War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
ss.
The third act saw a palace depicted on the stage with lots of burning candles and walls hung with pictures of knights with beards. Two people, presumably a king and queen, stood at the front. The king waved his right hand in the air and sang something very badly - it was obviously his nerves - before sitting down on a crimson throne. The girl who had first been in white and then pale blue was now wearing a plain smock, and she had let her hair down. She was standing near the throne, singing something very doleful to the queen. But the king waved his hand harshly, and then some men with bare legs and women with bare legs came on from both sides and they all started dancing. Then the violins struck up with a light and happy tune, at which one of the actresses with thick, bare legs and thin arms detached herself from the rest, walked off the set to straighten her bodice, came back out into the middle of the stage and began to leap in the air, tapping her feet together very quickly. The stalls erupted with applause and shouts of 'bravo!' Then one man retreated into a corner of the stage. Louder and louder came the cymbals and horns in the orchestra, and this one man with his bare legs started leaping right up in the air and making fancy movements with his feet. (This was Duport, who took home sixty thousand silver roubles a year for this artistry.) The whole theatre from the stalls to the gods thundered their applause and yelled at the tops of their voices, and the man came to a halt and stood there beaming and bowing to all quarters. Then the bare legs were off again dancing, men and women, the king sounded off in time to the music and they all broke out in song. But suddenly a storm blew up, heralded by chromatic scales and diminished sevenths from the orchestra, and they all scurried away, dragging one of the company off stage, and the curtain fell. Once again the audience erupted with fearsome applause and they all stood there in blissful transports roaring out, 'Duport! Duport! Duport!'
It no longer seemed at all strange to Natasha. She looked round in delight, grinning with glee.
'Glorious, isn't he - Duport?' said Helene, turning to her.
'Oh yes,' said Natasha in reply.
CHAPTER 10
During the interval there was a cool draught in Helene's box as the door opened and in walked Anatole, stooping and trying not to brush against anyone.
'Allow me to introduce my brother,' said Helene, her eyes shifting uneasily from Natasha to Anatole. Natasha turned her pretty little head towards the handsome adjutant and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was just as handsome close to as he had been from a distance, sat down beside her and said this was a delight he had long been waiting for, ever since the Naryshkins' ball, where he had had the unforgettable pleasure of seeing her. Kuragin was much more astute and straightforward with women than he ever was in male company. He talked with an easy directness, and Natasha was agreeably surprised to discover that this man, the butt of so much gossip, had nothing formidable about him - quite the reverse, his face wore the most innocent, cheery and open-hearted of smiles.
Kuragin asked what she thought of the opera, and told her that at the last performance Semyonova had fallen down on stage.
'Oh, by the way, Countess,' he said, suddenly treating her like a close friend of long standing, 'we're getting up a fancy-dress ball. You must come - it's going to be great fun. They're all getting together at the Arkharovs'. Please come. You will, won't you?' As he spoke he never took his smiling eyes off Natasha, her face, her neck, her exposed arms. Natasha knew for certain he was besotted with her. She liked this, yet she could feel the temperature rising and she was beginning to feel somehow cornered and constrained in his presence. When she wasn't looking at him she could sense him gazing at her shoulders, and she found herself trying to catch his eye to make him look at her face. But when she looked into his eyes she was shocked to realize that the usual barrier of modesty that existed between her and other men was no longer there between the two of them. It had taken five minutes for her to feel terribly close to this man, and she scarcely knew what was happening to her. Whenever she turned away she bristled at the thought that he might seize her from behind by her bare arm and start kissing her on the neck. They were going on about nothing in particular, yet she felt closer to him than she had ever been to any other man. Natasha kept glancing round at Helene and her father for help - what did it all mean? - but Helene was deep in conversation with a general and didn't respond to her glance, and her father's eyes conveyed nothing but their usual message, 'Enjoying yourself? Jolly good. I'm so pleased.'
There was an awkward silence, during which Anatole, the personification of cool determination, never took his voracious eyes off her, and Natasha broke it by asking whether he liked living in Moscow. She coloured up the moment the question was out of her mouth. She couldn't help feeling there was something improper about even talking to him. Anatole smiled an encouraging smile.
'Oh, I didn't like it much at first. Well, what is it that makes a town nice to live in? It's the pretty women, isn't it? Well, now I do like it, very much indeed,' he said, with a meaningful stare. 'You will come to the fancy-dress ball, Countess? Please come,' he said. Putting his hand out to touch her bouquet he lowered his voice and added in French, 'You'll be the prettiest woman there. Do come, dear Countess, and give me this flower as your pledge.'
Natasha didn't understand a word of this - any more than he did - but she felt that behind his incomprehensible words there was some dishonourable intention. Not knowing how to respond, she turned away as if she hadn't heard him. But the moment she turned away she could feel him right behind her, very close.
'Now what? Is he embarrassed? Is he angry? Should I put things right?' she wondered. She couldn't help turning round. She looked him straight in the eyes. One glance at him, standing so close, with all that self-assurance and the warmth of his sweet smile, and she was lost. She stared into his eyes, and her smile was the mirror-image of his. And again she sensed with horror there was no barrier between the two of them.
The curtain rose again. Anatole strolled out of the box, a picture of composure and contentment. Natasha went back to her father's box, completely taken by the new world she found herself in. All that was happening before her eyes now seemed absolutely normal. By contrast, all previous thoughts of her fiance, Princess Marya, her life in the country, never even crossed her mind. It was as if it all belonged to the distant past.
In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang and waved his arms about till the boards were taken away beneath him and he disappeared down below. That was all Natasha saw of the fourth act. She felt worried and excited, and the cause of all the excitement was - Kuragin; she couldn't keep her eyes off him. As they came out of the theatre Anatole walked over to them, called their carriage and helped them into it. As he was assisting Natasha he squeezed her forearm just above the wrist. Natasha glanced round at him, thrilled and flushed with pleasure. He gazed at her with gleaming eyes and a tender smile.
Natasha was back home before she could form any clear impression of what had happened. Suddenly she had a horrible feeling as she remembered about Prince Andrey, and in front of them all as they sat there drinking a cup of tea after the theatre she gave a loud moan, blushed to the roots of her hair and rushed out of the room. 'My God! It's the end of me!' she said to herself. 'How could I have let him go as far as that?' she thought. She sat there for some time, burying her crimson face in her hands, trying to get a firm grip on what had been happening but quite incapable of grasping anything, either what had happened or what she now felt. It all seemed dark, confusing and dreadful. Back in that huge open space under the bright lights, when Duport with his bare legs and his little spangled jacket had just finished leaping about to the music over those damp boards, and those young girls and the old men, and Helene, too, beaming proudly and serenely in all her naked glory, had gone wild and roared 'Bravo!' - there, in the shadow of Helene herself, everything had been plain and simple, but now, as she sat there in solitude, it was beyond all understanding. 'What's it all about? Why did I feel so scared of him? What are all these guilty feelings?' she thought.
Her mother, the old countess, was the only person to whom Natasha could have confided all that was on her mind - at night and in bed. She knew Sonya was straight-laced and clear-minded about these things; she would either have got the wrong end of the stick or just been shocked by any confession. Natasha would have to try and solve these agonizing problems on her own.
'Am I finished with Prince Andrey's love or not?' she wondered, and then reassured herself with an ironical smile. 'Silly girl, asking things like that!' she thought. 'What's happened to me? Nothing. I haven't done anything. I didn't ask for this. No one will ever know, and I shan't see him again,' she told herself. 'So, this much is clear: nothing has happened, there's nothing to apologize for, and Prince Andrey can love me for what I am. But am I really what I am? Oh God, Oh God, why isn't he here?' Natasha's consolation was short-lived. Once again, in her imagination, she ran through her conversation with Kuragin, and she could still see his features, his every gesture and the kind smile on the face of a brave handsome man squeezing her arm.
CHAPTER 11
Anatole Kuragin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him away from Petersburg, where he had been getting through twenty thousand roubles a year in cash and running up debts for a similar amount, and his creditors had begun to demand payment from his father. Prince Vasily informed his son that for one last time he would pay half his debts, on condition that he went down to Moscow, where a post had been found for him (with no little effort) as adjutant to the commander-in-chief, and finally made every effort to find a good marriage-partner. He suggested either Princess Marya or Julie Karagin.
Anatole had consented and gone down to Moscow, where he stayed with Pierre. At first Pierre was reluctant to receive Anatole, but it wasn't long before he got used to him being there, started going out with him on some of his wild jaunts, and gave him money, ostensibly as a loan.
Shinshin had been quite right to say that Anatole had driven all the Moscow ladies crazy, especially by his offhand attitude and his obvious preference for gypsy girls and French actresses - he was said to be having an affair with the queen of them all, Mademoiselle George.4 He never missed a party at Dolokhov's, or with any other member of the fast set in Moscow, he hit the bottle for nights on end, outdrinking everybody else, and attended every high-society ball and soiree. He was said to have had several affairs with Moscow ladies, and he was given to flirting with one or two of them in the ballroom. But he had steered clear of unmarried girls, especially wealthy heiresses, most of whom were not very pretty, and for one good reason known to none but a few of his closest friends: for the last two years he had been married. Two years before, while his regiment was stationed in Poland, a small-time Polish landowner had forced Anatole to marry his daughter.
It had not taken long for Anatole to walk out on his wife, but by agreeing to send a regular cash remittance to his father-in-law he had preserved the right to pass himself off as a bachelor.
Anatole was quite happy with his situation, himself and other people. With every fibre of his being he was convinced of what his instincts told him: there was no other way to live than the way he was living, and he had never done anything wrong in his life. He had no capacity for reflecting on how his actions might affect other people, or what the consequences of this or that action might be. He took it for granted that just as the duck was created to live on water, he was created by God to live on thirty thousand a year and occupy a high station in society. So strong was this conviction that when other people looked at him they accepted it and wouldn't have dreamt of denying him either his high station in society or the money that he borrowed right and left, obviously with no thought of paying it back.
He was not a gambler - at least he was never bothered about winning money and he was a good loser. He wasn't vain. He didn't care what people thought about him. Still less could he have been accused of ambition. More than once he had infuriated his father by ruining his own prospects, and he laughed at honours of every kind. He wasn't mean, and he never refused anyone who turned to him for help. What he loved was having a good time and chasing women, and since, according to him, these tastes were in no way dishonourable, and he was incapable of considering how his gratification of them might affect other people, he genuinely considered himself beyond reproach, he felt a real contempt for rogues and scoundrels, his conscience was clear and he walked tall. Men of pleasure, masculine versions of Mary Magdalene, are secretly convinced of their own innocence, and like their feminine counterparts they base this on the hope of forgiveness. 'She shall be forgiven because she was full of love; he shall be forgiven because he was full of fun.'
Dolokhov, back in Moscow that year after his exile and his Persian adventures, now spent his time wallowing in luxury, gambling and the pleasures of the flesh, and he had his own good reasons for renewing his friendship with his old Petersburg comrade Kuragin.
Anatole had a genuine liking for Dolokhov because of his sharp wit and bold spirit. Dolokhov needed Anatole's name, contacts and social standing to attract wealthy young men into his gambling circles, so he was using Kuragin without him being aware of it, though at the same time he found him amusing. As well as having a calculated need for Anatole, the very process of manipulating another man soon became a regular source of enjoyment for Dolokhov, even a necessity.
Natasha had made a big impact on Kuragin. Over supper after the opera he gave Dolokhov the benefit of his expert appraisal of her arms, shoulders, legs and hair, and announced his intention of having a bit of a fling with her. The possible outcome of such an entanglement was beyond Anatole's powers of comprehension, just as he could never see the outcome of any of his actions.
'She's a pretty girl, old man, but not for the likes of us,' Dolokhov said to him.
'I'll tell my sister to ask her to dinner,' said Anatole. 'How about that?'
'Better wait till she's married . . .'
'Do you know something?' said Anatole. 'I do like little girls. It's so easy to turn their heads.'
'You've been in trouble with one little girl already,' put in Dolokhov, who knew about Anatole's marriage. 'Watch what you're doing!'
'Well, it can't happen again, can it?' said Anatole with a good-humoured laugh.
CHAPTER 12
The day after the opera the Rostovs stayed in, and no one came to see them. Marya Dmitriyevna had a long talk with Natasha's father, keeping it secret from her. Natasha put two and two together and guessed they were talking about the old prince and hatching something between them, and this made her feel worried and offended. She was expecting Prince Andrey any minute, and twice that day she sent someone to Vozdvizhenka to find out whether he had arrived. He hadn't. She now felt worse than she had done during their first days in Moscow. Her impatience and longing for him were now exacerbated by the unpleasant memory of her encounter with Princess Marya and the old prince, and an anxious, worried feeling that she couldn't account for. She kept on imagining either that he wouldn't ever come or that something would happen to her before he did. She couldn't just sit there quietly hour after hour, as she had once done, thinking about him. The moment he came into her mind, the memory of him blended with memories of the old prince and Princess Marya, the opera and Kuragin. Once again she wondered whether she might not have been to blame and whether she could be said to have broken faith with Prince Andrey, and again she found herself analysing every last word, gesture and change of expression on the face of that man who had somehow managed to arouse her in such a dreadful way. To the rest of the household Natasha seemed livelier than usual, but she was far from being as happy and contented as before.
Sunday morning came, and Marya Dmitriyevna invited her guests to go to morning service at her parish church, the Church of the Assumption.
'I don't like those modern churches,' she said, obviously fancying herself as something of a free-thinker. 'God is the same everywhere. Our parish priest is an excellent man and he puts on a nice service, it's all very dignified, and his deacon's just the same. What's holy about giving concerts in the choir? I don't like it. It's too much like entertainment!'
Marya Dmitriyevna enjoyed her Sundays, and knew how to celebrate them. Her house had always been washed and cleaned on the Saturday, she and the servants all had a day off, and everybody put on their Sunday best and went to church. There was more food on the mistress's table, and the servants had vodka and roast goose or pork at theirs. But nothing in the house marked the holiday more clearly than Marya Dmitriyevna's broad, stern face, which assumed for the day a look of unwavering solemnity.
After church, when they had finished their coffee in the drawing-room, with the covers taken off the furniture, a servant announced that the carriage was ready and Marya Dmitriyevna, dressed in her best shawl, which she wore for visiting, got to her feet and solemnly announced that she was going to call on old Prince Bolkonsky to speak to him about his attitude to Natasha. After she had gone one of Madame Pascal's dressmakers called and Natasha, only too glad of the distraction, went into an adjoining room, closed the door and began trying on her new dresses. Just as she had put on a sleeveless basted bodice and was bending her head to look in the mirror and see what it looked like from the back, she suddenly heard her father's voice in the drawing-room in eager conversation with someone else - it was a woman's voice, one that made her blush. It was Helene. Before Natasha had time to take off the bodice she was trying on, the door opened and in walked Countess Bezukhov, wearing a dark-heliotrope velvet dress with a high collar, and smiling her sweet and friendly smile.
'My dear girl, you look so lovely!' she said to the blushing Natasha. 'So charming! No, Count, this is too much,' she said to Count Ilya, who had followed her in. 'How can you live in Moscow without going out? No, I'm not letting go of you! This evening Mademoiselle George is giving a recitation at our house and we have one or tw
The third act saw a palace depicted on the stage with lots of burning candles and walls hung with pictures of knights with beards. Two people, presumably a king and queen, stood at the front. The king waved his right hand in the air and sang something very badly - it was obviously his nerves - before sitting down on a crimson throne. The girl who had first been in white and then pale blue was now wearing a plain smock, and she had let her hair down. She was standing near the throne, singing something very doleful to the queen. But the king waved his hand harshly, and then some men with bare legs and women with bare legs came on from both sides and they all started dancing. Then the violins struck up with a light and happy tune, at which one of the actresses with thick, bare legs and thin arms detached herself from the rest, walked off the set to straighten her bodice, came back out into the middle of the stage and began to leap in the air, tapping her feet together very quickly. The stalls erupted with applause and shouts of 'bravo!' Then one man retreated into a corner of the stage. Louder and louder came the cymbals and horns in the orchestra, and this one man with his bare legs started leaping right up in the air and making fancy movements with his feet. (This was Duport, who took home sixty thousand silver roubles a year for this artistry.) The whole theatre from the stalls to the gods thundered their applause and yelled at the tops of their voices, and the man came to a halt and stood there beaming and bowing to all quarters. Then the bare legs were off again dancing, men and women, the king sounded off in time to the music and they all broke out in song. But suddenly a storm blew up, heralded by chromatic scales and diminished sevenths from the orchestra, and they all scurried away, dragging one of the company off stage, and the curtain fell. Once again the audience erupted with fearsome applause and they all stood there in blissful transports roaring out, 'Duport! Duport! Duport!'
It no longer seemed at all strange to Natasha. She looked round in delight, grinning with glee.
'Glorious, isn't he - Duport?' said Helene, turning to her.
'Oh yes,' said Natasha in reply.
CHAPTER 10
During the interval there was a cool draught in Helene's box as the door opened and in walked Anatole, stooping and trying not to brush against anyone.
'Allow me to introduce my brother,' said Helene, her eyes shifting uneasily from Natasha to Anatole. Natasha turned her pretty little head towards the handsome adjutant and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was just as handsome close to as he had been from a distance, sat down beside her and said this was a delight he had long been waiting for, ever since the Naryshkins' ball, where he had had the unforgettable pleasure of seeing her. Kuragin was much more astute and straightforward with women than he ever was in male company. He talked with an easy directness, and Natasha was agreeably surprised to discover that this man, the butt of so much gossip, had nothing formidable about him - quite the reverse, his face wore the most innocent, cheery and open-hearted of smiles.
Kuragin asked what she thought of the opera, and told her that at the last performance Semyonova had fallen down on stage.
'Oh, by the way, Countess,' he said, suddenly treating her like a close friend of long standing, 'we're getting up a fancy-dress ball. You must come - it's going to be great fun. They're all getting together at the Arkharovs'. Please come. You will, won't you?' As he spoke he never took his smiling eyes off Natasha, her face, her neck, her exposed arms. Natasha knew for certain he was besotted with her. She liked this, yet she could feel the temperature rising and she was beginning to feel somehow cornered and constrained in his presence. When she wasn't looking at him she could sense him gazing at her shoulders, and she found herself trying to catch his eye to make him look at her face. But when she looked into his eyes she was shocked to realize that the usual barrier of modesty that existed between her and other men was no longer there between the two of them. It had taken five minutes for her to feel terribly close to this man, and she scarcely knew what was happening to her. Whenever she turned away she bristled at the thought that he might seize her from behind by her bare arm and start kissing her on the neck. They were going on about nothing in particular, yet she felt closer to him than she had ever been to any other man. Natasha kept glancing round at Helene and her father for help - what did it all mean? - but Helene was deep in conversation with a general and didn't respond to her glance, and her father's eyes conveyed nothing but their usual message, 'Enjoying yourself? Jolly good. I'm so pleased.'
There was an awkward silence, during which Anatole, the personification of cool determination, never took his voracious eyes off her, and Natasha broke it by asking whether he liked living in Moscow. She coloured up the moment the question was out of her mouth. She couldn't help feeling there was something improper about even talking to him. Anatole smiled an encouraging smile.
'Oh, I didn't like it much at first. Well, what is it that makes a town nice to live in? It's the pretty women, isn't it? Well, now I do like it, very much indeed,' he said, with a meaningful stare. 'You will come to the fancy-dress ball, Countess? Please come,' he said. Putting his hand out to touch her bouquet he lowered his voice and added in French, 'You'll be the prettiest woman there. Do come, dear Countess, and give me this flower as your pledge.'
Natasha didn't understand a word of this - any more than he did - but she felt that behind his incomprehensible words there was some dishonourable intention. Not knowing how to respond, she turned away as if she hadn't heard him. But the moment she turned away she could feel him right behind her, very close.
'Now what? Is he embarrassed? Is he angry? Should I put things right?' she wondered. She couldn't help turning round. She looked him straight in the eyes. One glance at him, standing so close, with all that self-assurance and the warmth of his sweet smile, and she was lost. She stared into his eyes, and her smile was the mirror-image of his. And again she sensed with horror there was no barrier between the two of them.
The curtain rose again. Anatole strolled out of the box, a picture of composure and contentment. Natasha went back to her father's box, completely taken by the new world she found herself in. All that was happening before her eyes now seemed absolutely normal. By contrast, all previous thoughts of her fiance, Princess Marya, her life in the country, never even crossed her mind. It was as if it all belonged to the distant past.
In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang and waved his arms about till the boards were taken away beneath him and he disappeared down below. That was all Natasha saw of the fourth act. She felt worried and excited, and the cause of all the excitement was - Kuragin; she couldn't keep her eyes off him. As they came out of the theatre Anatole walked over to them, called their carriage and helped them into it. As he was assisting Natasha he squeezed her forearm just above the wrist. Natasha glanced round at him, thrilled and flushed with pleasure. He gazed at her with gleaming eyes and a tender smile.
Natasha was back home before she could form any clear impression of what had happened. Suddenly she had a horrible feeling as she remembered about Prince Andrey, and in front of them all as they sat there drinking a cup of tea after the theatre she gave a loud moan, blushed to the roots of her hair and rushed out of the room. 'My God! It's the end of me!' she said to herself. 'How could I have let him go as far as that?' she thought. She sat there for some time, burying her crimson face in her hands, trying to get a firm grip on what had been happening but quite incapable of grasping anything, either what had happened or what she now felt. It all seemed dark, confusing and dreadful. Back in that huge open space under the bright lights, when Duport with his bare legs and his little spangled jacket had just finished leaping about to the music over those damp boards, and those young girls and the old men, and Helene, too, beaming proudly and serenely in all her naked glory, had gone wild and roared 'Bravo!' - there, in the shadow of Helene herself, everything had been plain and simple, but now, as she sat there in solitude, it was beyond all understanding. 'What's it all about? Why did I feel so scared of him? What are all these guilty feelings?' she thought.
Her mother, the old countess, was the only person to whom Natasha could have confided all that was on her mind - at night and in bed. She knew Sonya was straight-laced and clear-minded about these things; she would either have got the wrong end of the stick or just been shocked by any confession. Natasha would have to try and solve these agonizing problems on her own.
'Am I finished with Prince Andrey's love or not?' she wondered, and then reassured herself with an ironical smile. 'Silly girl, asking things like that!' she thought. 'What's happened to me? Nothing. I haven't done anything. I didn't ask for this. No one will ever know, and I shan't see him again,' she told herself. 'So, this much is clear: nothing has happened, there's nothing to apologize for, and Prince Andrey can love me for what I am. But am I really what I am? Oh God, Oh God, why isn't he here?' Natasha's consolation was short-lived. Once again, in her imagination, she ran through her conversation with Kuragin, and she could still see his features, his every gesture and the kind smile on the face of a brave handsome man squeezing her arm.
CHAPTER 11
Anatole Kuragin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him away from Petersburg, where he had been getting through twenty thousand roubles a year in cash and running up debts for a similar amount, and his creditors had begun to demand payment from his father. Prince Vasily informed his son that for one last time he would pay half his debts, on condition that he went down to Moscow, where a post had been found for him (with no little effort) as adjutant to the commander-in-chief, and finally made every effort to find a good marriage-partner. He suggested either Princess Marya or Julie Karagin.
Anatole had consented and gone down to Moscow, where he stayed with Pierre. At first Pierre was reluctant to receive Anatole, but it wasn't long before he got used to him being there, started going out with him on some of his wild jaunts, and gave him money, ostensibly as a loan.
Shinshin had been quite right to say that Anatole had driven all the Moscow ladies crazy, especially by his offhand attitude and his obvious preference for gypsy girls and French actresses - he was said to be having an affair with the queen of them all, Mademoiselle George.4 He never missed a party at Dolokhov's, or with any other member of the fast set in Moscow, he hit the bottle for nights on end, outdrinking everybody else, and attended every high-society ball and soiree. He was said to have had several affairs with Moscow ladies, and he was given to flirting with one or two of them in the ballroom. But he had steered clear of unmarried girls, especially wealthy heiresses, most of whom were not very pretty, and for one good reason known to none but a few of his closest friends: for the last two years he had been married. Two years before, while his regiment was stationed in Poland, a small-time Polish landowner had forced Anatole to marry his daughter.
It had not taken long for Anatole to walk out on his wife, but by agreeing to send a regular cash remittance to his father-in-law he had preserved the right to pass himself off as a bachelor.
Anatole was quite happy with his situation, himself and other people. With every fibre of his being he was convinced of what his instincts told him: there was no other way to live than the way he was living, and he had never done anything wrong in his life. He had no capacity for reflecting on how his actions might affect other people, or what the consequences of this or that action might be. He took it for granted that just as the duck was created to live on water, he was created by God to live on thirty thousand a year and occupy a high station in society. So strong was this conviction that when other people looked at him they accepted it and wouldn't have dreamt of denying him either his high station in society or the money that he borrowed right and left, obviously with no thought of paying it back.
He was not a gambler - at least he was never bothered about winning money and he was a good loser. He wasn't vain. He didn't care what people thought about him. Still less could he have been accused of ambition. More than once he had infuriated his father by ruining his own prospects, and he laughed at honours of every kind. He wasn't mean, and he never refused anyone who turned to him for help. What he loved was having a good time and chasing women, and since, according to him, these tastes were in no way dishonourable, and he was incapable of considering how his gratification of them might affect other people, he genuinely considered himself beyond reproach, he felt a real contempt for rogues and scoundrels, his conscience was clear and he walked tall. Men of pleasure, masculine versions of Mary Magdalene, are secretly convinced of their own innocence, and like their feminine counterparts they base this on the hope of forgiveness. 'She shall be forgiven because she was full of love; he shall be forgiven because he was full of fun.'
Dolokhov, back in Moscow that year after his exile and his Persian adventures, now spent his time wallowing in luxury, gambling and the pleasures of the flesh, and he had his own good reasons for renewing his friendship with his old Petersburg comrade Kuragin.
Anatole had a genuine liking for Dolokhov because of his sharp wit and bold spirit. Dolokhov needed Anatole's name, contacts and social standing to attract wealthy young men into his gambling circles, so he was using Kuragin without him being aware of it, though at the same time he found him amusing. As well as having a calculated need for Anatole, the very process of manipulating another man soon became a regular source of enjoyment for Dolokhov, even a necessity.
Natasha had made a big impact on Kuragin. Over supper after the opera he gave Dolokhov the benefit of his expert appraisal of her arms, shoulders, legs and hair, and announced his intention of having a bit of a fling with her. The possible outcome of such an entanglement was beyond Anatole's powers of comprehension, just as he could never see the outcome of any of his actions.
'She's a pretty girl, old man, but not for the likes of us,' Dolokhov said to him.
'I'll tell my sister to ask her to dinner,' said Anatole. 'How about that?'
'Better wait till she's married . . .'
'Do you know something?' said Anatole. 'I do like little girls. It's so easy to turn their heads.'
'You've been in trouble with one little girl already,' put in Dolokhov, who knew about Anatole's marriage. 'Watch what you're doing!'
'Well, it can't happen again, can it?' said Anatole with a good-humoured laugh.
CHAPTER 12
The day after the opera the Rostovs stayed in, and no one came to see them. Marya Dmitriyevna had a long talk with Natasha's father, keeping it secret from her. Natasha put two and two together and guessed they were talking about the old prince and hatching something between them, and this made her feel worried and offended. She was expecting Prince Andrey any minute, and twice that day she sent someone to Vozdvizhenka to find out whether he had arrived. He hadn't. She now felt worse than she had done during their first days in Moscow. Her impatience and longing for him were now exacerbated by the unpleasant memory of her encounter with Princess Marya and the old prince, and an anxious, worried feeling that she couldn't account for. She kept on imagining either that he wouldn't ever come or that something would happen to her before he did. She couldn't just sit there quietly hour after hour, as she had once done, thinking about him. The moment he came into her mind, the memory of him blended with memories of the old prince and Princess Marya, the opera and Kuragin. Once again she wondered whether she might not have been to blame and whether she could be said to have broken faith with Prince Andrey, and again she found herself analysing every last word, gesture and change of expression on the face of that man who had somehow managed to arouse her in such a dreadful way. To the rest of the household Natasha seemed livelier than usual, but she was far from being as happy and contented as before.
Sunday morning came, and Marya Dmitriyevna invited her guests to go to morning service at her parish church, the Church of the Assumption.
'I don't like those modern churches,' she said, obviously fancying herself as something of a free-thinker. 'God is the same everywhere. Our parish priest is an excellent man and he puts on a nice service, it's all very dignified, and his deacon's just the same. What's holy about giving concerts in the choir? I don't like it. It's too much like entertainment!'
Marya Dmitriyevna enjoyed her Sundays, and knew how to celebrate them. Her house had always been washed and cleaned on the Saturday, she and the servants all had a day off, and everybody put on their Sunday best and went to church. There was more food on the mistress's table, and the servants had vodka and roast goose or pork at theirs. But nothing in the house marked the holiday more clearly than Marya Dmitriyevna's broad, stern face, which assumed for the day a look of unwavering solemnity.
After church, when they had finished their coffee in the drawing-room, with the covers taken off the furniture, a servant announced that the carriage was ready and Marya Dmitriyevna, dressed in her best shawl, which she wore for visiting, got to her feet and solemnly announced that she was going to call on old Prince Bolkonsky to speak to him about his attitude to Natasha. After she had gone one of Madame Pascal's dressmakers called and Natasha, only too glad of the distraction, went into an adjoining room, closed the door and began trying on her new dresses. Just as she had put on a sleeveless basted bodice and was bending her head to look in the mirror and see what it looked like from the back, she suddenly heard her father's voice in the drawing-room in eager conversation with someone else - it was a woman's voice, one that made her blush. It was Helene. Before Natasha had time to take off the bodice she was trying on, the door opened and in walked Countess Bezukhov, wearing a dark-heliotrope velvet dress with a high collar, and smiling her sweet and friendly smile.
'My dear girl, you look so lovely!' she said to the blushing Natasha. 'So charming! No, Count, this is too much,' she said to Count Ilya, who had followed her in. 'How can you live in Moscow without going out? No, I'm not letting go of you! This evening Mademoiselle George is giving a recitation at our house and we have one or tw