Читать книгу: «War and Peace: Original Version», страница 6
At this point Prince Hippolyte began pondering, evidently struggling to figure something out.
“She said … yes, she said, ‘Girl, put livery on and go with me to carriage to make visits.’”
Then Prince Hippolyte snorted and began to chortle far sooner than his listeners, which was something of a disadvantage to the narrator. However, many of them, including the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did smile.
“She set off. Suddenly strong wind appeared. Girl lose her hat and long hair tumble down all loose …”
Then he could hold out no longer and burst into fitful laughter, and through this laughter he said:
“And so the whole world find out …”
That was how the anecdote ended. Although it was not clear why he told it or why it absolutely had to be told in Russian, Anna Pavlovna and the others were nonetheless grateful for Prince Hippolyte’s courtesy, which had put such an agreeable end to Monsieur Pierre’s disagreeable and discourteous outburst. Following the anecdote the conversation broke up into petty gossip about the next ball and the last, a play, and when and where people would see each other again.
VIII
Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soirée, the guests began taking their leave.
Pierre was ungainly. Fat and broad, with huge hands that seemed to have been made for swinging one-pood weights, he had no idea, as they say, of how to enter a salon and even less idea of how to leave it, that is, of how to make his farewells and say something particularly agreeable before his exit. In addition, he was absent-minded. As he stood up, instead of taking his own hat he grabbed hold of a three-cornered hat with a general’s panache and held it, tugging at the plume, until the general finally requested him with some animosity, or so it seemed to Pierre, to hand it back. But all of his absent-mindedness and his inability to enter a salon and converse appropriately within it were redeemed by an expression so good-natured and open that, despite all his shortcomings, even those whom he had placed in an embarrassing position could not help finding him likeable. Anna Pavlovna turned towards him and, expressing her forgiveness of his outburst with Christian meekness, nodded to him and said:
“I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.”
To these words he made no response, but merely bowed and once again displayed to everybody his smile that said nothing, except perhaps this: “Opinions are all very well, but see what a fine, good-natured fellow I am.” And everybody, even Anna Pavlovna, could not help but feel it.
“You know, my dear fellow, your way of thinking tends to raise the roof,” said Prince Andrei, buckling on his sabre.
“I don’t mean it to,” said Pierre, lowering his head, peering over his spectacles and coming to a standstill. “How is it possible to see nothing in either the revolution or Napoleon except the personal interests of the Bourbons? We ourselves do not appreciate how much we are indebted precisely to the revolution …”
Prince Andrei did not wait to hear the end of this discourse. He went out into the entrance hall and, presenting his shoulders to the servant, who threw on his cloak, he lent an indifferent ear to the idle chatter of his wife and Prince Hippolyte, who had also come out into the hallway. Prince Hippolyte was standing beside the delightful pregnant princess and staring hard at her through his lorgnette.
“Go in, Annette, you’ll catch cold,” said the little princess, taking her leave of Anna Pavlovna. “It’s settled,” she added quietly.
Anna Pavlovna had already managed to talk over with Lise the putative marriage of Anatole and Lise’s sister-in-law and to request the princess to influence her husband.
“I am relying on you, chère amie,” said Anna Pavlovna, also quietly, “you will write to her and let me know how her father views the matter. Au revoir.” And she left the entrance hall.
Prince Hippolyte moved still closer to the little princess and, leaning his face down to hers, began saying something to her in a half-whisper.
Two servants, one the princess’s and the other his, stood waiting for them to finish talking, holding a shawl and a redingote and listening to their French speech, which they could not understand, but with expressions that suggested they did understand and did not wish to show it. The princess as always smiled as she spoke and laughed as she listened.
“I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince Hippolyte, “so boring … An excellent soirée. Was it not, excellent?”
“They say the ball will be very fine,” replied the princess, twitching her lip with the faint moustache. “All the beautiful society ladies will be there.”
“Not all, because you will not be there, not all,” said Prince Hippolyte, laughing gleefully and, seizing the shawl from the manservant, even shoving him back, he began arranging it on the princess. Either out of clumsiness or on purpose, no one could have told which, he did not lower his arms for a long time after putting the shawl in place, and appeared to embrace the young woman.
She moved away from him gracefully, still smiling, turned round and looked at her husband. Prince Andrei’s eyes were closed, he looked tired and sleepy.
“Are you ready?” he asked his wife, running his eye over her. Prince Hippolyte hastily donned his redingote, which in the new style hung below his heels, and ran out, tripping over it, onto the porch after the princess, whom a servant was helping into a carriage.
“Princess, au revoir,” he shouted, tripping over his tongue in the same way as over his feet.
Gathering her skirts, the princess prepared to take her seat in the darkness of the carriage; her husband began adjusting his sabre; Prince Hippolyte, on the pretext of being helpful, kept getting in everyone’s way.
“Permit me, sir,” said Prince Andrei in Russian to Prince Hippolyte, who was preventing him from passing.
This “permit me, sir” had a ring of such cold contempt that Prince Hippolyte hastily stepped aside and began apologising and swaying agitatedly from one foot to the other, as though in pain from some fresh wound, still raw and smarting.
“I’m expecting you, Pierre,” said Prince Andrei’s voice.
The postillion set off with the carriage wheels rumbling. Prince Hippolyte laughed fitfully as he stood on the porch, waiting for the vicomte, whom he had promised to drive home …
“Eh bien, mon cher, your little princess is very nice, very nice,” said the vicomte after he and Hippolyte had got into their carriage. “Mais très bien.” He kissed the tips of his fingers. “And perfectly French.” Hippolyte snorted and began laughing. “And you know, you are quite terrible, with your innocent ways,” the vicomte continued. “I pity the poor husband, this poor little officer posturing as some ruling prince.”
Hippolyte snorted again and said through his laughter:
“And you said that Russian ladies were not as good as French. You just need to know how to go about it.”
IX
Reaching the house first, Pierre, as if he lived there, went through into Prince Andrei’s study and immediately, as was his habit, lay on the divan, taking down the first book he came across on the shelf (it was Caesar’s Commentaries) and, leaning on his elbows, set about reading it from the middle with as much interest as if he had been immersed in it for some two hours. As soon as Prince Andrei arrived he went straight through to his dressing room, emerging into the study five minutes later.
PIERRE BEZUKHOV Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1866
“What did you do to Madame Scherer? She’ll now fall quite seriously ill,” he said to Pierre in Russian with a protective, cheerful and amicable smile as he came in, now dressed in a heavy velvet smoking jacket, rubbing his small white hands, which he had evidently just washed once again.
Pierre swung his whole body round, making the divan creak, and turned his eager face to Prince Andrei, who was shaking his head.
Pierre nodded guiltily.
“I didn’t wake up until three. Would you believe that we drank eleven bottles between the five of us?” (Pierre always addressed Prince Andrei formally, while the prince spoke to him in a more informal manner. This was a habit they had acquired as children, and it had never changed.) “Such splendid fellows. That Englishman’s a marvel!”
“That’s one pleasure I have never understood,” said Prince Andrei.
“What are you saying? You are a quite different kind of person, remarkable in every way,” Pierre said sincerely.
“At our dear Anatoly Kuragin’s place again?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t think why you associate with that trash!”
“But he really is a fine chap.”
“He’s trash!” Prince Andrei said curtly and frowned. “Hippolyte is a very bright boy, though, isn’t he?” he added.
Pierre laughed, setting his entire body shaking so that the divan began creaking again. “In Moscou there is a certain lady,” he mimicked through his laughter.
“But you know, he really is a good chap,” the prince interceded for Hippolyte. “Well then, have you finally decided on anything? Are you going to be a Horse Guard or a diplomat?”
Pierre sat up on the divan, drawing his legs under him.
“Can you imagine, I still don’t know? I don’t like either choice!”
“But you have to decide on something, don’t you? Your father’s waiting.”
At the age of ten Pierre had been sent abroad with his tutor, an abbot, and had stayed there until he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow, his father had dismissed the abbot and told the young man: “Now go to St. Petersburg, take a look around, get to know people and think about which path to choose. I agree to anything. Here is a letter for you to Prince Vasily, and here is money. Write to me about everything, I will help you with everything.” Pierre had been trying to choose a career for three months now, and he had still got nowhere. This was the choice which Prince Andrei had mentioned to him. Pierre rubbed his forehead.
“I understand military service, but explain this to me,” he said. “Why are you – you understand everything – why are you going to this war, against whom, after all? Against Napoleon and France. If it were a war for liberty, I would understand, I would be the first to join the army, but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world … I do not understand how you can go.”
“You must see, mon cher,” Prince Andrei began, perhaps unwittingly wishing to conceal his own vagueness of thought from himself, suddenly beginning to speak in French and changing his former sincere tone for a formal and cold one, “one can take an entirely different point of view on this question.”
And, as though everything he mentioned were his own personal business or that of his intimate acquaintances, he proceeded to expound to Pierre the view then current in the highest circles of St. Petersburg society of the political mission of Russia in Europe at that time.
Since the revolution Europe had been plagued by wars. The cause of the wars, apart from Napoleon’s ambition, stemmed from an imbalance of power in Europe. One great power was needed to take the matter in hand with strict impartiality and, through alliances, to define new state boundaries and establish a new balance of power in Europe together with a new people’s law, by virtue of which war would become impossible and all misunderstandings between states would be settled by mediation. Russia had taken this selfless role upon herself in the forthcoming war. Russia would seek only to return France to its boundaries of 1796, allowing the French themselves to choose their own form of government, and also to restore the independence of Italy, the Cisalpine kingdom, the new state of the two Belgiums and the new German Alliance, and even to restore Poland.
Pierre listened attentively, several times respectfully restraining his impulse to contradict his friend.
“Do you see that this time we are not being as foolish as we seem?” Prince Andrei concluded.
“Yes, yes, but why won’t they propose this plan to Napoleon himself?” Pierre exclaimed. “He would be the first to accept it, if this plan were sincere: he would understand and love any great idea.”
Prince Andrei paused and rubbed his forehead with his small hand.
“And apart from that, I am going …” He stopped. “I am going because the life that I lead here, this life – does not suit me!”
“Why not?” Pierre asked in amazement.
“Because, my dearest friend,” said Prince Andrei, standing up with a smile, “for the vicomte and Hippolyte to wander from one drawing room to the next and mull over nonsense and tell fairytales about Mademoiselle Georges or about some ‘girl’ is all well and good, but that role will not do for me. I cannot stand it any longer,” he added.
Pierre’s glance expressed his agreement.
“But here’s another thing. Why is Kutuzov important? And what does it mean to be an adjutant?” asked Pierre with that rare naïvety possessed by some young people who are not afraid of exposing their ignorance with a question.
“You’re the only person who could possibly not know that,” Prince Andrei replied, smiling and shaking his head. “Kutuzov is Suvorov’s right hand, the best Russian general.”
“But how can you be an adjutant? Doesn’t that mean they can order you about?”
“Of course, an adjutant’s influence is absolutely insignificant,” Prince Andrei replied, “but I have to make a start. Besides, it is what my father wanted. I shall ask Kutuzov to give me a unit. And then we shall see …”
“It will be strange, it’s bound to be, for you to fight against Napoleon,” said Pierre, as though assuming that as soon as Prince Andrei reached the war he would have to engage, if not in single-handed combat, then at least in very close action against Napoleon himself.
Prince Andrei smiled pensively at his own thoughts, twisting the wedding ring on his third finger with a graceful, effeminate gesture.
X
A woman’s dress rustled in the next room. As if he had just woken up, Prince Andrei shook himself and his face assumed the expression it had worn in Anna Pavlovna’s drawing room. Pierre lowered his feet from the divan. The princess came in. She was wearing a different dress, more homely but just as elegant and fresh. Prince Andrei stood up and courteously moved up an armchair for her by the fireplace, but there was such intense boredom on his face as he did so, the princess would surely have taken offence, had she been able to see it.
“Why, I often wonder,” she began, as always in French, as she hastily seated herself in the armchair, “why did Annette never marry? How foolish you all are, gentlemen, for not marrying her. Forgive my saying so, but you understand nothing at all about women.”
Pierre and Prince Andrei involuntarily exchanged glances and said nothing. But neither their glance nor their silence embarrassed the princess in the least. She carried on prattling in the same way as before.
“What a wrangler you are, Monsieur Pierre,” she said to the young man. “What a wrangler you are, Monsieur Pierre,” she repeated, fussily settling herself into the large armchair.
Folding her little hands over the mound of her waist, she stopped talking, evidently intent on listening. Her face assumed that distinctive, serious expression in which the eyes seem to be gazing inwards – an expression that only pregnant women have.
“I keep arguing with your husband as well; I cannot understand why he wants to go to war,” said Pierre, addressing the princess without a trace of the inhibition so usual in relations between a young man and a young woman.
The princess started. Apparently Pierre’s words had touched a sore spot.
“Ah, that is just what I say!” she said with her society smile. “I do not understand, I absolutely do not understand, why men cannot live without war. Why is it that we women do not want anything, do not need anything? Why you, you can be the judge. I keep telling him: here he is my uncle’s adjutant, a most brilliant position. Everybody knows him so well and appreciates him so. The other day at the Apraksins’ I heard one lady ask: ‘Is that the famous Prince Andrei?’ On my word of honour.”
She laughed.
“He is asked everywhere. He could quite easily be an aide-de-camp … Do you know that only two days ago His Majesty spoke to him most graciously? Annette and I were saying how very easy it would be to arrange. What do you think?”
Pierre looked at Prince Andrei and, noticing that his friend did not like this conversation, made no reply.
“When are you leaving?” he asked.
“Oh, don’t talk of our leaving, don’t even mention it! I don’t wish to hear of it,” said the princess in the same skittish, capricious manner in which she had spoken with Hippolyte in the drawing room, and which was so obviously unsuited to a family circle of which Pierre was ostensibly a member.
“Today, when I thought about having to break off all these dear, precious connections … And then, you know, Andrei.”
She blinked significantly at her husband.
“I’m afraid, I’m so afraid!” she whispered, quivering all the way down her back.
Her husband looked at her as though he were surprised to have noticed that there was someone else apart from Pierre and himself in the room; however, he enquired of the princess with cold civility:
“What are you afraid of, Lise? I can’t understand it,” he said.
“See what egoists all men are! All, all of them egoists! Out of nothing but his own whimsy, God only knows why, he is abandoning me, shutting me away alone in the country.”
“With my father and sister, do not forget,” Prince Andrei said quietly.
“All the same alone, without my friends … And he does not want me to be afraid.” Her tone was peevish now, her short little lip was raised, lending her face an expression that was not joyful, but feral, squirrel-like. She stopped speaking, as if she found it improper to talk of her future delivery in front of Pierre, while this was in fact the very essence of the matter.
“Even so, I do not understand what you are afraid of,” Prince Andrei enunciated slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on his wife.
The princess blushed and fluttered her hands in despair.
“No, Andrei, it’s just as I said: you have changed so much, so very much.”
“Your doctor says you should go to bed earlier,” said Prince Andrei. “You ought to go to bed.”
The princess said nothing, and suddenly her short lip with the faint moustache began trembling. Prince Andrei stood up and, with a shrug of his shoulders, began pacing around the room.
Pierre gazed through his spectacles in naïve surprise, first at one, then at the other and began fidgeting on the spot, as if he kept wanting to get up and then changing his mind.
“What does it matter to me that Monsieur Pierre is here,” the little princess said suddenly, and her pretty face suddenly dissolved into a tearful, unlovely grimace. “I have wanted to ask you for a long time, Andrei: What has made you change so much towards me. What have I done to you? You are going to the army, you have no pity for me. Why?”
“Lise!” was all that Prince Andrei said, but the word expressed both supplication and threat and also, above all, the assurance that she would regret what she had said; but she continued hastily:
“You treat me like a sick woman or a child. I see everything. You were not like this six months ago, were you?”
“Lise, will you please stop this,” said Prince Andrei even more emphatically.
Pierre, who had become more and more agitated in the course of this conversation, stood up and walked across to the princess. He seemed unable to bear the sight of her tears and was ready to start crying himself.
“Calm down, princess. It only seems like that to you, because, I assure you, I myself have experienced … the reason … because … No, I beg your pardon, this is no place for an outsider … Please, calm down … Goodbye … Please excuse me …”
He bowed, preparing to leave. Prince Andrei took his arm and stopped him.
“No, wait, Pierre. The princess is so kind, she would not wish to deprive me of the pleasure of spending the evening with you.”
“Yes, he thinks only of himself,” said the princess, making no effort to restrain her angry tears.
“Lise,” Prince Andrei said coldly, raising his tone of voice to a level that indicated his patience had been exhausted.
Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression on the princess’s beautiful little face was replaced by an expression of fearful appeal that aroused compassion; she cast her husband a sullen glance out of her lovely eyes, and her face assumed the timid expression of a dog rapidly but feebly wagging its lowered tail in a confession of guilt.
“Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” said the princess and, gathering up the folds of her dress in one hand, she went up to her husband and kissed him on his brown forehead.
“Bon soir, Lise,” said Prince Andrei, rising and kissing her hand courteously, as though it were a stranger’s.
