, Count," she continued, "but it’s hard for
me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former
friendship. And that hurts me." There were tears in her eyes and in her
voice. "I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard
for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!" and suddenly she began to cry
and was hurrying from the room.
"Princess, for God’s sake!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her.
"Princess!"
She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one
another’s eyes - and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly became
possible, inevitable, and very near.
CHAPTER VII
In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald
Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya.
Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without
selling any of his wife’s property, and having received a small
inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.
In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he
was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating
to buy back Otradnoe - that being his pet dream.
Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it
that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was
a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones
then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate
management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products,
and the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any
particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his
mind’s eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The
chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen
in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important
agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made
effective - the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming
and began to understand its different branches, it was the serf who
especially attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely
a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first
he watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they
considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give
orders while in reality learning from them their methods, their manner
of speech, and their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he
had understood the peasants’ tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk
their language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt
akin to them did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to
perform toward them the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas’ management
produced very brilliant results.
Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the
estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and
delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they
had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before
analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and
credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the
peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the
peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing
the family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike
on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled
from the commune.
He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants’ hay
and corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown
and harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did
Nicholas.
He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs - the "drones"
as he called them - and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When
a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one
had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in
the house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted
instead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He
never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his
every decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions.
He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to
make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined
to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he
should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in
his own mind.
Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would
say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?" and imagined that he
could not bear them.
Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way of life with his whole
soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one
way and manner of farming which produced good results.
Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband’s and regretted
that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and
vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She
could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy
when, after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the
fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing
or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke
with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and
well-to-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who with his family had carted
corn all night; or of the fact that his (Nicholas’) sheaves were already
stacked before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand
why he stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his
mustache and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall
on the dry and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind
carried away a threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return
from the barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of
wormwood and gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would
say: "Well, one more day and my grain and the peasants’ will all be
under cover."
Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to
anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought
him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her
to be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately
refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her
business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and
which had laws she had not fathomed.
Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he
was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: "Not in the least;
it never entered my head and I wouldn’t do that for their good! That’s
all poetry and old wives’ talk - all that doing good to one’s neighbor!
What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must
put our affairs in order while I am alive, that’s all. And to do that,
order and strictness are essential.... That’s all about it!" said he,
clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course," he added, "for
if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he
can do no good either for himself or for me."
And all Nicholas did was fruitful - probably just because he refused to
allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue’s
sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came
to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his
administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. "He was a
master... the peasants’ affairs first and then his own. Of course he was
not to be trifled with either - in a word, he was a real master!"
CHAPTER VIII
One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and
that was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of making
free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in
this, but in the second year of his marriage his view of that form of
punishment suddenly changed.
Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a
man who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused of
dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the porch
to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies
the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch Nicholas
went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery
frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had been doing that
morning. Among other things he spoke of the Bogucharovo elder. Countess
Mary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and
lips compressed and gave her husband no reply.
"Such an insolent scoundrel!" he cried, growing hot again at the mere
recollection of him. "If he had told me he was drunk and did not see...
But what is the matter with you, Mary?" he suddenly asked.
Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked
down again and her lips puckered.
"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?"
The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in
tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or
pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm.
The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain herself
and began to cry.
"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!" and
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