War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
In the third group Naryshkin was retelling an old story about a meeting of the Austrian council of war at which Suvorov responded to the obtuseness of the Austrian generals by crowing like a cock. Shinshin, standing near by, tried to make a joke out of this by saying that Kutuzov had apparently not even managed to learn from Suvorov the not too demanding art of crowing like a cock, but the elder club members looked askance at him with a clear indication that this kind of joke, even at Kutuzov's expense, was not the done thing on a day like this.
Count Ilya Rostov scurried about anxiously, sidling in and out of the dining-room and drawing-room in his soft boots, saying a quick hello to everyone indiscriminately, the worthy and the not so worthy, all of whom he knew personally. More than once his eyes sought out the graceful figure of his hero son, lingering on him with great delight and giving him the odd wink. Young Rostov was standing by the window talking to Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had recently made and greatly prized. The old count went over to them and shook hands with Dolokhov.
'You must come and see us . . . any friend of my fine boy . . . out there together, doing all those heroic things . . . Ah! Vassily Ignatych . . . my dear fellow, I do hope you're well . . .' He had turned to greet an old gentleman who was passing by, but before he could finish there was a general commotion and a distressed footman ran in with an announcement: 'Our visitor is here!'
Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward and guests who had been scattered about in different rooms scraped themselves together like shovelled rye and stood waiting at the door of the grand drawing-room.
There in the doorway of the ante-room stood the figure of Bagration, without hat or sword, which had been deposited with the hall porter in accordance with club practice. The astrakhan cap and the whip over his shoulder that Rostov had seen him with on the night before the battle of Austerlitz had gone; he now wore a tight new uniform decorated with Russian and foreign medals and the Star of St George on his left breast. He had just had his hair cut and side-whiskers trimmed, obviously with the banquet in mind, but this did nothing for his appearance. He seemed to be in a kind of silly holiday mood which hardly squared with his strong, manly features and made his face look rather ridiculous. Bekleshov and Fyodor Uvarov, who had come with him, stood still in the doorway so that he could go in first as the guest of honour, but an embarrassed Bagration seemed not to want such courtesy. There was a hold-up in the doorway, but eventually Bagration did come in first. He shambled timidly across the parquet floor of the reception-room, not knowing what do with his hands. He would have been more relaxed and more at home walking through a hail of bullets across a ploughed field, as he had done recently at the head of the Kursk regiment at Schongrabern. The senior members welcomed him at the first door, saying how delightful it was to see such an honoured guest, and before he had time to respond they all but overwhelmed him, encircling him and conducting him towards the drawing-room. The entry then became impossible - no one could get in or out for the crowds of members and guests crushing each other and straining for a look over each other's shoulders at Bagration, as if he were some rare species of animal. Count Rostov laughed louder than anyone as he called out, 'Make way for him, dear boy, make way, make way!' He shoved his way through the crowd, led the guests in and invited them to be seated on a sofa in the middle of the drawing-room. The bigwigs of the club, the most distinguished members, swarmed round the newly arrived guests. Count Rostov elbowed his way back out through the crowd only to reappear a minute later with another senior member bearing a massive silver salver which he then offered to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay a poem, specially composed and printed in honour of the hero. Bagration took one look at the salver and glanced round in alarm, as if appealing for help. But every eye was on him, willing him to submit. In his impotence Bagration seized the dish with both hands, looking daggers at the count who had brought it. Someone helpfully relieved Bagration of the salver for fear that he might hold on to it till bed-time or take it with him to the table, and drew his attention to the poem. 'Yes, well, I suppose I ought to read it,' Bagration seemed to say, and with weary eyes glued to the text he started reading with some gravity and close concentration. The author of the poem took it from him and began to read it out loud. Prince Bagration bowed his head and listened.
Sing hymns to Alexander's age!
Long live upon his throne our Russian Titus!
Our fearsome leader be, and be a righteous sage,
A host at home, afield - a Caesar to incite us!
And then the glad Napoleon
Shall rue the day he crossed swords with Bagration
And he shall shake with fear and come no more to fight us . . .4
But before he could finish, the major-domo boomed out, 'Dinner is served!' and the door opened to the thunderous strains of a polonaise issuing from the dining-room: Hail the victor! Loud the anthem!
Valiant Russians, sing your joy . . .
Count Rostov glared at the author, who was still reading his poem, and bowed low to Bagration. All the company rose, dinner holding greater appeal than poetry, and went in to dine; once again Bagration led the way. He was placed at the head of the table between two Alexanders, Bekleshov and Naryshkin, a calculated allusion to the name of the Tsar, and three hundred diners took up their places according to rank and importance, with the very important people nearest the distinguished guest, as naturally as water flowing down to find its own level.
Just before dinner Count Rostov had presented his son to the prince. Bagration recognized him and said a few words to him, as bumbling and incoherent as all the other words spoken by him that day. The older count looked around at everyone with pride and joy while Bagration was speaking to his son.
Nikolay Rostov sat down, alongside Denisov and his new acquaintance Dolokhov, almost in the middle of the table. Opposite them sat Pierre with Prince Nesvitsky. The old Count Rostov was sitting with other senior members across from Bagration, a picture of Moscow bonhomie lavishing hospitality on the prince.
His efforts had not been in vain. For everyone there, observers of Lent or otherwise, the banquet was magnificent, but he would not be able to relax until it was all over. He winked messages to the carver, whispered instructions to the waiters and awaited the serving of each familiar dish with trepidation. Everything went splendidly. During the second course, which involved the colossal sturgeon (the sight of which brought a blush of self-conscious delight to his face), the footman began popping corks and pouring champagne. After the somewhat sensational fish, Rostov exchanged glances with the other senior members. 'There'll be a lot of toasts. It's time to begin!' he whispered, and rose, glass in hand. Silence fell. What would he say?
'I give you our Sovereign, the Emperor!' he shouted, his kindly eyes watering with tears of sheer delight. At that instant the band struck up with, 'Hail the victor! Loud the anthem!' and they all got to their feet and roared 'Hurrah!' And Bagration shouted 'Hurrah!' just as he had done on the field at Schongrabern. The eager voice of the young Rostov rang out above three hundred others. He was on the verge of tears. 'Our Sovereign, the Emperor,' he roared. 'Hurrah!' Downing his drink in one, he hurled the glass to the floor. Many followed his example. And the raucous cheering seemed as if it would never end. When the uproar subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass, and the diners resumed their places, amused at the racket they had made, and the talking began again. Count Rostov soon rose to his feet once more with a quick glance at a note beside his plate, and proposed a toast to the hero of our last campaign, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration, and again his blue eyes were watering with tears. 'Hurrah!' rang out again from three hundred throats, and this time instead of the band playing, a small choir launched into a setting of some verses written by Pavel Ivanovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov:5 Onward Russians, never yield!
Be ye brave and win the prize!
Give Bagration the field,
See the foeman as he dies . . .
The choir stopped singing, m
CHAPTER 4
Pierre was sitting opposite Dolokhov and Nikolay Rostov. As always, he ate greedily and drank a lot. But those close to him could see that a great change had come over him that day. He sat through dinner without saying a word to anyone, glancing around with a scowl and a frown or staring vaguely into empty air while he rubbed the bridge of his nose with one finger. He looked thoroughly depressed and gloomy and seemed to see or hear nothing of what was going on around him. Something was worrying him, something serious that he would have to attend to.
What worried him was a series of hints dropped by the princess in Moscow about Dolokhov being rather too close to his wife, and also an anonymous letter which he had received that morning. Written in that despicable tone of forced humour common to all anonymous letters, it had said that he couldn't see the nose in front of his face even with his glasses on and that his wife's liaison with Dolokhov was an open secret for everybody except him. Pierre refused categorically to believe either the princess's hints or the anonymous letter, but he was now scared to look at Dolokhov, who was sitting opposite. Every time his glance happened to encounter Dolokhov's handsome and challenging eyes Pierre could feel something terrible and disgusting rising up in his soul, and he was quick to look away. He couldn't help running over his wife's past history and her attitude to Dolokhov, and he could see that what was said in the letter might have been true, or might seem to be true, if only it had related to someone else, not his wife. Pierre remembered how Dolokhov had returned to Petersburg fully reinstated as an officer following the campaign, and come to see him. Taking advantage of a friendship with Pierre which went back to their days of riotous living, Dolokhov simply moved in, and Pierre had set him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled Helene's smile as she complained about Dolokhov living with them, and Dolokhov's cynical look as he had praised his wife's beauty to him. Since that time he had never left their side, and that included coming down to Moscow.
'Yes, he is good-looking,' thought Pierre, 'and I know him. He would be only too delighted to drag my name through the mud and laugh at me, just because I've looked after him, supported him and helped him out. Yes, I can see it. I know how he would relish any betrayal of me - if it was true. Yes, if it was true, but I don't believe it. I have no right to, and I just can't.' He recalled the expression on Dolokhov's face when he was being cruel - when he had tied the policeman to the bear and dropped them in the water, when he had challenged a man to a duel for no good reason or shot a sledge-driver's horse with his pistol. The same expression often came over Dolokhov's face when he was looking at him. 'Yes, he's a cruel brute,' thought Pierre. 'He wouldn't think twice about killing a man, and he must think everyone's afraid of him. I think he likes that. He must think I'm afraid of him . . . And I am,' Pierre mused, and as he did so he felt the thing again, something dreadful and disgusting rising up in his soul. Dolokhov, Denisov and Rostov were sitting across from Pierre and they seemed to be having a wonderful time. Rostov was chatting away animatedly with his two friends, one of them a dashing hussar, the other a holy terror and notorious philanderer, only now and then directing a sardonic glance at Pierre, who stood out in that company because of his great bulk and his vacant, worried look. Rostov had little time for Pierre. For one thing, he, the smart young hussar, saw Pierre as a rich civilian who may have married a great beauty but was still an old woman. And for another, Pierre had been too obsessed and dreamy-eyed to recognize Rostov - he hadn't even returned his bow. When they all stood up to toast the Tsar, Pierre sat there deep in thought and didn't even reach for his glass.
'What's wrong with you?' Rostov yelled across, his triumph tinged with exasperation. 'Aren't you listening? We're toasting the Emperor!'
Pierre rose obediently with a sigh, drained his glass, waited for them all to be seated again and then turned to Rostov with his usual kindly smile. 'I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you,' he said. But Rostov was miles away, bellowing his 'Hurrah!'
'Aren't you going to renew your acquaintance?' said Dolokhov to Rostov.
'I can't be bothered with him. He's an idiot,' said Rostov.
'Oh, you should always be nice to the husbands of pretty women,' said Denisov. Pierre couldn't hear what they were saying, but he knew they were talking about him. He reddened and looked away. 'So, I propose a toast to pretty women,' said Dolokhov, looking very serious but allowing a smile to play at the corners of his mouth as he turned to Pierre.
'Here's to pretty women, my dear little Pierre,' he said. 'And to their lovers.'
Pierre was looking down, sipping from his glass and avoiding Dolokhov's eyes. He didn't respond. A footman came round distributing Kutuzov's cantata and laid a copy down by Pierre, one of the more important guests. Pierre was on the point of picking it up when Dolokhov leant across, snatched the paper out of his hand and started to read it. Pierre glanced up at Dolokhov and then down again. That terrible and disgusting feeling that had been tormenting him all through dinner surged up and overwhelmed him. He leant across the table with all the weight of his big body.
'How dare you?' he yelled.
Hearing the shout and seeing who he was shouting at, Nesvitsky and Pierre's neighbour on the other side turned quickly towards Bezukhov in some alarm.
'Sh! What do you think you're doing?' whispered panic-stricken voices. Dolokhov directed his clear, mocking, cruel eyes straight at Pierre, still with the same smile, as if to say, 'I'll do what I like.'
'I've got it,' he spelt out.
Pale, lips quivering, Pierre snatched the copy.
'You . . . you . . . swine! . . . I challenge you,' he said, moving his chair back and rising from the table. And as Pierre did this and pronounced these words he suddenly realized that the question of his wife's guilt that had been tormenting him for twenty-four hours had been settled once and for all - in the affirmative. He hated her now. They were finished - for ever. Despite Denisov's protestations that he ought not to get involved, Rostov agreed to be Dolokhov's second, and when dinner was over he discussed the terms of the duel with Nesvitsky, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostov, along with Dolokhov and Denisov, stayed on at the club until late at night listening to the gypsies and the singers.
'Good night then. I'll see you tomorrow at Sokolniki,' said Dolokhov as he parted from Rostov on the steps of the club.
'How are you feeling?' asked Rostov.
Dolokhov stopped.
'Well, I'll put it like this. Here's the whole secret of duelling. If you get ready for a duel by making a will and writing long tender letters to your parents thinking that you might get killed, you're a fool - you're as good as done for. But if you go out with every intention of killing your man stone dead in short order, everything will be all right. As our bear-hunter from Kostroma used to say to me, "A bear," he'd say, "who's not afraid of a bear? But once you've actually seen one the fear's all gone and your only thought is to stop him getting away!" So that's what I feel like. I'll see you tomorrow, old fellow.'
At eight o'clock next morning Pierre and Nesvitsky reached the woods at Sokolniki and found Dolokhov, Denisov and Rostov already there. Pierre had the air of a man distracted by matters not connected with the business in hand. After a sleepless night he looked haggard and sallow-faced. He peered around vaguely, squinting as if the sun were in his eyes. Two considerations excluded all others: his wife's guilt, which a sleepless night had confirmed for him beyond a shadow of doubt, and the innocence of Dolokhov, who had no reason to defend the honour of a person who meant nothing to him. 'Perhap
And when everything was ready sabres were stuck in the snow to show where the barrier was, and the pistols were loaded. Then Nesvitsky went up to Pierre.
'I should be failing in my duty, Count,' he ventured timidly, 'and not worthy of your confidence or the honour you have done me in choosing me for your second, if at this grave moment, this very grave moment, I failed to speak the whole truth to you. I submit to you that this matter is without proper foundation and is not worth shedding blood over . . . You were in the wrong. You got a bit excited . . .'
'You're quite right. It was desperately stupid,' said Pierre.
'Then allow me to say you are sorry, and I'm sure that our opponents will agree to accept your apology,' said Nesvitsky, who was like the other participants and everyone else at times like this in refusing to believe that the quarrel would really end in an duel. 'You know, Count, it is far nobler to acknowledge a mistake than to push things beyond redemption. There was no insult on either side. Why don't I have a word with . . . ?'