War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
'The reason I say this,' he carried on in some despair, 'is that the Bourbons were running away from the Revolution, leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon was the only one capable of understanding the Revolution, and transcending it, and that was why, for the public good, he couldn't baulk at the taking of one man's life.'
'Would you like to come over to this other table?' asked Anna Pavlovna. But Pierre didn't answer; he was in full flow.
'Oh no,' he said, warming to his task, 'Napoleon is great because he towered above the Revolution, he stopped its excesses and he preserved all its benefits - equality, free speech, a free press. That was his only reason for assuming supreme power.'
'Yes, if only he had transferred it to the lawful king once he had obtained power, instead of using it to commit murder,' said the viscount, 'then I might have called him a great man.'
'He couldn't have done that. The people had given him power to get rid of the Bourbons, that was all, and also because they thought he was a great man. The Revolution was a splendid achievement,' Monsieur Pierre insisted, his desperate and challenging pronouncement betraying extreme youth and a desire to blurt everything out at once.
'Revolution and regicide are splendid achievements? . . . Well, whatever next? . . . Are you sure you wouldn't like to come over to this table?' repeated Anna Pavlovna.
'Ah, the Social Contract,'10 said the viscount with a pinched smile. 'I'm not talking about regicide. I'm talking about ideas.'
'Yes, ideas. Robbery, murder, regicide!' an ironical voice put in.
'These were the extremes, of course, but they weren't the meaning of the whole Revolution. That was in human rights, freedom from prejudice, equality . . . Those were the strong ideas that Napoleon stood up for.'
'Liberty and equality,' said the viscount contemptuously. He seemed at last to have made up his mind to take this young man seriously and demonstrate how silly his outpourings had been. 'Nothing but loud slogans, long compromised. Which of us does not love liberty and equality? Our Saviour himself preached liberty and equality. Have the people been any happier since the Revolution? Quite the reverse. We wanted liberty, but Bonaparte has destroyed it.'
Prince Andrey smiled at them all, Pierre, viscount and hostess.
Just for a moment following Pierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna had been taken aback, for all her social skills, but when she saw that the viscount was not greatly put out by Pierre's sacrilegious way of speaking, and realized there was no stopping it, she rallied, came in on the viscount's side and attacked the other speaker.
'But my dear Monsieur Pierre,' she said, 'how do you account for a great man being capable of executing a duke, a human being after all, who was innocent and untried?'
'What I should like to ask,' said the viscount, 'is how Monsieur accounts for the 18th Brumaire?11 That was very underhand, wasn't it? It was a sneaky piece of work, nothing like a great man's way of doing things.'
'And what about all those prisoners that he killed in Africa?'12 said the little princess. 'That was horrible!' And she gave a shrug.
'He's an upstart, whatever you say,' said Prince Hippolyte.
Not knowing which one to answer, Monsieur Pierre surveyed them all with a smile. His smile was not like theirs - theirs were not real smiles. Whenever he smiled a sudden and immediate change came over his serious, perhaps rather gloomy face, and a very different face appeared, childish, good-natured, a bit on the silly side, half-apologetic. Noticing him for the first time, the viscount realized that this Jacobin13 was much less formidable than the words he uttered.
For a while no one spoke.
'Is he supposed to answer everybody at once?' asked Prince Andrey. 'Anyway, in the actions of a statesman, you do have to distinguish between how he acts as a private person and what he does as a general or an emperor. That's how it seems to me.'
'Yes, yes, of course,' put in Pierre, delighted that someone had come in on his side.
'You have to admit,' pursued Prince Andrey, 'that Napoleon on the bridge at Arcola was a great man, and also in the hospital at Jaffa when he shook hands with the plague-victims,14 but . . . well, there are other actions it would be hard to justify.'
Prince Andrey, clearly intent on relieving Pierre's embarrassment, now got up to go, signalling to his wife.
All of a sudden Prince Hippolyte got to his feet and gestured for them all to stop and sit down again. Then he spoke. 'Er, I heard a really good Moscow story today. I must tell you. Begging your pardon, Viscount, it will have to be in Russian, or you won't get the point.' And Prince Hippolyte began speaking in Russian, imitating the kind of speech that Frenchmen achieve after a year or so in Russia. Everyone stopped and paid attention, the prince having insisted so urgently that they should listen to his story.
'Well there was this lady, une dame, in Moscow. Very stingy. She had to have two footmen behind her carriage. Very tall footmen. That was her taste. And she had a lady's maid, also very tall. She said . . .' He hesitated, obviously having trouble getting his story together.
'She said . . . Yes, that's it, she said, "You, girl," (to the lady's maid) "put your livery on and get up behind the carriage. We're going out visiting."
At this point Prince Hippolyte snorted and laughed out loud, running well ahead of his listeners, which created a really bad impression of him as a storyteller. Still, there were plenty of people, including the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, who did manage a smile.
'She drove off. Suddenly a strong wind blew up. The girl lost her hat, and her long hair was scattered about all over the place . . .'
Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out laughing, and just managed to say through all the laughter, 'And everybody got to know about it . . .'
And that's all there was to the story. Nobody could understand why he had told it, or why he had insisted on telling it in Russian, and yet Anna Pavlovna and several other people appreciated the genteel diplomacy of Prince Hippolyte in so nicely putting an end to Monsieur Pierre's unpleasant and intemperate outburst. After this story the conversation broke down into chitchat about the last ball and the next one, the theatre, and where and when who would meet whom.
CHAPTER 5
Thanking Anna Pavlovna for a delightful evening, the guests began to go home.
Pierre was ungainly, stout, quite tall and possessed of huge red hands. It was said of him that he had no idea how to enter a drawing-room and was worse still at withdrawing from one, or saying something nice as he left. He was also absent-minded. He stood up now, picked up a general's nicely plumed three-cornered hat instead of his own, and held on to it, pulling at the feathers, until the general asked for it back. But all his absent-mindedness and his inability to enter a drawing-room or talk properly once inside it were redeemed by his expression of good-natured simplicity and modesty. Anna Pavlovna turned to him, forgiving his outburst with Christian humility, nodded and said, 'I hope we shall see you again, but I also hope you will change your ideas, my dear Monsieur Pierre.'
She spoke, but he didn't answer. All he did was bow and show everyone another of his smiles, a smile that simply said, 'Never mind ideas, look what a nice, good-hearted fellow I am.' And everyone, including Anna Pavlovna, couldn't help but agree. Prince Andrey had gone out into the hall, and as he offered his shoulders to the servant ready with his cloak, he listened indifferently to his wife as she chattered with Prince Hippolyte, who had come along with her. Hippolyte stood close to the pregnant little princess who looked so pretty, and stared at her through his lorgnette.
'Go back inside, Annette, you'll catch cold,' said the little princess, taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. 'It is settled, then,' she added quietly.
Anna Pavlovna had managed to have a few words with Liza about the match she was setting up between Anatole and the little princess's sister-in-law.
'I'm relying on you, my dear,' said Anna Pavlovna, no less quietly. 'Write to her and let me know how her father sees things. Au revoir!' And she left the hall.
Two servants, one the princess's, the other his own, stood by with shawl and coat waiting for them to finish talking. The French was incomprehensible to them, but the servants' faces suggested for all the world that they did understand what was being said, though they would never show it. The princess, as always, smiled as she talked and laughed when she listened.
'I'm so glad I didn't go to the Ambassador's,' Prince Hippolyte was saying. 'Such a bore . . . This has been a delightful evening, hasn't it? Delightful.'
'They say it will be a very fine ball,' answered the little princess, drawing up her downy little lip. 'All our pretty women will be there.'
'Not all of them. You won't be there,' said Prince Hippolyte, with a happy laugh. He then snatched the shawl from the servant, shoving him out of the way, and began draping it around the little princess. Either from awkwardness or deliberately - no one could have said which - he kept his arms round her for some time after the shawl had been put on, seeming to clasp the young woman in his embrace.
With good grace and still smiling, she wriggled free, turned and glanced at her husband. Prince Andrey's eyes were closed: he seemed to be weary and drowsy.
'Are you ready?' he asked his wife, looking over her head.
Prince Hippolyte hurried into his long coat. It was the last word in fashion, going right down to his heels, and he caught his foot in it as he ran out on to the steps after the princess. A servant was assisting her into the carriage. 'Au revoir, Princess!' he yelled, his tongue tripping over things just like his legs.
The princess picked up her gown, and took her seat, settling back into the darkness of the carriage while her husband was arranging his sword. Prince Hippolyte pretended to help, but all he did was get in the way.
'If you don't mind, sir,' said Prince Andrey, curtly and pointedly in Russian, to Prince Hippolyte, who was standing in his way.
'I'll see you soon, Pierre,' said the same voice in warm and friendly tones.
The coachman jerked forward, and the carriage rattled off. Prince Hippolyte honked with laughter, as he stood on the steps waiting for the viscount, having promised to drop him off at home.
'Well, my dear fellow, your little princess is very nice, very nice,' said the viscount, as he got into the carriage with Hippolyte. 'Very nice indeed.' He kissed his fingertips. 'And very French.' Hippolyte snorted and laughed.
'And, you know, you are awful with that innocent little way of yours,' went on the viscount. 'I pity the poor husband, that baby officer who fancies himself a prince regent.' Hippolyte honked again, and said through his laughter, 'And you told me that Russian ladies weren't as good as French ladies. You just have to know how to get things going.'
Pierre arrived ahead of the others. Like one of the family he walked straight into Prince Andrey's study, lay down on the sofa as he usually did, and took up the first book that came to hand (Caesar's Commentaries).15 Propped up on one elbow, he opened it in the middle and started to read.
'What have you done to Mademoiselle Scherer? She'll have the vapours,' said Prince Andrey, as he came into the study rubbing his small white hands.
Pierre rolled his massive body so that the sofa creaked, looked at Prince Andrey with an eager smile, and gave an airy wave.
'No, that abbe was very interesting, only he's got things wrong . . . The way I see it, eternal peace is possible, but . . . oh, I don't know how to put it . . . Well, not through the balance of power, anyway . . .'
Prince Andrey was obviously not interested in abstract talk like this.
'My dear fellow, you can't always come straight out with what you're thinking. Come on, then. Have you made your mind up? Are you going to be a cavalryman or a diplomat?' asked Prince Andrey, after a short pause.
Pierre sat up on the sofa with his legs tucked under him. 'You won't find it hard to believe I still don't know. I don't fancy either of those jobs.'
'But you'll have to decide, won't you? Your father's waiting.'
At the age of ten Pierre had been sent abroad with an abbe as his tutor, and there he had stayed till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow, his father had dismissed the tutor and said to the young man, 'Off you go to Petersburg, have a good look round, and decide for yourself. I'll agree to anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasily and here's some money. Write and tell me everything. I'll give you every assistance.' Pierre had spent the last three months choosing a career and had done nothing. This was the decision that Prince Andrey was talking about. Pierre rubbed his forehead.
'I'm sure he must be a freemason,'16 he said, thinking of the abbe he had seen at the party.
'That's all nonsense,' said Prince Andrey, stopping him in his tracks. 'Let's get down to business. Have you been to the horse guards?'
'No, I haven't, but listen - I've had one idea I'd like to talk to you about. We're at war with Napoleon. If we were fighting for freedom, I'd understand it, I'd be the first to enlist, but helping England and Austria against the greatest man in the world - that's not right.'
Prince Andrey gave a shrug; it was all he could do in the face of such childish words from Pierre. His manner suggested there was no answer to such absurdities. And indeed it would have been hard to find any answer to this naive question other than the one he gave now. 'If everybody fought for nothing but his own convictions, there wouldn't be any wars,' he said.
'And a good thing too,' said Pierre.
Prince Andrey grinned at him. 'Yes it probably would be a good thing, but it won't ever happen . . .'
'Well, why are you going to war?' asked Pierre.
'Why? I don't know. Because I have to. I'm just going.' He paused. 'I'm going because the life I'm leading here, this life is . . . not to my taste!'
CHAPTER 6
From the next room came the rustling of a woman's dress. Prince Andrey jumped, as if he had just woken up, and his face resumed the expression it had worn in Anna Pavlovna's drawing-room. Pierre lowered his legs from the sofa. In came the princess. She had changed into an informal dress every bit as fresh and elegant as the earlier one. Prince Andrey got to his feet and courteously pushed an easy-chair towards her.
'I often wonder why it is,' she began, as always in French, speedily and fussily settling herself into the chair, 'that Annette never married? You must be very foolish, all you men, not to have married her. Forgive me for saying so, but you really don't know the first thing about women. And Monsieur Pierre, you really are a man for an argument!'
'I've just been arguing with your husband. I can't imagine why he wants to go off to war,' said Pierre to the princess without any of the inhibitions which so often affect the attitude of a young man to a young woman.
The princess reacted sharply - Pierre's words had clearly touched a raw nerve.
'That's what I keep on saying,' she said. 'I can't understand it, I simply can't understand why men can't get by without war. Why is it we women don't want anything to do with it, don't need it? You can be the judge of this. I keep saying to him: here he is, one of uncle's adjutants, a brilliant position to be in. Everybody knows him, everybody admires him. Only the other day at the Apraksins' I heard one lady say, "Is that the famous Prince Andrey?" I swear it's true!' She laughed. 'He gets invited everywhere. He could easily end up in the royal entourage. You know the Emperor has spoken very graciously to him. Annette and I were just saying how easy it would be to arrange. What do you think?'
One glance at Prince Andrey told Pierre his friend didn't like this subject, so he said nothing.
'When are you off?' he asked.
'Oh, please don't talk to me about his going away, not that. I won't have it spoken about,' said the princess in the same tone, all silly and playful, that she had used with Hippolyte at the party, quite out of place within the family circle - and Pierre was almost one of the family. 'Today, when I suddenly thought of all these dear fri
'What is it you're scared of, Liza? I don't understand,' he said.
'See how selfish men are, all of them. Every one of them selfish! Just because he fancies it, heaven knows why, he's leaving me, shutting me away all on my own in the country.'
'With my father and my sister, don't forget,' said Prince Andrey quietly.
'I'll still be on my own. My friends won't be there . . . And he tells me not to be scared.' Her tone was plaintive now, and her lip curled into a sneer, which made her look anything but happy, rather like a wild animal, squirrel-like and nasty. She said no more, as if it seemed wrong to talk about her pregnancy while Pierre was there, though that was what this was all about.
'I still don't understand what it is you're scared of,' Prince Andrey said deliberately, without taking his eyes off his wife. The princess blushed, and waved her hands in despair.
'No, Andre, I tell you this: you've changed. You really have . . .'
'The doctor says you shouldn't be late getting to bed,' said Prince Andrey. 'You ought to get some sleep.'
The princess said nothing, but suddenly her tiny, downy lip began to tremble. Prince Andrey got to his feet, gave a shrug and started pacing up and down.
Pierre glanced over his spectacles from one to the other in naive wonderment, squirming as if he too had meant to get up, but had thought better of it.
'I don't care if Monsieur Pierre is here,' said the little princess suddenly, her pretty face contorted into a tearful grimace. 'I've been wanting to ask you, Andrey - why have you changed so much towards me? What have I done to you? You're going off into the army, and you won't listen. Why not?'
'Liza!' Prince Andrey spoke only a single word, but it contained a request, a threat and - clearest of all - an assurance that she would live to regret these words. Nevertheless, she went on hurriedly to say, 'You treat me like an invalid, or a child. I can see it all. You weren't like this six months ago, were you?'