Book + 

II + 

Part + 

I + 

1806 + 

I + 

Early in the year 1806 Nikoláy Rostóv returned home on leave. Denísov was going home to Vorónezh and Rostóv persuaded him to travel with him as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at the last post station but one before Moscow, Denísov had drunk three bottles of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the snow-covered road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay at the bottom of the sleigh beside Rostóv, who grew more and more impatient the nearer they got to Moscow. + 

“How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets, shops, bakers’ signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!” thought Rostóv, when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had entered Moscow. + 

“Denísov! We’re here! He’s asleep,” he added, leaning forward with his whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed of the sleigh. + 

Denísov gave no answer. + 

“There’s the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhár, has his stand, and there’s Zakhár himself and still the same horse! And here’s the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can’t you hurry up? Now then!” + 

“Which house is it?” asked the driver. + 

“Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don’t you see? That’s our house,” said Rostóv. “Of course, it’s our house! Denísov, Denísov! We’re almost there!” + 

Denísov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer. + 

“Dmítri,” said Rostóv to his valet on the box, “those lights are in our house, aren’t they?” + 

“Yes, sir, and there’s a light in your father’s study.” + 

“Then they’ve not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now, don’t forget to put out my new coat,” added Rostóv, fingering his new mustache. “Now then, get on,” he shouted to the driver. “Do wake up, Váska!” he went on, turning to Denísov, whose head was again nodding. “Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka⁠—get on!” Rostóv shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his door. It seemed to him the horses were not moving at all. At last the sleigh bore to the right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostóv saw overhead the old familiar cornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by the side of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran into the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless of who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. “Oh God! Is everyone all right?” he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking heart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up the warped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle, which always angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned, turned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the anteroom. + 

Old Mikháilo was asleep on the chest. Prokófy, the footman, who was so strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one of delighted amazement. + 

“Gracious heavens! The young count!” he cried, recognizing his young master. “Can it be? My treasure!” and Prokófy, trembling with excitement, rushed toward the drawing room door, probably in order to announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the young man’s shoulder. + 

“All well?” asked Rostóv, drawing away his arm. + 

“Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They’ve just finished supper. Let me have a look at you, your excellency.” + 

“Is everything quite all right?” + 

“The Lord be thanked, yes!” + 

Rostóv, who had completely forgotten Denísov, not wishing anyone to forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing, more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was Papa, which Natásha, and which Pétya. Everyone shouted, talked, and kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed that. + 

“And I did not know⁠ ⁠… Nikolúshka⁠ ⁠… My darling!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Here he is⁠ ⁠… our own⁠ ⁠… Kólya, dear fellow⁠ ⁠… How he has changed!⁠ ⁠… Where are the candles?⁠ ⁠… Tea!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And me, kiss me!” + 

“Dearest⁠ ⁠… and me!” + 

Sónya, Natásha, Pétya, Anna Mikháylovna, Véra, and the old count were all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the room, exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing. + 

Pétya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, “And me too!” + 

Natásha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly. + 

All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around were lips seeking a kiss. + 

Sónya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss, looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she longed. Sónya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps so rapid that they could hardly be his mother’s. + 

Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar’s jacket. Denísov, who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped his eyes at the sight. + 

“Vasíli Denísov, your son’s friend,” he said, introducing himself to the count, who was looking inquiringly at him. + 

“You are most welcome! I know, I know,” said the count, kissing and embracing Denísov. “Nikolúshka wrote us⁠ ⁠… Natásha, Véra, look! Here is Denísov!” + 

The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denísov. + 

“Darling Denísov!” screamed Natásha, beside herself with rapture, springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This escapade made everybody feel confused. Denísov blushed too, but smiled and, taking Natásha’s hand, kissed it. + 

Denísov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostóvs all gathered round Nikolúshka in the sitting room. + 

The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest to him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea, handkerchief, and pipe. + 

Rostóv was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first moment of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more. + 

Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept till ten o’clock. + 

In the room next to their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers, satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their well-brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco. + 

“Hallo, Gwíska⁠—my pipe!” came Váska Denísov’s husky voice. “Wostóv, get up!” + 

Rostóv, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his disheveled head from the hot pillow. + 

“Why, is it late?” + 

“Late! It’s nearly ten o’clock,” answered Natásha’s voice. A rustle of starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of girls’ voices came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a crack and there was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and merry faces. It was Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya, who had come to see whether they were getting up. + 

“Nikólenka! Get up!” Natásha’s voice was again heard at the door. + 

“Directly!” + 

Meanwhile, Pétya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room, with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed, opened the bedroom door. + 

“Is this your saber?” he shouted. + 

The girls sprang aside. Denísov hid his hairy legs under the blanket, looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let Pétya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it. + 

“Nikólenka! Come out in your dressing gown!” said Natásha’s voice. + 

“Is this your saber?” asked Pétya. “Or is it yours?” he said, addressing the black-mustached Denísov with servile deference. + 

Rostóv hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown, and went out. Natásha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting her foot into the other. Sónya, when he came in, was twirling round and was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and bright. Sónya ran away, but Natásha, taking her brother’s arm, led him into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave one another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natásha laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what they were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter. + 

“Oh, how nice, how splendid!” she said to everything. + 

Rostóv felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his soul and his face. + 

“No, but listen,” she said, “now you are quite a man, aren’t you? I’m awfully glad you’re my brother.” She touched his mustache. “I want to know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?” + 

“Why did Sónya run away?” asked Rostóv. + 

“Ah, yes! That’s a whole long story! How are you going to speak to her⁠—thou or you?” + 

“As may happen,” said Rostóv. + 

“No, call her you, please! I’ll tell you all about it some other time. No, I’ll tell you now. You know Sónya’s my dearest friend. Such a friend that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!” + 

She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long, slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered even by a ball dress. + 

“I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the fire and pressed it there!” + 

Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natásha’s wildly bright eyes, Rostóv reentered that world of home and childhood which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life; and the burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem to him senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it. + 

“Well, and is that all?” he asked. + 

“We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it for life, but I don’t understand that, I forget quickly.” + 

“Well, what then?” + 

“Well, she loves me and you like that.” + 

Natásha suddenly flushed. + 

“Why, you remember before you went away?⁠ ⁠… Well, she says you are to forget all that.⁠ ⁠… She says: ‘I shall love him always, but let him be free.’ Isn’t that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn’t it?” asked Natásha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears. + 

Rostóv became thoughtful. + 

“I never go back on my word,” he said. “Besides, Sónya is so charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness.” + 

“No, no!” cried Natásha, “she and I have already talked it over. We knew you’d say so. But it won’t do, because you see, if you say that⁠—if you consider yourself bound by your promise⁠—it will seem as if she had not meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you must, and that wouldn’t do at all.” + 

Rostóv saw that it had been well considered by them. Sónya had already struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry her, Rostóv thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures and interests before him! “Yes, they have taken a wise decision,” he thought, “I must remain free.” + 

“Well then, that’s excellent,” said he. “We’ll talk it over later on. Oh, how glad I am to have you!” + 

“Well, and are you still true to Borís?” he continued. + 

“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Natásha, laughing. “I don’t think about him or anyone else, and I don’t want anything of the kind.” + 

“Dear me! Then what are you up to now?” + 

“Now?” repeated Natásha, and a happy smile lit up her face. “Have you seen Duport?” + 

“No.” + 

“Not seen Duport⁠—the famous dancer? Well then, you won’t understand. That’s what I’m up to.” + 

Curving her arms, Natásha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back a few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes. + 

“See, I’m standing! See!” she said, but could not maintain herself on her toes any longer. “So that’s what I’m up to! I’ll never marry anyone, but will be a dancer. Only don’t tell anyone.” + 

Rostóv laughed so loud and merrily that Denísov, in his bedroom, felt envious and Natásha could not help joining in. + 

“No, but don’t you think it’s nice?” she kept repeating. + 

“Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Borís?” + 

Natásha flared up. “I don’t want to marry anyone. And I’ll tell him so when I see him!” + 

“Dear me!” said Rostóv. + 

“But that’s all rubbish,” Natásha chattered on. “And is Denísov nice?” she asked. + 

“Yes, indeed!” + 

“Oh, well then, goodbye: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denísov?” + 

“Why terrible?” asked Nicolas. “No, Váska is a splendid fellow.” + 

“You call him Váska? That’s funny! And is he very nice?” + 

“Very.” + 

“Well then, be quick. We’ll all have breakfast together.” + 

And Natásha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When Rostóv met Sónya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not be done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave with her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you⁠—Sónya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by Natásha’s intermediacy, to remind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His looks thanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that one way or another he would never cease to love her, for that would be impossible. + 

“How strange it is,” said Véra, selecting a moment when all were silent, “that Sónya and Nikólenka now say you to one another and meet like strangers.” + 

Véra’s remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sónya, Nikoláy, and Natásha, but even the old countess, who⁠—dreading this love affair which might hinder Nikoláy from making a brilliant match⁠—blushed like a girl. + 

Denísov, to Rostóv’s surprise, appeared in the drawing room with pomaded hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as he made himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the ladies and gentlemen than Rostóv had ever expected to see him. + 

II + 

On his return to Moscow from the army, Nikoláy Rostóv was welcomed by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling Nikolúshka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good dancer, and one of the best matches in the city. + 

The Rostóvs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nikolúshka, acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs, passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to the old conditions of life, Nikoláy found it very pleasant to be at home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from Gavríl to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sónya on the sly⁠—he now recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at the Arkhárovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kámenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of forty to whom Denísov had introduced him. + 

His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of as the “angel incarnate.” + 

During Rostóv’s short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he did not draw closer to Sónya, but rather drifted away from her. She was very pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was at the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no time for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and prizes his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he thought of Sónya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, “Ah, there will be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet know. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but now I have no time.” Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies’ society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the English Club, sprees with Denísov, and visits to a certain house⁠—that was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar! + 

At the beginning of March, old Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv was very busy arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagratión at the English Club. + 

The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktíst, the club’s head cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagratión, for few men knew so well how to arrange a feast on an openhanded, hospitable scale, and still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fête. The club cook and the steward listened to the count’s orders with pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing several thousand rubles. + 

“Well then, mind and have cocks’ comb in the turtle soup, you know!” + 

“Shall we have three cold dishes then?” asked the cook. + 

The count considered. + 

“We can’t have less⁠—yes, three⁠ ⁠… the mayonnaise, that’s one,” said he, bending down a finger. + 

“Then am I to order those large sterlets?” asked the steward. + 

“Yes, it can’t be helped if they won’t take less. Ah, dear me! I was forgetting. We must have another entrée. Ah, goodness gracious!” he clutched at his head. “Who is going to get me the flowers? Mítenka! Eh, Mítenka! Gallop off to our Moscow estate,” he said to the factotum who appeared at his call. “Hurry off and tell Maksímka, the gardener, to set the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here on Friday.” + 

Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his “little countess” to have a rest, but remembering something else of importance, he returned again, called back the cook and the club steward, and again began giving orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were heard at the door, and the young count, handsome, rosy, with a dark little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by his easy life in Moscow, entered the room. + 

“Ah, my boy, my head’s in a whirl!” said the old man with a smile, as if he felt a little confused before his son. “Now, if you would only help a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but shouldn’t we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that sort of thing.” + 

“Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagratión worried himself less before the battle of Schön Grabern than you do now,” said his son with a smile. + 

The old count pretended to be angry. + 

“Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!” + 

And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and son. + 

“What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktíst?” said he. “Laughing at us old fellows!” + 

“That’s so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that’s not their business!” + 

“That’s it, that’s it!” exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son by both hands, he cried, “Now I’ve got you, so take the sleigh and pair at once, and go to Bezúkhov’s, and tell him ‘Count Ilyá Andréevich has sent you to ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.’ We can’t get them from anyone else. He’s not there himself, so you’ll have to go in and ask the princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyáy⁠—the coachman Ipátka knows⁠—and look up the gypsy Ilyúshka, the one who danced at Count Orlóv’s, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to me.” + 

“And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?” asked Nikoláy, laughing. “Dear, dear!⁠ ⁠…” + 

At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike, preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna Mikháylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to excuse his costume. + 

“No matter at all, my dear count,” she said, meekly closing her eyes. “But I’ll go to Bezúkhov’s myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case. He has forwarded me a letter from Borís. Thank God, Borís is now on the staff.” + 

The count was delighted at Anna Mikháylovna’s taking upon herself one of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her. + 

“Tell Bezúkhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is his wife with him?” he asked. + 

Anna Mikháylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted on her face. + 

“Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate,” she said. “If what we hear is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young Bezúkhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what consolation I can.” + 

“Wh-what is the matter?” asked both the young and old Rostóv. + 

Anna Mikháylovna sighed deeply. + 

“Dólokhov, Márya Ivánovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now⁠ ⁠… she has come here and that daredevil after her!” said Anna Mikháylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called Dólokhov. “They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune.” + 

“Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club⁠—it will all blow over. It will be a tremendous banquet.” + 

Next day, the third of March, soon after one o’clock, two hundred and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagratión, to dinner. + 

On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it, while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important, and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in conversation⁠—Count Rostopchín, Prince Yúri Vladímirovich Dolgorúkov, Valúev, Count Markóv, and Prince Vyázemski⁠—did not show themselves at the club, but met in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took their opinions from others⁠—Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv among them⁠—remained for a while without any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who guided the club’s opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear, and in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat, the treachery of the Pole Przebyszéwski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Kutúzov’s incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people. But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and had achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagratión, distinguished by his Schön Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to Bagratión’s being selected as Moscow’s hero was the fact that he had no connections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections and intrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian campaign with the name of Suvórov. Moreover, paying such honor to Bagratión was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of Kutúzov. + 

“Had there been no Bagratión, it would have been necessary to invent him,” said the wit Shinshín, parodying the words of Voltaire. Kutúzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers, calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr. + 

All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorúkov’s saying: “If you go on modeling and modeling you must get smeared with clay,” suggesting consolation for our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the words of Rostopchín, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them that it is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian soldiers only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and fresh anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by our officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded. Berg was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when wounded in the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone forward. Of Bolkónski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him intimately regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife with his eccentric father. + 

III + 

On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime. The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat, stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress, and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftáns. Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings, stood at every door anxiously noting visitors’ every movement in order to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present were casual guests⁠—chiefly young men, among whom were Denísov, Rostóv, and Dólokhov⁠—who was now again an officer in the Semënov regiment. The faces of these young people, especially those who were military men, bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which seems to say to the older generation, “We are prepared to respect and honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us.” + 

Nesvítski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his wife’s command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here, as elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he treated them with absentminded contempt. + 

By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round Count Rostopchín, Valúev, and Narýshkin. Rostopchín was describing how the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to force their way through them with bayonets. + 

Valúev was confidentially telling that Uvárov had been sent from Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz. + 

In the third circle, Narýshkin was speaking of the meeting of the Austrian Council of War at which Suvórov crowed like a cock in reply to the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshín, standing close by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutúzov had evidently failed to learn from Suvórov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him feel that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of Kutúzov. + 

Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft boots between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the important and unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all equals, while his eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up young son, resting on him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostóv stood at a window with Dólokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed Dólokhov’s hand. + 

“Please come and visit us⁠ ⁠… you know my brave boy⁠ ⁠… been together out there⁠ ⁠… both playing the hero⁠ ⁠… Ah, Vasíli Ignátovich⁠ ⁠… How d’ye do, old fellow?” he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but before he had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a footman who had run in announced, with a frightened face: “He’s arrived!” + 

Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and⁠—like rye shaken together in a shovel⁠—the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms came together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the ballroom. + 

Bagratión appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword, which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip over his shoulder, as when Rostóv had seen him on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed, which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naively festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshëv and Fëdor Petróvich Uvárov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him, as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagratión was embarrassed, not wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at Schön Grabern⁠—and he would have found that easier. The committeemen met him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was at first impossible to enter the drawing room door for the crowd of members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at Bagratión over each other’s shoulders, as if he were some rare animal. Count Ilyá Andréevich, laughing and repeating the words, “Make way, dear boy! Make way, make way!” pushed through the crowd more energetically than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the club, beset the new arrivals. Count Ilyá Andréevich, again thrusting his way through the crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented to Prince Bagratión. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed in the hero’s honor. Bagratión, on seeing the salver, glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who had presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagratión (or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to dinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses. + 

“Well, I will read them, then!” Bagratión seemed to say, and, fixing his weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious expression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading them aloud. Bagratión bowed his head and listened: + 

Bring glory then to Alexander’s reign + 

And on the throne our Titus shield. + 

A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, + 

A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field! + 

E’en fortunate Napoleon + 

Knows by experience, now, Bagratión, + 

And dare not Herculean Russians trouble⁠ ⁠… + 

But before he had finished reading, a stentorian majordomo announced that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came the resounding strains of the polonaise: + 

Conquest’s joyful thunder waken, + 

Triumph, valiant Russians, now!⁠ ⁠… + 

and Count Ilyá Andréevich, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his verses, bowed to Bagratión. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more important than verses, and Bagratión, again preceding all the rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two Alexanders⁠—Bekleshëv and Narýshkin⁠—which was a significant allusion to the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest. + 

Just before dinner, Count Ilyá Andréevich presented his son to Bagratión, who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward, as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilyá Andréevich looked joyfully and proudly around while Bagratión spoke to his son. + 

Nikoláy Rostóv, with Denísov and his new acquaintance, Dólokhov, sat almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince Nesvítski. Count Ilyá Andréevich with the other members of the committee sat facing Bagratión and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality, did the honors to the prince. + 

His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of which Ilyá Andréevich blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish, which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the other committeemen. “There will be many toasts, it’s time to begin,” he whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting for what he would say. + 

“To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he cried, and at the same moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The band immediately struck up “Conquest’s joyful thunder waken⁠ ⁠…” All rose and cried “Hurrah!” Bagratión also rose and shouted “Hurrah!” in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schön Grabern. Young Rostóv’s ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. “To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he roared, “Hurrah!” and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued for a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had made and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a note lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, “To the health of the hero of our last campaign, Prince Pyotr Ivánovich Bagratión!” and again his blue eyes grew moist. “Hurrah!” cried the three hundred voices again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed by Pável Ivánovich Kutúzov: + 

Russians! O’er all barriers on! + 

Courage conquest guarantees; + 

Have we not Bagratión? + 

He brings foemen to their knees,⁠ ⁠… etc. + 

As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed and Count Ilyá Andréevich became more and more moved, more glass was smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshëv, Narýshkin, Uvárov, Dolgorúkov, Apráksin, Valúev, to the committee, to all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count Ilyá Andréevich separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast, the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept outright. + 

IV + 

Pierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nikoláy Rostóv. As usual, he ate and drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and a look of complete absentmindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some depressing and unsolved problem. + 

The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dólokhov’s intimacy with his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly through his spectacles, but that his wife’s connection with Dólokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the princess’ hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dólokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dólokhov’s handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his wife’s past and her relations with Dólokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how Dólokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dólokhov had come straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Elèn had smilingly expressed disapproval of Dólokhov’s living at their house, and how cynically Dólokhov had praised his wife’s beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a day. + 

“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know him. It would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.” He remembered the expression Dólokhov’s face assumed in his moments of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or shot a postboy’s horse with a pistol. That expression was often on Dólokhov’s face when looking at him. “Yes, he is a bully,” thought Pierre, “to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that I, too, am afraid of him⁠—and in fact I am afraid of him,” he thought, and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul. Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv were now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostóv was talking merrily to his two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose preoccupied, absentminded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one at the dinner. Rostóv looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty, and in a word⁠—an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his preoccupation and absentmindedness had not recognized Rostóv and had not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor’s health was drunk, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass. + 

“What are you about?” shouted Rostóv, looking at him in an ecstasy of exasperation. “Don’t you hear it’s His Majesty the Emperor’s health?” + 

Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostóv. + 

“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostóv was otherwise engaged; he was shouting “Hurrah!” + 

“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dólokhov to Rostóv. + 

“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostóv. + 

“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denísov. + 

Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking about him. He reddened and turned away. + 

“Well, now to the health of handsome women!” said Dólokhov, and with a serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre. + 

“Here’s to the health of lovely women, Pétrusha⁠—and their lovers!” he added. + 

Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at Dólokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets with Kutúzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dólokhov, leaning across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at Dólokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He leaned his whole massive body across the table. + 

“How dare you take it?” he shouted. + 

Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvítski and the neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezúkhov. + 

“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened voices. + 

Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that smile of his which seemed to say, “Ah! This is what I like!” + 

“You shan’t have it!” he said distinctly. + 

Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy. + 

“You⁠ ⁠… ! you⁠ ⁠… scoundrel! I challenge you!” he ejaculated, and, pushing back his chair, he rose from the table. + 

At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt that the question of his wife’s guilt which had been tormenting him the whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denísov’s request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostóv agreed to be Dólokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with Nesvítski, Bezúkhov’s second. Pierre went home, but Rostóv with Dólokhov and Denísov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies and other singers. + 

“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokólniki,” said Dólokhov, as he took leave of Rostóv in the club porch. + 

“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostóv asked. + 

Dólokhov paused. + 

“Well, you see, I’ll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words. If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostromá used to tell me. ‘Everyone fears a bear,’ he says, ‘but when you see one your fear’s all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!’ And that’s how it is with me. À demain, mon cher.” + 

Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the Sokólniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv already there. Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two considerations: his wife’s guilt, of which after his sleepless night he had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dólokhov, who had no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him.⁠ ⁠… “I should perhaps have done the same thing in his place,” thought Pierre. “It’s even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel, this murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee. Can’t I go away from here, run away, bury myself somewhere?” passed through his mind. But just at moments when such thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a particularly calm and absentminded way, which inspired the respect of the onlookers, “Will it be long? Are things ready?” + 

When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers, and the pistols loaded, Nesvítski went up to Pierre. + 

“I should not be doing my duty, Count,” he said in timid tones, “and should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.⁠ ⁠… You were not right, not quite in the right, you were impetuous⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Oh yes, it is horribly stupid,” said Pierre. + 

“Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will accept them,” said Nesvítski (who like the others concerned in the affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the affair had come to an actual duel). “You know, Count, it is much more honorable to admit one’s mistake than to let matters become irreparable. There was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey⁠ ⁠…” + 

“No! What is there to talk about?” said Pierre. “It’s all the same.⁠ ⁠… Is everything ready?” he added. “Only tell me where to go and where to shoot,” he said with an unnaturally gentle smile. + 

He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand⁠—a fact that he did not wish to confess. + 

“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he. + 

“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dólokhov to Denísov (who on his side had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the appointed place. + 

The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and Nesvítski’s and Dólokhov’s sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty paces’ distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been ready, but they still delayed and all were silent. + 

V + 

“Well, begin!” said Dólokhov. + 

“All right,” said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling of dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun could no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of men’s will. + 

Denísov first went to the barrier and announced: “As the adve’sawies have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols, and at the word thwee begin to advance. + 

“O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!” he shouted angrily and stepped aside. + 

The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dólokhov walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist’s face. His mouth wore its usual semblance of a smile. + 

“So I can fire when I like!” said Pierre, and at the word “three,” he went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into the deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm’s length, apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held carefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it and knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed off the track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly glanced at Dólokhov and, bending his finger as he had been shown, fired. Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered at the sound and then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The smoke, rendered denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything for an instant, but there was no second report as he had expected. He only heard Dólokhov’s hurried steps, and his figure came in view through the smoke. He was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other clutched his drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostóv ran toward him and said something. + 

“No-o-o!” muttered Dólokhov through his teeth, “no, it’s not over.” And after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he sank on the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat and supported himself with it. His frowning face was pallid and quivered. + 

“Plea⁠ ⁠…” began Dólokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word. + 

“Please,” he uttered with an effort. + 

Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dólokhov and was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dólokhov cried: + 

“To your barrier!” and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dólokhov lowered his head to the snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked and swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still smiling, glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his remaining strength. He raised his pistol and aimed. + 

“Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!” ejaculated Nesvítski. + 

“Cover yourself!” even Denísov cried to his adversary. + 

Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing Dólokhov and looked sorrowfully at him. Denísov, Rostóv, and Nesvítski closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and Dólokhov’s angry cry. + 

“Missed!” shouted Dólokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards on the snow. + 

Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest, trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words: + 

“Folly⁠ ⁠… folly! Death⁠ ⁠… lies⁠ ⁠…” he repeated, puckering his face. + 

Nesvítski stopped him and took him home. + 

Rostóv and Denísov drove away with the wounded Dólokhov. + 

The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostóv, who was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostóv was struck by the totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on Dólokhov’s face. + 

“Well? How do you feel?” he asked. + 

“Bad! But it’s not that, my friend⁠—” said Dólokhov with a gasping voice. “Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don’t matter, but I have killed her, killed⁠ ⁠… She won’t get over it! She won’t survive.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Who?” asked Rostóv. + 

“My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother,” and Dólokhov pressed Rostóv’s hand and burst into tears. + 

When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostóv that he was living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it. He implored Rostóv to go on and prepare her. + 

Rostóv went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise learned that Dólokhov the brawler, Dólokhov the bully, lived in Moscow with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate of sons and brothers. + 

VI + 

Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the duel he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his father’s room, that huge room in which Count Bezúkhov had died. + 

He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that had happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings, thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dólokhov’s handsome, insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when he reeled and sank on the snow. + 

“What has happened?” he asked himself. “I have killed her lover, yes, killed my wife’s lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come to do it?”⁠—“Because you married her,” answered an inner voice. + 

“But in what was I to blame?” he asked. “In marrying her without loving her; in deceiving yourself and her.” And he vividly recalled that moment after supper at Prince Vasíli’s, when he spoke those words he had found so difficult to utter: “I love you.” “It all comes from that! Even then I felt it,” he thought. “I felt then that it was not so, that I had no right to do it. And so it turns out.” + 

He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection. Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at his dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful understanding of his employer’s happiness. + 

“But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty and social tact,” thought he; “been proud of my house, in which she received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand her. How often when considering her character I have told myself that I was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires, and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved woman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become clear. + 

“Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: ‘Let him do what he pleases,’ she used to say of me. One day I asked her if she felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going to have any children by me.” + 

Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had been brought up in the most aristocratic circles. + 

“I’m not such a fool.⁠ ⁠… Just you try it on.⁠ ⁠… Allez-vous promener,” she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with young and old men and women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her. + 

“Yes, I never loved her,” said he to himself; “I knew she was a depraved woman,” he repeated, “but dared not admit it to myself. And now there’s Dólokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and perhaps dying, while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!” + 

Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what is called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He digested his sufferings alone. + 

“It is all, all her fault,” he said to himself; “but what of that? Why did I bind myself to her? Why did I say ‘Je vous aime’ to her, which was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure⁠ ⁠… what? A slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that’s nonsense,” he thought. “The slur on my name and honor⁠—that’s all apart from myself.” + 

“Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a criminal,” came into Pierre’s head, “and from their point of view they were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr’s death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot. Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive⁠—live: tomorrow you’ll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison with eternity?” + 

But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections, she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break and tear whatever came to his hand. “Why did I tell her that ‘Je vous aime’?” he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it for the tenth time, Molière’s words: “Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?” occurred to him, and he began to laugh at himself. + 

In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his intention to part from her forever. + 

Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand. + 

He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression, unable to realize where he was. + 

“The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at home,” said the valet. + 

But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was a wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet. She knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked at her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to go. + 

“Well, what’s this now? What have you been up to now, I should like to know?” she asked sternly. + 

“I? What have I⁠ ⁠… ?” stammered Pierre. + 

“So it seems you’re a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about? What is it meant to prove? What? I ask you.” + 

Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but could not reply. + 

“If you won’t answer, I’ll tell you⁠ ⁠…” Elèn went on. “You believe everything you’re told. You were told⁠ ⁠…” Elèn laughed, “that Dólokhov was my lover,” she said in French with her coarse plainness of speech, uttering the word amant as casually as any other word, “and you believed it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel prove? That you’re a fool, que vous êtes un sot, but everybody knew that. What will be the result? That I shall be the laughingstock of all Moscow, that everyone will say that you, drunk and not knowing what you were about, challenged a man you are jealous of without cause.” Elèn raised her voice and became more and more excited, “A man who’s a better man than you in every way⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Hm⁠ ⁠… Hm⁠ ⁠… !” growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and not moving a muscle. + 

“And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like his company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer yours.” + 

“Don’t speak to me⁠ ⁠… I beg you,” muttered Pierre hoarsely. + 

“Why shouldn’t I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you plainly that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who would not have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so,” said she. + 

Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible. + 

“We had better separate,” he muttered in a broken voice. + 

“Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune,” said Elèn. “Separate! That’s a thing to frighten me with!” + 

Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her. + 

“I’ll kill you!” he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table with a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her brandishing the slab. + 

Elèn’s face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His father’s nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down on her with outstretched hands shouted, “Get out!” in such a terrible voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he would have done at that moment had Elèn not fled from the room. + 

A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left for Petersburg alone. + 

VII + 

Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and the loss of Prince Andréy had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of his having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the place and that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among strangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual very briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians had had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The old prince understood from this official report that our army had been defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz came a letter from Kutúzov informing the prince of the fate that had befallen his son. + 

“Your son,” wrote Kutúzov, “fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand and at the head of a regiment⁠—he fell as a hero, worthy of his father and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole army it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list of whom has been sent me under flag of truce.” + 

After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone. + 

When Princess Márya went to him at the usual hour he was working at his lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her. + 

“Ah, Princess Márya!” he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own impetus, and Princess Márya long remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which merged in her memory with what followed.) + 

She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father’s face, not sad, not crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst in life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and incomprehensible⁠—the death of one she loved. + 

“Father! André!”⁠—said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father could not bear her look but turned away with a sob. + 

“Bad news! He’s not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutúzov writes⁠ ⁠…” and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the princess away by that scream⁠ ⁠… “Killed!” + 

The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy⁠—a supreme joy apart from the joys and sorrows of this world⁠—overflowed the great grief within her. She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck. + 

“Father,” she said, “do not turn away from me, let us weep together.” + 

“Scoundrels! Blackguards!” shrieked the old man, turning his face away from her. “Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go, go and tell Liza.” + 

The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took leave of her and of Liza, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. “Did he believe? Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms of eternal peace and blessedness?” she thought. + 

“Father, tell me how it happened,” she asked through her tears. + 

“Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia’s glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Márya. Go and tell Liza. I will follow.” + 

When Princess Márya returned from her father, the little princess sat working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see Princess Márya but were looking within⁠ ⁠… into herself⁠ ⁠… at something joyful and mysterious taking place within her. + 

“Marie,” she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back, “give me your hand.” She took her sister-in-law’s hand and held it below her waist. + 

Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained lifted in childlike happiness. + 

Princess Márya knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her sister-in-law’s dress. + 

“There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know, Márya, I am going to love him very much,” said Liza, looking with bright and happy eyes at her sister-in-law. + 

Princess Márya could not lift her head, she was weeping. + 

“What is the matter, Márya?” + 

“Nothing⁠ ⁠… only I feel sad⁠ ⁠… sad about Andréy,” she said, wiping away her tears on her sister-in-law’s knee. + 

Several times in the course of the morning Princess Márya began trying to prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at Princess Márya, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women, and suddenly began to cry. + 

“Has anything come from Andréy?” she asked. + 

“No, you know it’s too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I feel afraid.” + 

“So there’s nothing?” + 

“Nothing,” answered Princess Márya, looking firmly with her radiant eyes at her sister-in-law. + 

She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected within a few days. Princess Márya and the old prince each bore and hid their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope: he made up his mind that Prince Andréy had been killed, and though he sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Márya hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news of his return. + 

VIII + 

“Dearest,” said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and even every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so now the smile of the little princess⁠—influenced by the general mood though without knowing its cause⁠—was such as to remind one still more of the general sorrow. + 

“Dearest, I’m afraid this morning’s fruschtique⁠—as Fóka the cook calls it⁠—has disagreed with me.” + 

“What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are very pale!” said Princess Márya in alarm, running with her soft, ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law. + 

“Your excellency, should not Márya Bogdánovna be sent for?” said one of the maids who was present. (Márya Bogdánovna was a midwife from the neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.) + 

“Oh yes,” assented Princess Márya, “perhaps that’s it. I’ll go. Courage, my angel.” She kissed Liza and was about to leave the room. + 

“Oh, no, no!” And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on the little princess’ face, an expression of childish fear of inevitable pain showed itself. + 

“No, it’s only indigestion?⁠ ⁠… Say it’s only indigestion, say so, Marie! Say⁠ ⁠…” And the little princess began to cry capriciously like a suffering child and to wring her little hands even with some affectation. Princess Márya ran out of the room to fetch Márya Bogdánovna. + 

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!” she heard as she left the room. + 

The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump white hands with an air of calm importance. + 

“Márya Bogdánovna, I think it’s beginning!” said Princess Márya looking at the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm. + 

“Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess,” said Márya Bogdánovna, not hastening her steps. “You young ladies should not know anything about it.” + 

“But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?” said the princess. (In accordance with Liza’s and Prince Andréy’s wishes they had sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at any moment.) + 

“No matter, Princess, don’t be alarmed,” said Márya Bogdánovna. “We’ll manage very well without a doctor.” + 

Five minutes later Princess Márya from her room heard something heavy being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the large leather sofa from Prince Andréy’s study into the bedroom. On their faces was a quiet and solemn look. + 

Princess Márya sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old nurse, Praskóvya Sávishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the old prince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl round her head. + 

“I’ve come to sit with you a bit, Máshenka,” said the nurse, “and here I’ve brought the prince’s wedding candles to light before his saint, my angel,” she said with a sigh. + 

“Oh, nurse, I’m so glad!” + 

“God is merciful, birdie.” + 

The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door with her knitting. Princess Márya took a book and began reading. Only when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Márya experienced as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer the people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince’s household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished at that moment made itself felt. + 

There was no laughter in the maids’ large hall. In the men servants’ hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs’ quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old prince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent Tíkhon to ask Márya Bogdánovna what news.⁠—“Say only that ‘the prince told me to ask,’ and come and tell me her answer.” + 

“Inform the prince that labor has begun,” said Márya Bogdánovna, giving the messenger a significant look. + 

Tíkhon went and told the prince. + 

“Very good!” said the prince closing the door behind him, and Tíkhon did not hear the slightest sound from the study after that. + 

After a while he reentered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course. Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased. No one slept. + 

It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay of horses had been sent up the high road to meet the German doctor from Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its hollows and snow-covered pools of water. + 

Princess Márya had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her luminous eyes fixed on her nurse’s wrinkled face (every line of which she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin. + 

Nurse Sávishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Márya in Kishenëv with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a midwife. + 

“God is merciful, doctors are never needed,” she said. + 

Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft. Princess Márya shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose locks of gray hair. + 

“Princess, my dear, there’s someone driving up the avenue!” she said, holding the casement and not closing it. “With lanterns. Most likely the doctor.” + 

“Oh, my God! thank God!” said Princess Márya. “I must go and meet him, he does not know Russian.” + 

Princess Márya threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer. As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one could hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that seemed familiar to Princess Márya was saying something. + 

“Thank God!” said the voice. “And Father?” + 

“Gone to bed,” replied the voice of Demyán the house steward, who was downstairs. + 

Then the voice said something more, Demyán replied, and the steps in the felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly. + 

“It’s Andréy!” thought Princess Márya. “No it can’t be, that would be too extraordinary,” and at the very moment she thought this, the face and figure of Prince Andréy, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which covered with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and strangely softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the stairs and embraced his sister. + 

“You did not get my letter?” he asked, and not waiting for a reply⁠—which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to speak⁠—he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor who had entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post station), and again embraced his sister. + 

“What a strange fate, Másha darling!” And having taken off his cloak and felt boots, he went to the little princess’ apartment. + 

IX + 

The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andréy entered and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying. Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested on him without changing their expression. “I love you all and have done no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!” her look seemed to say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance of his appearance before her now. Prince Andréy went round the sofa and kissed her forehead. + 

“My darling!” he said⁠—a word he had never used to her before. “God is merciful.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach. + 

“I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!” said her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not realize that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her sufferings or with their relief. The pangs began again and Márya Bogdánovna advised Prince Andréy to leave the room. + 

The doctor entered. Prince Andréy went out and, meeting Princess Márya, again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke off at every moment. They waited and listened. + 

“Go, dear,” said Princess Márya. + 

Prince Andréy went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next to hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became confused when she saw Prince Andréy. He covered his face with his hands and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came through the door. Prince Andréy got up, went to the door, and tried to open it. Someone was holding it shut. + 

“You can’t come in! You can’t!” said a terrified voice from within. + 

He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek⁠—it could not be hers, she could not scream like that⁠—came from the bedroom. Prince Andréy ran to the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant. + 

“What have they taken a baby in there for?” thought Prince Andréy in the first second. “A baby? What baby⁠ ⁠… ? Why is there a baby there? Or is the baby born?” + 

Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill he began to cry, sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out of the room. Prince Andréy turned to him, but the doctor gave him a bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and seeing Prince Andréy stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into his wife’s room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with its upper lip covered with tiny black hair. + 

“I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done to me?”⁠—said her charming, pathetic, dead face. + 

In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed in Márya Bogdánovna’s trembling white hands. + 

Two hours later Prince Andréy, stepping softly, went into his father’s room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to the door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise round his son’s neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child. + 

Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andréy went up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss. And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. “Ah, what have you done to me?” it still seemed to say, and Prince Andréy felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The old man too came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly crossed one on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed to say: “Ah, what have you done to me, and why?” And at the sight the old man turned angrily away. + 

Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nikoláy Andréevich was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy’s little red and wrinkled soles and palms. + 

His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over to the godmother, Princess Márya. Prince Andréy sat in another room, faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that the wax with the baby’s hair had not sunk in the font but had floated. + 

X + 

Rostóv’s share in Dólokhov’s duel with Bezúkhov was hushed up by the efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks as he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dólokhov recovered, and Rostóv became very friendly with him during his convalescence. Dólokhov lay ill at his mother’s who loved him passionately and tenderly, and old Márya Ivánovna, who had grown fond of Rostóv for his friendship to her Fédya, often talked to him about her son. + 

“Yes, Count,” she would say, “he is too noble and pure-souled for our present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like a reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it honorable, of Bezúkhov? And Fédya, with his noble spirit, loved him and even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg when they played some tricks on a policeman, didn’t they do it together? And there! Bezúkhov got off scotfree, while Fédya had to bear the whole burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through! It’s true he has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that? I think there were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out there as he. And now⁠—this duel! Have these people no feeling, or honor? Knowing him to be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so straight! It’s well God had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who doesn’t have intrigues nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see things he should have shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months. And then to call him out, reckoning on Fédya not fighting because he owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you understand Fédya, my dear count; that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few people do understand him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!” + 

Dólokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostóv in a way no one would have expected of him. + 

“I know people consider me a bad man!” he said. “Let them! I don’t care a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love, I love so that I would give my life for them, and the others I’d throttle if they stood in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother, and two or three friends⁠—you among them⁠—and as for the rest I only care about them in so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of them are harmful, especially the women. Yes, dear boy,” he continued, “I have met loving, noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met any women⁠—countesses or cooks⁠—who were not venal. I have not yet met that divine purity and devotion I look for in women. If I found such a one I’d give my life for her! But those!⁠ ⁠…” and he made a gesture of contempt. “And believe me, if I still value my life it is only because I still hope to meet such a divine creature, who will regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you don’t understand it.” + 

“Oh, yes, I quite understand,” answered Rostóv, who was under his new friend’s influence. + 

In the autumn the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter Denísov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the winter of 1806, which Nikoláy Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nikoláy brought many young men to his parents’ house. Véra was a handsome girl of twenty; Sónya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower; Natásha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now girlishly enchanting. + 

At that time in the Rostóvs’ house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming girls. Every young man who came to the house⁠—seeing those impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of young girls ready for anything and full of hope⁠—experienced the same feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs’ household a readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness. + 

Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was Dólokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha. She almost quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad man, and that in the duel with Bezúkhov, Pierre was right and Dólokhov wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and unnatural. + 

“There’s nothing for me to understand,” she cried out with resolute self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denísov though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do understand. I don’t know how to put it⁠ ⁠… with this one everything is calculated, and I don’t like that. But Denísov⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Oh, Denísov is quite different,” replied Nikoláy, implying that even Denísov was nothing compared to Dólokhov⁠—“you must understand what a soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a heart!” + 

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?” + 

“What nonsense⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.” + 

Natásha’s prediction proved true. Dólokhov, who did not usually care for the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon settled. He came because of Sónya. And Sónya, though she would never have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov appeared. + 

Dólokhov often dined at the Rostóvs’, never missed a performance at which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people which the Rostóvs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sónya and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natásha blushed when they saw his looks. + 

It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another. + 

Rostóv noticed something new in Dólokhov’s relations with Sónya, but he did not explain to himself what these new relations were. “They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sónya and Natásha. But he was not as much at ease with Sónya and Dólokhov as before and was less frequently at home. + 

In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army, and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war was talked of. For the Rostóv family the whole interest of these preparations for war lay in the fact that Nikolúshka would not hear of remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denísov’s furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away from home, at dinners, parties, and balls. + 

XI + 

On the third day after Christmas Nikoláy dined at home, a thing he had rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denísov were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people were present, including Dólokhov and Denísov. + 

Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostóvs’ house as at this holiday time. “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here,” said the spirit of the place. + 

Nikoláy, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited, returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sónya, Dólokhov, and the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree Natásha. Nikoláy understood that something must have happened between Sónya and Dólokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness natural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On that same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays. + 

“Nikólenka, will you come to Iogel’s? Please do!” said Natásha. “He asked you, and Vasíli Dmítrich is also going.” + 

“Where would I not go at the countess’ command!” said Denísov, who at the Rostóvs’ had jocularly assumed the role of Natásha’s knight. “I’m even weady to dance the pas de châle.” + 

“If I have time,” answered Nikoláy. “But I promised the Arkhárovs; they have a party.” + 

“And you?” he asked Dólokhov, but as soon as he had asked the question he noticed that it should not have been put. + 

“Perhaps,” coldly and angrily replied Dólokhov, glancing at Sónya, and, scowling, he gave Nikoláy just such a look as he had given Pierre at the club dinner. + 

“There is something up,” thought Nikoláy, and he was further confirmed in this conclusion by the fact that Dólokhov left immediately after dinner. He called Natásha and asked her what was the matter. + 

“And I was looking for you,” said Natásha running out to him. “I told you, but you would not believe it,” she said triumphantly. “He has proposed to Sónya!” + 

Little as Nikoláy had occupied himself with Sónya of late, something seemed to give way within him at this news. Dólokhov was a suitable and in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From the point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nikoláy’s first feeling on hearing the news was one of anger with Sónya.⁠ ⁠… He tried to say, “That’s capital; of course she’ll forget her childish promises and accept the offer,” but before he had time to say it Natásha began again. + 

“And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!” adding, after a pause, “she told him she loved another.” + 

“Yes, my Sónya could not have done otherwise!” thought Nikoláy. + 

“Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won’t change once she has said⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And Mamma pressed her!” said Nikoláy reproachfully. + 

“Yes,” said Natásha. “Do you know, Nikólenka⁠—don’t be angry⁠—but I know you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know for certain that you won’t marry her.” + 

“Now you don’t know that at all!” said Nikoláy. “But I must talk to her. What a darling Sónya is!” he added with a smile. + 

“Ah, she is indeed a darling! I’ll send her to you.” + 

And Natásha kissed her brother and ran away. + 

A minute later Sónya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared look. Nikoláy went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time since his return that they had talked alone and about their love. + 

“Sophie,” he began, timidly at first and then more and more boldly, “if you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and advantageous match but a splendid, noble fellow⁠ ⁠… he is my friend⁠ ⁠…” + 

Sónya interrupted him. + 

“I have already refused,” she said hurriedly. + 

“If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I⁠ ⁠…” + 

Sónya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look. + 

“Nicolas, don’t tell me that!” she said. + 

“No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say it. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“That is enough for me,” said Sónya, blushing. + 

“No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship, confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does not wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider Dólokhov’s offer,” he said, articulating his friend’s name with difficulty. + 

“Don’t say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and always shall, and I want nothing more.” + 

“You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of misleading you.” + 

And Nikoláy again kissed her hand. + 

XII + 

Iogel’s were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers as they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps, and so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they were ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who came to these balls with an air of condescension and found them most enjoyable. That year two marriages had come of these balls. The two pretty young Princesses Gorchakóv met suitors there and were married and so further increased the fame of these dances. What distinguished them from others was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of the good-natured Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according to the rules of his art, as he collected the tickets from all his visitors. There was the fact that only those came who wished to dance and amuse themselves as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for the first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all were, or seemed to be, pretty⁠—so rapturous were their smiles and so sparkling their eyes. Sometimes the best of the pupils, of whom Natásha, who was exceptionally graceful, was first, even danced the pas de châle, but at this last ball only the écossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just coming into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ballroom in Bezúkhov’s house, and the ball, as everyone said, was a great success. There were many pretty girls and the Rostóv girls were among the prettiest. They were both particularly happy and gay. That evening, proud of Dólokhov’s proposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nikoláy, Sónya twirled about before she left home so that the maid could hardly get her hair plaited, and she was transparently radiant with impulsive joy. + 

Natásha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink ribbons. + 

Natásha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She was not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment. + 

“Oh, how delightful it is!” she kept saying, running up to Sónya. + 

Nikoláy and Denísov were walking up and down, looking with kindly patronage at the dancers. + 

“How sweet she is⁠—she will be a weal beauty!” said Denísov. + 

“Who?” + 

“Countess Natásha,” answered Denísov. + 

“And how she dances! What gwace!” he said again after a pause. + 

“Who are you talking about?” + 

“About your sister,” ejaculated Denísov testily. + 

Rostóv smiled. + 

“My dear count, you were one of my best pupils⁠—you must dance,” said little Iogel coming up to Nikoláy. “Look how many charming young ladies⁠—” He turned with the same request to Denísov who was also a former pupil of his. + 

“No, my dear fellow, I’ll be a wallflower,” said Denísov. “Don’t you wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?” + 

“Oh no!” said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. “You were only inattentive, but you had talent⁠—oh yes, you had talent!” + 

The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nikoláy could not refuse Iogel and asked Sónya to dance. Denísov sat down by the old ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told them something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young people dancing, Iogel with Natásha, his pride and his best pupil, were the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little feet in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natásha, who, though shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denísov did not take his eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly indicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not because he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostóv who was passing: + 

“This is not at all the thing,” he said. “What sort of Polish mazuwka is this? But she does dance splendidly.” + 

Knowing that Denísov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly way in which he danced the mazurka, Nikoláy ran up to Natásha: + 

“Go and choose Denísov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!” he said. + 

When it came to Natásha’s turn to choose a partner, she rose and, tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran timidly to the corner where Denísov sat. She saw that everybody was looking at her and waiting. Nikoláy saw that Denísov was refusing though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them. + 

“Please, Vasíli Dmítrich,” Natásha was saying, “do come!” + 

“Oh no, let me off, Countess,” Denísov replied. + 

“Now then, Váska,” said Nikoláy. + 

“They coax me as if I were Váska the cat!” said Denísov jokingly. + 

“I’ll sing for you a whole evening,” said Natásha. + 

“Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!” said Denísov, and he unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his partner’s hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot, waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was Denísov’s short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow he felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways at his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with one foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room taking his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across the room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at them, when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs, he stopped short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot clanking his spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel against his right, flew round again in a circle. Natásha guessed what he meant to do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly knowing how. First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now with his right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him, and again jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if he would rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath, and then he suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected steps. When at last, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her chair, he drew up with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natásha did not even make him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement, smiling as if she did not recognize him. + 

“What does this mean?” she brought out. + 

Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone was delighted with Denísov’s skill, he was asked again and again as a partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the good old days. Denísov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself with his handkerchief, sat down by Natásha and did not leave her for the rest of the evening. + 

XIII + 

For two days after that Rostóv did not see Dólokhov at his own or at Dólokhov’s home: on the third day he received a note from him: + 

As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know of, and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper tonight to my friends⁠—come to the English Hotel. + 

About ten o’clock Rostóv went to the English Hotel straight from the theater, where he had been with his family and Denísov. He was at once shown to the best room, which Dólokhov had taken for that evening. Some twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dólokhov sat between two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he was keeping the bank. Rostóv had not seen him since his proposal and Sónya’s refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they would meet. + 

Dólokhov’s clear, cold glance met Rostóv as soon as he entered the door, as though he had long expected him. + 

“It’s a long time since we met,” he said. “Thanks for coming. I’ll just finish dealing, and then Ilyúshka will come with his chorus.” + 

“I called once or twice at your house,” said Rostóv, reddening. + 

Dólokhov made no reply. + 

“You may punt,” he said. + 

Rostóv recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had with Dólokhov. “None but fools trust to luck in play,” Dólokhov had then said. + 

“Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dólokhov now asked as if guessing Rostóv’s thought. + 

Beneath his smile Rostóv saw in him the mood he had shown at the club dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action. + 

Rostóv felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with which to reply to Dólokhov’s words. But before he had thought of anything, Dólokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and deliberately so that everyone could hear: + 

“Do you remember we had a talk about cards⁠ ⁠… ‘He’s a fool who trusts to luck, one should make certain,’ and I want to try.” + 

“To try his luck or the certainty?” Rostóv asked himself. + 

“Well, you’d better not play,” Dólokhov added, and springing a new pack of cards said: “Bank, gentlemen!” + 

Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostóv sat down by his side and at first did not play. Dólokhov kept glancing at him. + 

“Why don’t you play?” he asked. + 

And strange to say Nikoláy felt that he could not help taking up a card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play. + 

“I have no money with me,” he said. + 

“I’ll trust you.” + 

Rostóv staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again lost. Dólokhov “killed,” that is, beat, ten cards of Rostóv’s running. + 

“Gentlemen,” said Dólokhov after he had dealt for some time. “Please place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the reckoning.” + 

One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted. + 

“Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I ask you to put the money on your cards,” replied Dólokhov. “Don’t stint yourself, we’ll settle afterwards,” he added, turning to Rostóv. + 

The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne. + 

All Rostóv’s cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored up against him. He wrote “800 rubles” on a card, but while the waiter filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual stake of twenty rubles. + 

“Leave it,” said Dólokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking at Rostóv, “you’ll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the others but win from you. Or are you afraid of me?” he asked again. + 

Rostóv submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts, on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written “800 rubles” in clear upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed him, smiled at Dólokhov’s words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dólokhov’s hands which held the pack. Much depended on Rostóv’s winning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the previous Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and though he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told Nikoláy that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him to be more economical this time. Nikoláy had replied that it would be more than enough for him and that he gave his word of honor not to take anything more till the spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left of that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his word. With a sinking heart he watched Dólokhov’s hands and thought, “Now then, make haste and let me have this card and I’ll take my cap and drive home to supper with Denísov, Natásha, and Sónya, and will certainly never touch a card again.” At that moment his home life, jokes with Pétya, talks with Sónya, duets with Natásha, piquet with his father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskáya rose before him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as if it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not conceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right rather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly appreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of unknown and undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a sinking heart the movement of Dólokhov’s hands. Those broad, reddish hands, with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down the pack and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him. + 

“So you are not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dólokhov, and as if about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his chair, and began deliberately with a smile: + 

“Yes, gentlemen, I’ve been told there’s a rumor going about Moscow that I’m a sharper, so I advise you to be careful.” + 

“Come now, deal!” exclaimed Rostóv. + 

“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dólokhov, and he took up the cards with a smile. + 

“Aah!” Rostóv almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The seven he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost more than he could pay. + 

“Still, don’t ruin yourself!” said Dólokhov with a side glance at Rostóv as he continued to deal. + 

XIV + 

An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested in their own play. + 

The whole interest was concentrated on Rostóv. Instead of sixteen hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him, which he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dólokhov was no longer listening to stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostóv’s hands and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had decided to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on that number because forty-three was the sum of his and Sónya’s joint ages. Rostóv, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the table which was scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and littered with cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that those broad-boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power. + 

“Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine⁠ ⁠… winning it back’s impossible⁠ ⁠… Oh, how pleasant it was at home!⁠ ⁠… The knave, double or quits⁠ ⁠… it can’t be!⁠ ⁠… And why is he doing this to me?” Rostóv pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dólokhov refused to accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nikoláy submitted to him, and at one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other players, or peered at the now cold face of Dólokhov and tried to read what was passing in his mind. + 

“He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can’t want my ruin. Wasn’t he my friend? Wasn’t I fond of him? But it’s not his fault. What’s he to do if he has such luck?⁠ ⁠… And it’s not my fault either,” he thought to himself, “I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone, or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune? And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma’s name day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted! And I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did this new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the change? I sat all the time in this same place at this table, chose and placed cards, and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same way. When did it happen and what has happened? I am well and strong and still the same and in the same place. No, it can’t be! Surely it will all end in nothing!” + 

He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot. His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless efforts to seem calm. + 

The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand. Rostóv had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dólokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding up the total of Rostóv’s debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the figures in his clear, bold hand. + 

“Supper, it’s time for supper! And here are the gypsies!” + 

Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nikoláy understood that it was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone: + 

“Well, won’t you go on? I had a splendid card all ready,” as if it were the fun of the game which interested him most. + 

“It’s all up! I’m lost!” thought he. “Now a bullet through my brain⁠—that’s all that’s left me!” And at the same time he said in a cheerful voice: + 

“Come now, just this one more little card!” + 

“All right!” said Dólokhov, having finished the addition. “All right! Twenty-one rubles,” he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by which the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and taking up a pack he prepared to deal. Rostóv submissively unbent the corner of his card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote twenty-one. + 

“It’s all the same to me,” he said. “I only want to see whether you will let me win this ten, or beat it.” + 

Dólokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostóv detested at that moment those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists, which held him in their power.⁠ ⁠… The ten fell to him. + 

“You owe forty-three thousand, Count,” said Dólokhov, and stretching himself he rose from the table. “One does get tired sitting so long,” he added. + 

“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostóv. + 

Dólokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to jest. + 

“When am I to receive the money, Count?” + 

Rostóv, flushing, drew Dólokhov into the next room. + 

“I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he said. + 

“I say, Rostóv,” said Dólokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nikoláy straight in the eyes, “you know the saying, ‘Lucky in love, unlucky at cards.’ Your cousin is in love with you, I know.” + 

“Oh, it’s terrible to feel oneself so in this man’s power,” thought Rostóv. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it all, and felt that Dólokhov knew that he could save him from all this shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a mouse. + 

“Your cousin⁠ ⁠…” Dólokhov started to say, but Nikoláy interrupted him. + 

“My cousin has nothing to do with this and it’s not necessary to mention her!” he exclaimed fiercely. + 

“Then when am I to have it?” + 

“Tomorrow,” replied Rostóv and left the room. + 

XV + 

To say “tomorrow” and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult, but to go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father, confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor, was terrible. + 

At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord. As soon as Nikoláy entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere of love which pervaded the Rostóv household that winter and, now after Dólokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to have grown thicker round Sónya and Natásha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sónya and Natásha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater, looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and smiling. Véra was playing chess with Shinshín in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denísov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called “Enchantress,” which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit music: + 

Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre + 

What magic power is this recalls me still? + 

What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, + 

What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill? + 

He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black-agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natásha. + 

“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natásha. “Another verse,” she said, without noticing Nikoláy. + 

“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nikoláy, glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Véra and his mother with the old lady. + 

“Ah, and here’s Nikólenka!” cried Natásha, running up to him. + 

“Is Papa at home?” he asked. + 

“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natásha, without answering him. “We are enjoying ourselves! Vasíli Dmítrich is staying a day longer for my sake! Did you know?” + 

“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Sónya. + 

“Nikoláy, have you come? Come here, dear!” called the old countess from the drawing room. + 

Nikoláy went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade Natásha to sing. + 

“All wight! All wight!” shouted Denísov. “It’s no good making excuses now! It’s your turn to sing the ba’cawolla⁠—I entweat you!” + 

The countess glanced at her silent son. + 

“What is the matter?” she asked. + 

“Oh, nothing,” said he, as if weary of being continually asked the same question. “Will Papa be back soon?” + 

“I expect so.” + 

“Everything’s the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where am I to go?” thought Nikoláy, and went again into the dancing room where the clavichord stood. + 

Sónya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denísov’s favorite barcarolle. Natásha was preparing to sing. Denísov was looking at her with enraptured eyes. + 

Nikoláy began pacing up and down the room. + 

“Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There’s nothing to be happy about!” thought he. + 

Sónya struck the first chord of the prelude. + 

“My God, I’m a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is the only thing left me⁠—not singing!” his thoughts ran on. “Go away? But where to? It’s one⁠—let them sing!” + 

He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denísov and the girls and avoiding their eyes. + 

“Nikólenka, what is the matter?” Sónya’s eyes fixed on him seemed to ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him. + 

Nikoláy turned away from her. Natásha too, with her quick instinct, had instantly noticed her brother’s condition. But, though she noticed it, she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow, sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young people often do. “No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by sympathy with anyone’s sorrow,” she felt, and she said to herself: “No, I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am.” + 

“Now, Sónya!” she said, going to the very middle of the room, where she considered the resonance was best. + 

Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet dancers do, Natásha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes, stepped to the middle of the room and stood still. + 

“Yes, that’s me!” she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with which Denísov followed her. + 

“And what is she so pleased about?” thought Nikoláy, looking at his sister. “Why isn’t she dull and ashamed?” + 

Natásha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, her eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill you and make you weep. + 

Natásha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously, mainly because Denísov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish, painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: “It is not trained, but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained.” Only they generally said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in it and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling it. + 

“What is this?” thought Nikoláy, listening to her with widely opened eyes. “What has happened to her? How she is singing today!” And suddenly the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into three beats: “Oh mio crudele affetto.”⁠ ⁠… One, two, three⁠ ⁠… one, two, three⁠ ⁠… One⁠ ⁠… “Oh mio crudele affetto.”⁠ ⁠… One, two, three⁠ ⁠… One. “Oh, this senseless life of ours!” thought Nikoláy. “All this misery, and money, and Dólokhov, and anger, and honor⁠—it’s all nonsense⁠ ⁠… but this is real.⁠ ⁠… Now then, Natásha, now then, dearest! Now then, darling! How will she take that si? She’s taken it! Thank God!” And without noticing that he was singing, to strengthen the si he sung a second, a third below the high note. “Ah, God! How fine! Did I really take it? How fortunate!” he thought. + 

Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest in Rostóv’s soul! And this something was apart from everything else in the world and above everything in the world. “What were losses, and Dólokhov, and words of honor?⁠ ⁠… All nonsense! One might kill and rob and yet be happy.⁠ ⁠…” + 

XVI + 

It was long since Rostóv had felt such enjoyment from music as he did that day. But no sooner had Natásha finished her barcarolle than reality again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count came in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nikoláy, hearing him drive up, went to meet him. + 

“Well⁠—had a good time?” said the old count, smiling gaily and proudly at his son. + 

Nikoláy tried to say “Yes,” but could not: and he nearly burst into sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son’s condition. + 

“Ah, it can’t be avoided!” thought Nikoláy, for the first and last time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel ashamed of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him have the carriage to drive to town: + 

“Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I need some money.” + 

“Dear me!” said his father, who was in a specially good humor. “I told you it would not be enough. How much?” + 

“Very much,” said Nikoláy flushing, and with a stupid careless smile, for which he was long unable to forgive himself, “I have lost a little, I mean a good deal, a great deal⁠—forty three thousand.” + 

“What! To whom?⁠ ⁠… Nonsense!” cried the count, suddenly reddening with an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do. + 

“I promised to pay tomorrow,” said Nikoláy. + 

“Well!⁠ ⁠…” said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking helplessly on the sofa. + 

“It can’t be helped! It happens to everyone!” said the son, with a bold, free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He longed to kiss his father’s hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but said, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone! + 

The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son’s words and began bustlingly searching for something. + 

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to raise⁠ ⁠… happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?” + 

And with a furtive glance at his son’s face, the count went out of the room.⁠ ⁠… Nikoláy had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all expected this. + 

“Papa! Papa!” he called after him, sobbing, “forgive me!” And seizing his father’s hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into tears. + 

While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and daughter were having one not less important. Natásha came running to her mother, quite excited. + 

“Mamma!⁠ ⁠… Mamma!⁠ ⁠… He has made me⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Made what?” + 

“Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!” she exclaimed. + 

The countess did not believe her ears. Denísov had proposed. To whom? To this chit of a girl, Natásha, who not so long ago was playing with dolls and who was still having lessons. + 

“Don’t, Natásha! What nonsense!” she said, hoping it was a joke. + 

“Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact,” said Natásha indignantly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you call it ‘nonsense!’ ” + 

The countess shrugged her shoulders. + 

“If it is true that Monsieur Denísov has made you a proposal, tell him he is a fool, that’s all!” + 

“No, he’s not a fool!” replied Natásha indignantly and seriously. + 

“Well then, what do you want? You’re all in love nowadays. Well, if you are in love, marry him!” said the countess, with a laugh of annoyance. “Good luck to you!” + 

“No, Mamma, I’m not in love with him, I suppose I’m not in love with him.” + 

“Well then, tell him so.” + 

“Mamma, are you cross? Don’t be cross, dear! Is it my fault?” + 

“No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?” said the countess smiling. + 

“No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It’s all very well for you,” said Natásha, with a responsive smile. “You should have seen how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came out accidently.” + 

“Well, all the same, you must refuse him.” + 

“No, I mustn’t. I am so sorry for him! He’s so nice.” + 

“Well then, accept his offer. It’s high time for you to be married,” answered the countess sharply and sarcastically. + 

“No, Mamma, but I’m so sorry for him. I don’t know how I’m to say it.” + 

“And there’s nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself,” said the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little Natásha as grown up. + 

“No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you’ll listen at the door,” and Natásha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall, where Denísov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his face in his hands. + 

He jumped up at the sound of her light step. + 

“Natáli,” he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, “decide my fate. It is in your hands.” + 

“Vasíli Dmítrich, I’m so sorry for you!⁠ ⁠… No, but you are so nice⁠ ⁠… but it won’t do⁠ ⁠… not that⁠ ⁠… but as a friend, I shall always love you.” + 

Denísov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they heard the quick rustle of the countess’ dress. She came up to them. + 

“Vasíli Dmítrich, I thank you for the honor,” she said, with an embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denísov⁠—“but my daughter is so young, and I thought that, as my son’s friend, you would have addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not have obliged me to give this refusal.” + 

“Countess⁠ ⁠…” said Denísov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He tried to say more, but faltered. + 

Natásha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began to sob aloud. + 

“Countess, I have done w’ong,” Denísov went on in an unsteady voice, “but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family that I would give my life twice over⁠ ⁠…” He looked at the countess, and seeing her severe face said: “Well, goodbye, Countess,” and kissing her hand, he left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking at Natásha. + 

Next day Rostóv saw Denísov off. He did not wish to stay another day in Moscow. All Denísov’s Moscow friends gave him a farewell entertainment at the gypsies’, with the result that he had no recollection of how he was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his journey. + 

After Denísov’s departure, Rostóv spent another fortnight in Moscow, without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls’ room. + 

Sónya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her love him all the more, but Nikoláy now considered himself unworthy of her. + 

He filled the girls’ albums with verses and music, and having at last sent Dólokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland. + 

Part + 

II + 

1806⁠–⁠07 + 

I + 

After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the Torzhók post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing, he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big feet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect. + 

“Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and tea?” asked his valet. + 

Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same question⁠—one so important that he took no notice of what went on around him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station, but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a matter of indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for the rest of his life. + 

The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling Torzhók embroidery came into the room offering their services. Without changing his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his spectacles unable to understand what they wanted or how they could go on living without having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had been engrossed by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from Sokólniki after the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless night. But now, in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with special force. No matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It was as if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning uselessly in the same place. + 

The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted to get more money from the traveler. + 

“Is this good or bad?” Pierre asked himself. “It is good for me, bad for another traveler, and for himself it’s unavoidable, because he needs money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing for letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as possible. And I,” continued Pierre, “shot Dólokhov because I considered myself injured, and Louis XVI was executed because they considered him a criminal, and a year later they executed those who executed him⁠—also for some reason. What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power governs all?” + 

There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that not a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was: “You’ll die and all will end. You’ll die and know all, or cease asking.” But dying was also dreadful. + 

The Torzhók peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. “I have hundreds of rubles I don’t know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered cloak looking timidly at me,” he thought. “And what does she want the money for? As if that money could add a hair’s breadth to happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less a prey to evil and death?⁠—death which ends all and must come today or tomorrow⁠—at any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity.” And again he twisted the screw with the stripped thread, and again it turned uselessly in the same place. + 

His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. “And why did she resist her seducer when she loved him?” he thought. “God could not have put into her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife⁠—as she once was⁠—did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been found out, nothing discovered,” Pierre again said to himself. “All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.” + 

Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction. + 

“I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this gentleman,” said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another traveler, also detained for lack of horses. + 

The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old man, with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite grayish color. + 

Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who, with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezúkhov. The stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a death’s head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache, evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown. This active old servant was unpacking the traveler’s canteen and preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the need, even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this stranger. + 

The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, with an unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be wanted. + 

“No. Give me the book,” said the stranger. + 

The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work, and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again, leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time to turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and severe gaze straight on Pierre’s face. + 

Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old eyes attracted him irresistibly. + 

II + 

“I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, if I am not mistaken,” said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice. + 

Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles. + 

“I have heard of you, my dear sir,” continued the stranger, “and of your misfortune.” He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say⁠—“Yes, misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune.”⁠—“I regret it very much, my dear sir.” + 

Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile. + 

“I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for greater reasons.” + 

He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him. + 

“You are unhappy, my dear sir,” the stranger continued. “You are young and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my power.” + 

“Oh, yes!” said Pierre, with a forced smile. “I am very grateful to you. Where are you traveling from?” + 

The stranger’s face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but in spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were irresistibly attractive to Pierre. + 

“But if for any reason you don’t feel inclined to talk to me,” said the old man, “say so, my dear sir.” And he suddenly smiled, in an unexpected and tenderly paternal way. + 

“Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your acquaintance,” said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger’s hands, he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull⁠—a Masonic sign. + 

“Allow me to ask,” he said, “are you a Mason?” + 

“Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons,” said the stranger, looking deeper and deeper into Pierre’s eyes. “And in their name and my own I hold out a brotherly hand to you.” + 

“I am afraid,” said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of ridiculing the Masonic beliefs⁠—“I am afraid I am very far from understanding⁠—how am I to put it?⁠—I am afraid my way of looking at the world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another.” + 

“I know your outlook,” said the Mason, “and the view of life you mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts, is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a regrettable delusion.” + 

“Just as I may suppose you to be deluded,” said Pierre, with a faint smile. + 

“I should never dare to say that I know the truth,” said the Mason, whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness. “No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God,” he added, and closed his eyes. + 

“I ought to tell you that I do not believe⁠ ⁠… do not believe in God,” said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it essential to speak the whole truth. + 

The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy. + 

“Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir,” said the Mason. “You cannot know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy.” + 

“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” assented Pierre. “But what am I to do?” + 

“You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do not know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in thee, and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!” pronounced the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice. + 

He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself. + 

“If He were not,” he said quietly, “you and I would not be speaking of Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom hast thou denied?” he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and authority in his voice. “Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came thy conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being? didst thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and infinite in all His attributes?⁠ ⁠…” + 

He stopped and remained silent for a long time. + 

Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence. + 

“He exists, but to understand Him is hard,” the Mason began again, looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves of his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep still. “If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could bring him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But how can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity, and all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may not see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness and sinfulness?” He paused again. “Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words,” he went on, with a somber and scornful smile. “And thou art more foolish and unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand its use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is hard.⁠ ⁠… For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but in our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His greatness.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason’s face with shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise reasoning contained in the Mason’s words, or believed as a child believes, in the speaker’s tone of conviction and earnestness, or the tremor of the speaker’s voice⁠—which sometimes almost broke⁠—or those brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm firmness and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole being (and which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own dejection and hopelessness)⁠—at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole soul to believe and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort, regeneration, and return to life. + 

“He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life,” said the Mason. + 

“I do not understand,” said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in the Mason’s arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him. “I don’t understand,” he said, “how it is that the mind of man cannot attain the knowledge of which you speak.” + 

The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile. + 

“The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish to imbibe,” he said. “Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive.” + 

“Yes, yes, that is so,” said Pierre joyfully. + 

“The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom has but one science⁠—the science of the whole⁠—the science explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it. To receive that science it is necessary to purify and renew one’s inner self, and so before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to perfect one’s self. And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that God has implanted in our souls.” + 

“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre. + 

“Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?” + 

“No, I hate my life,” Pierre muttered, wincing. + 

“Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands of slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my dear sir⁠—took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not know God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear sir!” + 

After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, “Yes, a vile, idle, vicious life!” but dared not break the silence. + 

The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his servant. + 

“How about the horses?” he asked, without looking at Pierre. + 

“The exchange horses have just come,” answered the servant. “Will you not rest here?” + 

“No, tell them to harness.” + 

“Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me all, and without promising to help me?” thought Pierre, rising with downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at the Mason. “Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to,” thought Pierre. “But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to, could disclose it to me.” + 

Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezúkhov, and said in a tone of indifferent politeness: + 

“Where are you going to now, my dear sir?” + 

“I?⁠ ⁠… I’m going to Petersburg,” answered Pierre, in a childlike, hesitating voice. “I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do not suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.⁠ ⁠… But it is I, above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and perhaps I may⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away. + 

The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering. + 

“Help comes from God alone,” he said, “but such measure of help as our Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski” (he took out his notebook and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four). “Allow me to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of all devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume your former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey, my dear sir,” he added, seeing that his servant had entered⁠ ⁠… “and success.” + 

The traveler was Osip Alexéevich Bazdéev, as Pierre saw from the postmaster’s book. Bazdéev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and Martinists, even in Novíkov’s time. For a long while after he had gone, Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down the room, pondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning anew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had been vicious only because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to be virtuous. Not a trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of men united in the aim of supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how Freemasonry presented itself to him. + 

III + 

On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival, he went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas à Kempis, whose book had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually realized as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him, of believing in the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the possibility of active brotherly love among men, which Osip Alexéevich had revealed to him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski, whom Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came into his room one evening in the official and ceremonious manner in which Dólokhov’s second had called on him, and, having closed the door behind him and satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the room, addressed Pierre. + 

“I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count,” he said without sitting down. “A person of very high standing in our Brotherhood has made application for you to be received into our Order before the usual term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I consider it a sacred duty to fulfill that person’s wishes. Do you wish to enter the Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?” + 

The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women, surprised Pierre. + 

“Yes, I do wish it,” said he. + 

Willarski bowed his head. + 

“One more question, Count,” he said, “which I beg you to answer in all sincerity⁠—not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you renounced your former convictions⁠—do you believe in God?” + 

Pierre considered. + 

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes, I believe in God,” he said. + 

“In that case⁠ ⁠…” began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him. + 

“Yes, I do believe in God,” he repeated. + 

“In that case we can go,” said Willarski. “My carriage is at your service.” + 

Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre’s inquiries as to what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to tell the truth. + 

Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of a servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound Pierre’s eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some hairs painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile. His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps. + 

Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped. + 

“Whatever happens to you,” he said, “you must bear it all manfully if you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood.” (Pierre nodded affirmatively.) “When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover your eyes,” added Willarski. “I wish you courage and success,” and, pressing Pierre’s hand, he went out. + 

Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if wishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Osip Alexéevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness, only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book. The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words of the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God,” Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled with something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel⁠—it seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying to stimulate his emotions he looked around. “God, death, love, the brotherhood of man,” he kept saying to himself, associating these words with vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in. + 

By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he saw a rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands. + 

This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from below. + 

“For what have you come hither?” asked the newcomer, turning in Pierre’s direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. “Why have you, who do not believe in the truth of the light and who have not seen the light, come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?” + 

At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew, Smolyanínov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an acquaintance⁠—he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor. For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to repeat his question. + 

“Yes⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… desire regeneration,” Pierre uttered with difficulty. + 

“Very well,” said Smolyanínov, and went on at once: “Have you any idea of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your aim?” said he quietly and quickly. + 

“I⁠ ⁠… hope⁠ ⁠… for guidance⁠ ⁠… help⁠ ⁠… in regeneration,” said Pierre, with a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his excitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in Russian. + 

“What is your conception of Freemasonry?” + 

“I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who have virtuous aims,” said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy of his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. “I imagine⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Good!” said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this answer. “Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in religion?” + 

“No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it,” said Pierre, so softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was saying. “I have been an atheist,” answered Pierre. + 

“You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life, therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?” said the Rhetor, after a moment’s pause. + 

“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre. + 

The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast, and began to speak. + 

“Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order,” he said, “and if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery⁠ ⁠… which has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man⁠—a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this mystery is of such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be prepared by long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope to attain it quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving it. + 

“By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again.” + 

“To combat the evil which sways the world⁠ ⁠…” Pierre repeated, and a mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind. He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed, imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind, especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential, and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all that was good. + 

Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon’s temple, which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were: 1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5. Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death. + 

“In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death,” the Rhetor said, “to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and peace.” + 

“Yes, that must be so,” thought Pierre, when after these words the Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. “It must be so, but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only now gradually opening before me.” But five of the other virtues which Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially obedience⁠—which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh virtue was and could not recall it. + 

The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to all that would be required of him. + 

“I am ready for everything,” said Pierre. + 

“I must also inform you,” said the Rhetor, “that our Order delivers its teaching not in words only but also by other means, which may perhaps have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein should already have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words could do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a like method of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph,” said the Rhetor, “is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses but which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol.” + 

Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his ordeal was about to begin. + 

“If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation,” said the Rhetor coming closer to Pierre. “In token of generosity I ask you to give me all your valuables.” + 

“But I have nothing here,” replied Pierre, supposing that he was asked to give up all he possessed. + 

“What you have with you: watch, money, rings.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been done, the Rhetor said: + 

“In token of obedience, I ask you to undress.” + 

Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the Rhetor’s instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre’s left breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers to above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment, doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will, Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands. + 

“And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief passion,” said the latter. + 

“My passion! I have had so many,” replied Pierre. + 

“That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the path of virtue,” said the Mason. + 

Pierre paused, seeking a reply. + 

“Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?” He went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give the preeminence. + 

“Women,” he said in a low, scarcely audible voice. + 

The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay on the table, again bound his eyes. + 

“For the last time I say to you⁠—turn all your attention upon yourself, put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in passion but in your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without us but within.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion. + 

IV + 

Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not the Rhetor but Pierre’s sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre replied: “Yes, yes, I agree,” and with a beaming, childlike smile, his fat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the Masonic knock with mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded, and as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken of now as the “Seeker,” now as the “Sufferer,” and now as the “Postulant,” to the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and swords. As he was being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and uncertainty among his conductors. He heard those around him disputing in whispers and one of them insisting that he should be led along a certain carpet. After that they took his right hand, placed it on something, and told him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with the other hand and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of fidelity to the laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some spirit lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told that he would now see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes and, by the faint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream, saw several men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor’s and holding swords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them stood a man whose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce it. But the swords were drawn back from him and he was at once blindfolded again. + 

“Now thou hast seen the lesser light,” uttered a voice. Then the candles were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the bandage was again removed and more than ten voices said together: “Sic transit gloria mundi.” + 

Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President’s chair sat a young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck. On his right sat the Italian abbé whom Pierre had met at Anna Pávlovna’s two years before. There were also present a very distinguished dignitary and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the Kurágins’. All maintained a solemn silence, listening to the words of the President, who held a mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a star-shaped light. At one side of the table was a small carpet with various figures worked upon it, at the other was something resembling an altar on which lay a Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven large candlesticks like those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar, placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down, saying that he must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple. + 

“He must first receive the trowel,” whispered one of the brothers. + 

“Oh, hush, please!” said another. + 

Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. “Where am I? What am I doing? Aren’t they laughing at me? Shan’t I be ashamed to remember this?” But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at the serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast at his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling, prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice, and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the first pair of gloves, a man’s, he said that Pierre could not know their meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man’s gloves he was to wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of women’s gloves, he said: “Dear brother, these woman’s gloves are intended for you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most of all. This gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom you select to be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry.” And after a pause, he added: “But beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck hands that are unclean.” While the Grand Master said these last words it seemed to Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still more confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed. + 

This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of the Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down. The Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and Pierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to understand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words of the statutes and these remained in his mind. + 

“In our temples we recognize no other distinctions,” read the Grand Master, “but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother’s aid whoever he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous. Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which thou hast lost.” + 

He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them. + 

The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of humility. + 

The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed, and the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of “Collector of Alms” went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked to subscribe all he had, but fearing that it might look like pride subscribed the same amount as the others. + 

The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had become completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits and way of life. + 

V + 

The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square, one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third physical things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then his attention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his estates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs. He was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasíli suddenly entered the room. + 

“My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you quarreled with Elèn, mon cher? You are under a delusion,” said Prince Vasíli, as he entered. “I know all about it, and I can tell you positively that Elèn is as innocent before you as Christ was before the Jews.” + 

Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasíli interrupted him. + 

“And why didn’t you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I know all about it and understand it all,” he said. “You behaved as becomes a man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won’t go into that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and me in the eyes of society, and even of the court,” he added, lowering his voice. “She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember, dear boy,” and he drew Pierre’s arm downwards, “it is simply a misunderstanding. I expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her a letter at once, and she’ll come here and all will be explained, or else, my dear boy, let me tell you it’s quite likely you’ll have to suffer for it.” + 

Prince Vasíli gave Pierre a significant look. + 

“I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a keen interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to Elèn.” + 

Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasíli did not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the Masonic statutes, “be kindly and courteous,” recurred to him. He blinked, went red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself to do what was for him the most difficult thing in life⁠—to say an unpleasant thing to a man’s face, to say what the other, whoever he might be, did not expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince Vasíli’s tone of careless self-assurance that he felt he would be unable to withstand it now, but he also felt that on what he said now his future depended⁠—whether he would follow the same old road, or that new path so attractively shown him by the Masons, on which he firmly believed he would be reborn to a new life. + 

“Now, dear boy,” said Prince Vasíli playfully, “say ‘yes,’ and I’ll write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf.” + 

But before Prince Vasíli had finished his playful speech, Pierre, without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his father, muttered in a whisper: + 

“Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!” And he jumped up and opened the door for him. + 

“Go!” he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasíli’s face. + 

“What’s the matter with you? Are you ill?” + 

“Go!” the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasíli had to go without receiving any explanation. + 

A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons, and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity. + 

VI + 

The duel between Pierre and Dólokhov was hushed up and, in spite of the Emperor’s severity regarding duels at that time, neither the principals nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel, confirmed by Pierre’s rupture with his wife, was the talk of society. Pierre who had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was an illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best match in Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his marriage⁠—when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing to hope from him⁠—especially as he did not know how, and did not wish, to court society’s favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had happened, he was said to be insanely jealous and subject like his father to fits of bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre’s departure Elèn returned to Petersburg, she was received by all her acquaintances not only cordially, but even with a shade of deference due to her misfortune. When conversation turned on her husband Elèn assumed a dignified expression, which with characteristic tact she had acquired though she did not understand its significance. This expression suggested that she had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly and that her husband was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasíli expressed his opinion more openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and, pointing to his forehead, remarked: + 

“A bit touched⁠—I always said so.” + 

“I said from the first,” declared Anna Pávlovna referring to Pierre, “I said at the time and before anyone else” (she insisted on her priority) “that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of these days. I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees. And how has it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that has happened.” + 

Anna Pávlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of soirees as before⁠—such as she alone had the gift of arranging⁠—at which was to be found “the cream of really good society, the bloom of the intellectual essence of Petersburg,” as she herself put it. Besides this refined selection of society Anna Pávlovna’s receptions were also distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new and interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the state of the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court society so dearly and distinctly indicated. + 

Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon’s destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt and the surrender of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our troops had already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon was beginning, Anna Pávlovna gave one of her soirees. The “cream of really good society” consisted of the fascinating Elèn, forsaken by her husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Ippolit who had just returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man referred to in that drawing room as “a man of great merit” (un homme de beaucoup de mérite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother, and several other less noteworthy persons. + 

The novelty Anna Pávlovna was setting before her guests that evening was Borís Drubetskóy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from the Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage. + 

The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that evening was this: + 

“Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to countenance Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the King of Prussia and others: ‘So much the worse for you. Tu l’as voulu, George Dandin,’ that’s all we have to say about it!” + 

When Borís, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing room, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided by Anna Pávlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and the hope of an alliance with her. + 

Borís, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed, entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de-camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and then brought back to the general circle. + 

Anna Pávlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description of each. + 

“Prince Hippolyte Kouraguine⁠—charming young fellow; M. Kronq⁠—chargé d’affaires from Copenhagen⁠—a profound intellect,” and simply, “Mr. Shittoff⁠—a man of great merit”⁠—this of the man usually so described. + 

Thanks to Anna Mikháylovna’s efforts, his own tastes, and the peculiarities of his reserved nature, Borís had managed during his service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had been so pleased at Olmütz and according to which an ensign might rank incomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his success and at the inability of others to understand these things. In consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all his relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with and sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and who could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostóvs’ house and of his childish love for Natásha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see the Rostóvs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room he considered an important step up in the service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make use of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned each face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with each of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took the seat indicated to him beside the fair Elèn and listened to the general conversation. + 

“Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable that not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure them, and she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the actual phrase used by the Vienna cabinet,” said the Danish chargé d’affaires. + 

“The doubt is flattering,” said “the man of profound intellect,” with a subtle smile. + 

“We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of Austria,” said Mortemart. “The Emperor of Austria can never have thought of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it.” + 

“Ah, my dear vicomte,” put in Anna Pávlovna, “L’Urope” (for some reason she called it “Urope as if that were a specially refined French pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with a Frenchman), L’Urope ne sera jamais notre alliée sincère.” + 

After that Anna Pávlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King of Prussia, in order to draw Borís into the conversation. + 

Borís listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn, but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the beautiful Elèn, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome young aide-de-camp with a smile. + 

Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pávlovna very naturally asked Borís to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he found the Prussian army. Borís, speaking with deliberation, told them in pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and the court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his own about the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the general attention, and Anna Pávlovna felt that the novelty she had served up was received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest attention of all to Borís’ narrative was shown by Elèn. She asked him several questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in the state of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to him with her usual smile. + 

“You absolutely must come and see me,” she said in a tone that implied that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was absolutely necessary. + 

“On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure.” + 

Borís promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a conversation with her, when Anna Pávlovna called him away on the pretext that her aunt wished to hear him. + 

“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pávlovna, closing her eyes and indicating Elèn with a sorrowful gesture. “Ah, she is such an unfortunate and charming woman! Don’t mention him before her⁠—please don’t! It is too painful for her!” + 

VII + 

When Borís and Anna Pávlovna returned to the others Prince Ippolit had the ear of the company. + 

Bending forward in his armchair he said: “Le Roi de Prusse!” and having said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him. + 

“Le Roi de Prusse?” Ippolit said interrogatively, again laughing, and then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pávlovna waited for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more she began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the sword of Frederick the Great. + 

“It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I⁠ ⁠…” she began, but Ippolit interrupted her with the words: “Le Roi de Prusse⁠ ⁠…” and again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no more. + 

Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Ippolit’s friend, addressed him firmly. + 

“Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?” + 

Ippolit laughed as if ashamed of laughing. + 

“Oh, it’s nothing. I only wished to say⁠ ⁠…” (he wanted to repeat a joke he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to get in) “I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de Prusse!” + 

Borís smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody laughed. + 

“Your joke is too bad, it’s witty but unjust,” said Anna Pávlovna, shaking her little shriveled finger at him. + 

“We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles. Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!” she said. + 

The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned. + 

“You know N⁠⸺ N⁠⸺ received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?” said “the man of profound intellect.” “Why shouldn’t S⁠⸺ S⁠⸺ get the same distinction?” + 

“Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor’s portrait is a reward but not a distinction,” said the diplomatist⁠—“a gift, rather.” + 

“There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg.” + 

“It’s impossible,” replied another. + 

“Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter.⁠ ⁠…” + 

When everybody rose to go, Elèn who had spoken very little all the evening again turned to Borís, asking him in a tone of caressing significant command to come to her on Tuesday. + 

“It is of great importance to me,” she said, turning with a smile toward Anna Pávlovna, and Anna Pávlovna, with the same sad smile with which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Elèn’s wish. + 

It seemed as if from some words Borís had spoken that evening about the Prussian army, Elèn had suddenly found it necessary to see him. She seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on Tuesday. + 

But on Tuesday evening, having come to Elèn’s splendid salon, Borís received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for him to come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to him, and only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: “Come to dinner tomorrow⁠ ⁠… in the evening. You must come.⁠ ⁠… Come!” + 

During that stay in Petersburg, Borís became an intimate in the countess’ house. + 

VIII + 

The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one heard curses on Bonaparte, “the enemy of mankind.” Militiamen and recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of war came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkónski, Prince Andréy, and Princess Márya had greatly changed since 1805. + 

In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia. Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy and strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the minutest details himself. Princess Márya had ceased taking lessons in mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nikoláy (as his grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nikoláy lived with his wet nurse and nurse Sávishna in the late princess’ rooms and Princess Márya spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother’s place to her little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Márya often deprived herself to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel⁠—as she called her nephew⁠—and playing with him. + 

Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to fly upwards. The angel’s upper lip was slightly raised as though about to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andréy and Princess Márya admitted to one another that the angel’s face reminded them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger, though of this Prince Andréy said nothing to his sister, was that in the expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel’s face, Prince Andréy read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead wife: “Ah, why have you done this to me?” + 

Soon after Prince Andréy’s return the old prince made over to him a large estate, Boguchárovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills. Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills, partly because Prince Andréy did not always feel equal to bearing with his father’s peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude, Prince Andréy made use of Boguchárovo, began building and spent most of his time there. + 

After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andréy had firmly resolved not to continue his military service, and when the war recommenced and everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man, roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign, while Prince Andréy on the contrary, taking no part in the war and secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side. + 

On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits. Prince Andréy remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father’s absence. Little Nikolúshka had been unwell for four days. The coachman who had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters for Prince Andréy. + 

Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the letters to Princess Márya’s apartments, but did not find him there. He was told that the prince had gone to the nursery. + 

“If you please, your excellency, Pétrusha has brought some papers,” said one of the nursemaids to Prince Andréy who was sitting on a child’s little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he poured drops from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water. + 

“What is it?” he said crossly, and, his hand shaking unintentionally, he poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture onto the floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought it. + 

There were in the room a child’s cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a table, a child’s table, and the little chair on which Prince Andréy was sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on the table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall on the cot. + 

“My dear,” said Princess Márya, addressing her brother from beside the cot where she was standing, “better wait a bit⁠ ⁠… later⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things off⁠—and this is what comes of it!” said Prince Andréy in an exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister. + 

“My dear, really⁠ ⁠… it’s better not to wake him⁠ ⁠… he’s asleep,” said the princess in a tone of entreaty. + 

Prince Andréy got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass in hand. + 

“Perhaps we’d really better not wake him,” he said hesitating. + 

“As you please⁠ ⁠… really⁠ ⁠… I think so⁠ ⁠… but as you please,” said Princess Márya, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion had prevailed. She drew her brother’s attention to the maid who was calling him in a whisper. + 

It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and reproached and disputed with each other. + 

“Pétrusha has come with papers from your father,” whispered the maid. + 

Prince Andréy went out. + 

“Devil take them!” he muttered, and after listening to the verbal instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his father’s letter, he returned to the nursery. + 

“Well?” he asked. + 

“Still the same. Wait, for heaven’s sake. Karl Ivánich always says that sleep is more important than anything,” whispered Princess Márya with a sigh. + 

Prince Andréy went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot. + 

“Confound you and your Karl Ivánich!” He took the glass with the drops and again went up to the cot. + 

“André, don’t!” said Princess Márya. + 

But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes, and stooped glass in hand over the infant. + 

“But I wish it,” he said. “I beg you⁠—give it him!” + 

Princess Márya shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively and calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed hoarsely. Prince Andréy winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat down on a sofa in the next room. + 

He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows: + 

Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news⁠—if it’s not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete victory over Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing, and the rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a German⁠—I congratulate him! I can’t make out what the commander at Kórchevo⁠—a certain Khandrikóv⁠—is up to; till now the additional men and provisions have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I’ll have his head off if everything is not here in a week. Have received another letter about the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Pétenka⁠—he took part in it⁠—and it’s all true. When mischief-makers don’t meddle even a German beats Buonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop off to Kórchevo without delay and carry out instructions! + 

Prince Andréy sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a closely written letter of two sheets from Bilíbin. He folded it up without reading it and reread his father’s letter, ending with the words: “Gallop off to Kórchevo and carry out instructions!” + 

“No, pardon me, I won’t go now till the child is better,” thought he, going to the door and looking into the nursery. + 

Princess Márya was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby. + 

“Ah yes, and what else did he say that’s unpleasant?” thought Prince Andréy, recalling his father’s letter. “Yes, we have gained a victory over Bonaparte, just when I’m not serving. Yes, yes, he’s always poking fun at me.⁠ ⁠… Ah, well! Let him!” And he began reading Bilíbin’s letter which was written in French. He read without understanding half of it, read only to forget, if but for a moment, what he had too long been thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all else. + 

IX + 

Bilíbin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms, he described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and self-derision genuinely Russian. Bilíbin wrote that the obligation of diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince Andréy a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army. The letter was old, having been written before the battle at Preussisch-Eylau. + 

“Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz,” wrote Bilíbin, “as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I have certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me; what I have seen during these last three months is incredible. + 

“I begin ab ovo. ‘The enemy of the human race,’ as you know, attacks the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have only betrayed us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it turns out that ‘the enemy of the human race’ pays no heed to our fine speeches and in his rude and savage way throws himself on the Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they had begun, and in two twists of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs himself in the palace at Potsdam. + 

“ ‘I most ardently desire,’ writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte, ‘that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances allowed, I have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!’ The Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French and lay down their arms at the first demand. + 

“The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.⁠ ⁠… All this is absolutely true. + 

“In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in war on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success might have been more decisive had the commander in chief not been so young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prosorofsky and Kamensky the latter was preferred. The general comes to us, Souvoroff-like, in a kibítka, and is received with acclamations of joy and triumph. + 

“On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails are taken to the field marshal’s room, for he likes to do everything himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed to him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor to Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. ‘Ah! So that’s the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!’ So he writes the famous order of the day to General Bennigsen: + 

“ ‘I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the army. You have brought your army corps to Pultúsk, routed: here it is exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as you yourself reported to Count Buxhöwden yesterday, you must think of retreating to our frontier⁠—which do today.’ + 

“ ‘From all my riding,’ he writes to the Emperor, ‘I have got a saddle sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents my riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the command to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhöwden, having sent him my whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is a lack of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only one day’s ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all, as reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmorétzki, and all that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left in it by spring. + 

“ ‘Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is already in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and glorious task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army does not produce the slightest stir⁠—a blind man has left it. There are thousands such as I in Russia.’ + 

“The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all, isn’t it logical? + 

“This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal’s departure it appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle. Buxhöwden is commander in chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen does not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who are within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity to fight a battle ‘on his own hand’ as the Germans say. He does so. This is the battle of Pultúsk, which is considered a great victory but in my opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have a very bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who retreat after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to that it is we who lost the battle of Pultúsk. In short, we retreat after the battle but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a victory, and General Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the post of commander in chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up the command of the army to General Buxhöwden. During this interregnum we begin a very original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is no longer, as it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to avoid General Buxhöwden who by right of seniority should be our chief. So energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhöwden. General Buxhöwden was all but attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one of these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhöwden pursues us⁠—we scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we recross to the other. At last our enemy, Buxhöwden, catches us and attacks. Both generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on Buxhöwden’s part and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen’s. But at the critical moment the courier who carried the news of our victory at Pultúsk to Petersburg returns bringing our appointment as commander in chief, and our first foe, Buxhöwden, is vanquished; we can now turn our thoughts to the second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at that moment a third enemy rises before us⁠—namely the Orthodox Russian soldiers, loudly demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot! The stores are empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting, and in a way of which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the regiments form bands and scour the countryside and put everything to fire and sword. The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals overflow with sick, and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even attack our headquarters, and the commander in chief has to ask for a battalion to disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off my empty portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give all commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.” + 

At first Prince Andréy read with his eyes only, but after a while, in spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust Bilíbin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes, rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he had read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it. + 

Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him with a scared look and that Princess Márya was no longer by the cot. + 

“My dear,” he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind him. + 

As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was seized by an unreasoning panic⁠—it occurred to him that the child was dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror. + 

“All is over,” he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it empty and that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the curtain aside and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not find the baby. At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he lay across the bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking his lips in his sleep and breathing evenly. + 

Prince Andréy was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him, tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft forehead was moist. Prince Andréy touched the head with his hand; even the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead, but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andréy longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of the cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant’s face listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Márya, who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain, and dropped it again behind her. Prince Andréy recognized her without looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it. + 

“He has perspired,” said Prince Andréy. + 

“I was coming to tell you so.” + 

The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead against the pillow. + 

Prince Andréy looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the world. Prince Andréy was the first to move away, ruffling his hair against the muslin of the curtain. + 

“Yes, this is the one thing left me now,” he said with a sigh. + 

X + 

Soon after his admission to the Masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with him full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to what he should do on his estates. + 

When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office and explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps would be taken immediately to free his serfs⁠—and that till then they were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs, punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals, asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first fright were amused by Pierre’s lisp and the new words they had not heard before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while the cleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from this speech how they could best handle the master for their own ends. + 

The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre’s intentions, but remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into the general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory. + 

Despite Count Bezúkhov’s enormous wealth, since he had come into an income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year, Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the following budget: + 

About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about 30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house, and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or inclination⁠—practical business. + 

He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor, to which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank, and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation. + 

The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling the forests in the province of Kostromá, the land lower down the river, and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which operations according to him were connected with such complicated measures⁠—the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on⁠—that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied: + 

“Yes, yes, do so.” + 

Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to himself. + 

In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the largest landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre’s greatest weakness⁠—the one to which he had confessed when admitted to the Lodge⁠—were so strong that he could not resist them. Again whole days, weeks, and months of his life passed in as great a rush and were as much occupied with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him no time for reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had hoped to lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings. + 

Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two⁠—morality and the love of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled another of the precepts⁠—that of reforming the human race⁠—and had other virtues⁠—love of his neighbor, and especially generosity. + 

In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit. + 

The chief steward, who considered the young count’s attempts almost insane⁠—unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs⁠—made some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings⁠—schools, hospitals, and asylums⁠—on all the estates before the master arrived. Everywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes (which he knew Pierre would not like), but for just such gratefully religious ones, with offerings of icons and the bread and salt of hospitality, as, according to his understanding of his master, would touch and delude him. + 

The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions, which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission, as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them, to build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor of Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with infants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard work. On a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet him surrounded by children whom, by the count’s generosity, he was instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection, all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards’ accounts, according to which the serfs’ manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue coats. + 

What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter’s day, and that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun the chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that villages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that since the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they did still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and that the pupils’ parents wept at having to let him take their children and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know that where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs’ payments had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work had been increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit to his estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which he had left Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his “brother-instructor” as he called the Grand Master. + 

“How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,” thought Pierre, “and how little attention we pay to it!” + 

He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do for these simple, kindly people. + 

The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly through the naive and intelligent count and played with him as with a toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre, pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was. + 

Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly, on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to carry out the count’s wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the count never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for the sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank, but would probably never even inquire and would never know that the newly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued to give in money and work all that other people’s serfs gave⁠—that is to say, all that could be got out of them. + 

XI + 

Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his friend Bolkónski, whom he had not seen for two years. + 

Boguchárovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along the high road in the midst of a young copse in which were a few fir trees. + 

The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular façade still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a water cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly built lodge close to the pond. Antón, a man who had looked after Prince Andréy in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom. + 

Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in Petersburg. + 

He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door. + 

“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice. + 

“A visitor,” answered Antón. + 

“Ask him to wait,” and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back. + 

Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face with Prince Andréy, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek and looked at him closely. + 

“Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad,” said Prince Andréy. + 

Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and glad sparkle. Prince Andréy had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged concentration on some one thought. + 

As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation, it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans for the future, Pierre’s journeys and occupations, the war, and so on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his friend’s look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andréy would have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince Andréy’s presence. He was ashamed to express his new Masonic views, which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour. He checked himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he felt an irresistible desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg. + 

“I can’t tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly know myself again.” + 

“Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then,” said Prince Andréy. + 

“Well, and you? What are your plans?” + 

“Plans!” repeated Prince Andréy ironically. “My plans?” he said, as if astonished at the word. “Well, you see, I’m building. I mean to settle here altogether next year.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andréy’s face, which had grown much older. + 

“No, I meant to ask⁠ ⁠…” Pierre began, but Prince Andréy interrupted him. + 

“But why talk of me?⁠ ⁠… Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and all you have been doing on your estates.” + 

Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been made. Prince Andréy several times prompted Pierre’s story of what he had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling him. + 

Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend’s company and at last became silent. + 

“I’ll tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andréy, who evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, “I am only bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back to my sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her already,” he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he now found nothing in common. “We will go after dinner. And would you now like to look round my place?” + 

They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other intimately. Prince Andréy spoke with some animation and interest only of the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here, while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself: + 

“However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then we’ll set off.” + 

At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre’s marriage. + 

“I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andréy. + 

Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said hurriedly: “I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know it is all over, and forever.” + 

“Forever?” said Prince Andréy. “Nothing’s forever.” + 

“But you know how it all ended, don’t you? You heard of the duel?” + 

“And so you had to go through that too!” + 

“One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man,” said Pierre. + 

“Why so?” asked Prince Andréy. “To kill a vicious dog is a very good thing really.” + 

“No, to kill a man is bad⁠—wrong.” + 

“Why is it wrong?” urged Prince Andréy. “It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.” + 

“What does harm to another is wrong,” said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andréy was roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present state. + 

“And who has told you what is bad for another man?” he asked. + 

“Bad! Bad!” exclaimed Pierre. “We all know what is bad for ourselves.” + 

“Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is something I cannot inflict on others,” said Prince Andréy, growing more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to Pierre. He spoke in French. “I only know two very real evils in life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now.” + 

“And love of one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice?” began Pierre. “No, I can’t agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying” (Pierre’s modesty made him correct himself) “to live for others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe what you are saying.” Prince Andréy looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile. + 

“When you see my sister, Princess Márya, you’ll get on with her,” he said. “Perhaps you are right for yourself,” he added after a short pause, “but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.⁠—And after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.⁠—So I lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer since I began to live only for myself.” + 

“But what do you mean by living only for yourself?” asked Pierre, growing excited. “What about your son, your sister, and your father?” + 

“But that’s just the same as myself⁠—they are not others,” explained Prince Andréy. “The others, one’s neighbors, le prochain, as you and Princess Márya call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le prochain⁠—your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good.” + 

And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He evidently wished to draw him on. + 

“You are joking,” replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. “What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a little⁠—though I did very little and did it very badly? What evil can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves, were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give them rest and leisure?” said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. “And I have done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done something toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and more than that, you can’t make me believe that you do not think so yourself. And the main thing is,” he continued, “that I know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness in life.” + 

“Yes, if you put it like that it’s quite a different matter,” said Prince Andréy. “I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what’s right and what’s good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by us. Well, you want an argument,” he added, “come on then.” + 

They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served as a veranda. + 

“Come, let’s argue then,” said Prince Andréy, “You talk of schools,” he went on, crooking a finger, “education and so forth; that is, you want to raise him” (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his cap) “from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say, ‘lighten his toil.’ But as I see it, physical labor is as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you or me. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can’t sleep but toss about till dawn, because I think and can’t help thinking, just as he can’t help plowing and mowing; if he didn’t, he would go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his terrible physical labor but should die of it in a week, so he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The third thing⁠—what else was it you talked about?” and Prince Andréy crooked a third finger. “Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you grudged losing a laborer⁠—that’s how I regard him⁠—but you want to cure him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a notion that medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!” said he, frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre. + 

Prince Andréy expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless. + 

“Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!” said Pierre. “I don’t understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I collapsed so that I don’t live at all⁠—everything seems hateful to me⁠ ⁠… myself most of all. Then I don’t eat, don’t wash⁠ ⁠… and how is it with you?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Why not wash? That is not cleanly,” said Prince Andréy; “on the contrary one must try to make one’s life as pleasant as possible. I’m alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can without hurting others.” + 

“But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit without moving, undertaking nothing.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications for it⁠—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the position. Then there’s this house, which must be built in order to have a nook of one’s own in which to be quiet. And now there’s this recruiting.” + 

“Why aren’t you serving in the army?” + 

“After Austerlitz!” said Prince Andréy gloomily. “No, thank you very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian army. And I won’t⁠—not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolénsk threatening Bald Hills⁠—even then I wouldn’t serve in the Russian army! Well, as I was saying,” he continued, recovering his composure, “now there’s this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the Third District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under him.” + 

“Then you are serving?” + 

“I am.” + 

He paused a little while. + 

“And why do you serve?” + 

“Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander in chief of the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster’s clerk at Yúkhnovna hanged,” said Prince Andréy with a smile. “So I am serving because I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him from actions which would torment him afterwards.” + 

“Well, there you see!” + 

“Yes, but it is not as you imagine,” Prince Andréy continued. “I did not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been very glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father⁠—that again is for myself.” + 

Prince Andréy grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no desire to do good to his neighbor. + 

“There now, you wish to liberate your serfs,” he continued; “that is a very good thing, but not for you⁠—I don’t suppose you ever had anyone flogged or sent to Siberia⁠—and still less for your serfs. If they are beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don’t suppose they are any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more and more miserable.” + 

Prince Andréy spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andréy by his father’s case. + 

He did not reply. + 

“So that’s what I’m sorry for⁠—human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and not the serfs’ backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads.” + 

“No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you,” said Pierre. + 

XII + 

In the evening Andréy and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to Bald Hills. Prince Andréy, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and then with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper. + 

Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in his husbandry. + 

Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and apparently immersed in his own thoughts. + 

He was thinking that Prince Andréy was unhappy, had gone astray, did not see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that Prince Andréy with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching, and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule what to him was precious and sacred. + 

“No, but why do you think so?” Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head and looking like a bull about to charge, “why do you think so? You should not think so.” + 

“Think? What about?” asked Prince Andréy with surprise. + 

“About life, about man’s destiny. It can’t be so. I myself thought like that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don’t smile. Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought it was: Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal, aspects of humanity.” + 

And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince Andréy. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood, and love. + 

“Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest is a dream,” said Pierre. “Understand, my dear fellow, that outside this union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you that nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out his life, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our fundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I have felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of which is hidden in heaven,” said Pierre. + 

Prince Andréy, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to Pierre’s words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the peculiar glow that came into Prince Andréy’s eyes and by his silence, Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andréy would not interrupt him or laugh at what he said. + 

They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it, they also stepped on the raft. + 

Prince Andréy, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun. + 

“Well, what do you think about it?” Pierre asked. “Why are you silent?” + 

“What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It’s all very well.⁠ ⁠… You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of life, the destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who are we? Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what you see? You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don’t see it.” + 

Pierre interrupted him. + 

“Do you believe in a future life?” he asked. + 

“A future life?” Prince Andréy repeated, but Pierre, giving him no time to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he knew Prince Andréy’s former atheistic convictions. + 

“You say you can’t see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of everything. On earth, here on this earth” (Pierre pointed to the fields), “there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children of earth are⁠—eternally⁠—children of the whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole? Don’t I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the Deity⁠—the Supreme Power if you prefer the term⁠—is manifest? If I see, clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose it breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that I cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall always exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth.” + 

“Yes, that is Herder’s theory,” said Prince Andréy, “but it is not that which can convince me, dear friend⁠—life and death are what convince. What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with one’s own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make it right” (Prince Andréy’s voice trembled and he turned away), “and suddenly that being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist.⁠ ⁠… Why? It cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is.⁠ ⁠… That’s what convinces, that is what has convinced me,” said Prince Andréy. + 

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Pierre, “isn’t that what I’m saying?” + 

“No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked in.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Well, that’s it then! You know that there is a there and there is a Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is⁠—God.” + 

Prince Andréy did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near the ferry, but Pierre and Andréy, to the astonishment of the footmen, coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked. + 

“If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man’s highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,” said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky. + 

Prince Andréy stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the current beat softly against it below. Prince Andréy felt as if the sound of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre’s words, whispering: + 

“It is true, believe it.” + 

He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at Pierre’s face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior friend. + 

“Yes, if it only were so!” said Prince Andréy. “However, it is time to get on,” he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield; and something that had long been slumbering, something that was best within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life, but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince Andréy’s life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old way, inwardly he began a new life. + 

XIII + 

It was getting dusk when Prince Andréy and Pierre drove up to the front entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house, Prince Andréy with a smile drew Pierre’s attention to a commotion going on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her back, and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed back to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay up the steps of the back porch. + 

“Those are Másha’s ‘God’s folk,’ ” said Prince Andréy. “They have mistaken us for my father. This is the one matter in which she disobeys him. He orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she receives them.” + 

“But what are ‘God’s folk’?” asked Pierre. + 

Prince Andréy had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them, and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back soon. + 

The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute. + 

Prince Andréy led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept in perfect order and readiness for him in his father’s house; he himself went to the nursery. + 

“Let us go and see my sister,” he said to Pierre when he returned. “I have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her ‘God’s folk.’ It will serve her right, she will be confused, but you will see her ‘God’s folk.’ It’s really very curious.” + 

“What are ‘God’s folk’?” asked Pierre. + 

“Come, and you’ll see for yourself.” + 

Princess Márya really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk’s cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on her childlike face. + 

“André, pourquoi ne pas m’avoir prévenu?” said the princess, with mild reproach, as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her chickens. + 

“Charmée de vous voir. Je suis très contente de vous voir,” she said to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now his friendship with Andréy, his misfortune with his wife, and above all his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She looked at him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, “I like you very much, but please don’t laugh at my people.” After exchanging the first greetings, they sat down. + 

“Ah, and Ivánushka is here too!” said Prince Andréy, glancing with a smile at the young pilgrim. + 

“André!” said Princess Márya, imploringly. “Il faut que vous sachiez que c’est une femme,” said Prince Andréy to Pierre. + 

“André, au nom de Dieu!” Princess Márya repeated. + 

It was evident that Prince Andréy’s ironical tone toward the pilgrims and Princess Márya’s helpless attempts to protect them were their customary long-established relations on the matter. + 

“Mais, ma bonne amie,” said Prince Andréy, “vous devriez au contraire m’être reconnaissante de ce que j’explique à Pierre votre intimité avec ce jeune homme.” + 

“Really?” said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and seriousness (for which Princess Márya was specially grateful to him) into Ivánushka’s face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked round at them all with crafty eyes. + 

Princess Márya’s embarrassment on her people’s account was quite unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat quietly in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea. Ivánushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes from under her brows at the young men. + 

“Where have you been? To Kiev?” Prince Andréy asked the old woman. + 

“I have, good sir,” she answered garrulously. “Just at Christmastime I was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly sacrament at the shrine of the saint. And now I’m from Kolyázin, master, where a great and wonderful blessing has been revealed.” + 

“And was Ivánushka with you?” + 

“I go by myself, benefactor,” said Ivánushka, trying to speak in a bass voice. “I only came across Pelagéyushka in Yúkhnovo.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pelagéyushka interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what she had seen. + 

“In Kolyázin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed.” + 

“What is it? Some new relics?” asked Prince Andréy. + 

“Andréy, do leave off,” said Princess Márya. “Don’t tell him, Pelagéyushka.” + 

“No⁠ ⁠… why not, my dear, why shouldn’t I? I like him. He is kind, he is one of God’s chosen, he’s a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Kiryúsha says to me (he’s one of God’s own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says, ‘Why are you not going to the right place? Go to Kolyázin where a wonder-working icon of the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.’ On hearing those words I said goodbye to the holy folk and went.” + 

All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones, drawing in her breath. + 

“So I come, master, and the people say to me: ‘A great blessing has been revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother, the Holy Virgin Mother of God.’⁠ ⁠…” + 

“All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards,” said Princess Márya, flushing. + 

“Let me ask her,” said Pierre. “Did you see it yourselves?” he inquired. + 

“Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face like the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother’s cheek it drops and drops.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But, dear me, that must be a fraud!” said Pierre, naively, who had listened attentively to the pilgrim. + 

“Oh, master, what are you saying?” exclaimed the horrified Pelagéyushka, turning to Princess Márya for support. + 

“They impose on the people,” he repeated. + 

“Lord Jesus Christ!” exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. “Oh, don’t speak so, master! There was a general who did not believe, and said, ‘The monks cheat,’ and as soon as he’d said it he went blind. And he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs came to him and said, ‘Believe in me and I will make you whole.’ So he begged: ‘Take me to her, take me to her.’ It’s the real truth I’m telling you, I saw it myself. So he was brought, quite blind, straight to her, and he goes up to her and falls down and says, ‘Make me whole,’ says he, ‘and I’ll give thee what the Tsar bestowed on me.’ I saw it myself, master, the star is fixed into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He received his sight! It’s a sin to speak so. God will punish you,” she said admonishingly, turning to Pierre. + 

“How did the star get into the icon?” Pierre asked. + 

“And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?” said Prince Andréy, with a smile. + 

Pelagéyushka suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands. + 

“Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!” she began, her pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. “Master, what have you said? God forgive you!” And she crossed herself. “Lord forgive him! My dear, what does it mean?⁠ ⁠…” she asked, turning to Princess Márya. She got up and, almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She evidently felt frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to have now to forgo the charity of this house. + 

“Now, why need you do it?” said Princess Márya. “Why did you come to me?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Come, Pelagéyushka, I was joking,” said Pierre. “Princesse, ma parole, je n’ai pas voulu l’offenser. I did not mean anything, I was only joking,” he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. “It was all my fault, and Andréy was only joking.” + 

Pelagéyushka stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre’s face there was such a look of sincere penitence, and Prince Andréy glanced so meekly now at her and now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured. + 

XIV + 

The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the saints. “I’d pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to another. I’d sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and there was such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don’t want to come out, even into the light of heaven again.” + 

Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andréy went out of the room, and then, leaving “God’s folk” to finish their tea, Princess Márya took Pierre into the drawing room. + 

“You are very kind,” she said to him. + 

“Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so well and have the greatest respect for them.” + 

Princess Márya looked at him silently and smiled affectionately. + 

“I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a brother,” she said. “How do you find Andréy?” she added hurriedly, not giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. “I am very anxious about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring his wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a cure. And I am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a character like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows. He keeps it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits, but that is the effect of your visit⁠—he is not often like that. If you could persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet regular life is very bad for him. Others don’t notice it, but I see it.” + 

Toward ten o’clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing the bells of the old prince’s carriage approaching. Prince Andréy and Pierre also went out into the porch. + 

“Who’s that?” asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of the carriage. + 

“Ah! Very glad! Kiss me,” he said, having learned who the young stranger was. + 

The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre. + 

Before supper, Prince Andréy, coming back to his father’s study, found him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it chaffingly, but without getting angry. + 

“Drain the blood from men’s veins and put in water instead, then there will be no more war! Old women’s nonsense⁠—old women’s nonsense!” he repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately on the shoulder, and then went up to the table where Prince Andréy, evidently not wishing to join in the conversation, was looking over the papers his father had brought from town. The old prince went up to him and began to talk business. + 

“The marshal, a Count Rostóv, hasn’t sent half his contingent. He came to town and wanted to invite me to dinner⁠—I gave him a pretty dinner!⁠ ⁠… And there, look at this.⁠ ⁠… Well, my boy,” the old prince went on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. “A fine fellow⁠—your friend⁠—I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever things and one doesn’t care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I’ll come and sit with you at supper. We’ll have another dispute. Make friends with my little fool, Princess Márya,” he shouted after Pierre, through the door. + 

Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andréy. That charm was not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid Princess Márya, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess Márya, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old “Prince Nikoláy” (as his grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken in his arms, and Mikháil Ivánovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at him with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince. + 

The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre’s account. And during the two days of the young man’s visit he was extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again. + 

When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they began to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but what was good of him. + 

XV + 

When returning from his leave, Rostóv felt, for the first time, how close was the bond that united him to Denísov and the whole regiment. + 

On approaching it, Rostóv felt as he had done when approaching his home in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Deméntyev and saw the picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrúshka gleefully shouted to his master, “The count has come!” and Denísov, who had been asleep on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him, and the officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostóv experienced the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sister had embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could not speak. The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and precious as his parents’ house. + 

When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests of the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of all that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sónya with whom he ought, or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not that innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or farther from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and undefined money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that terrible loss to Dólokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and simple. The whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our Pávlograd regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no concern of his. In the regiment, everything was definite: who was lieutenant, who captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one’s pay came every four months, there was nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do nothing that was considered bad in the Pávlograd regiment and, when given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely ordered⁠—and all would be well. + 

Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental life, Rostóv felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter for him, because, after his loss to Dólokhov (for which, in spite of all his family’s efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving, not as he had done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly first-rate comrade and officer⁠—in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing which seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the regiment. + 

After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his parents. + 

Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultúsk and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting the Emperor’s arrival and the beginning of a new campaign. + 

The Pávlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the campaign. It had been neither at Pultúsk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and, when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign, was attached to Plátov’s division. + 

Plátov’s division was acting independently of the main army. Several times parts of the Pávlograd regiment had exchanged shots with the enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal Oudinot’s carriages. In April the Pávlograds were stationed immovably for some weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village. + 

A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke, and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages, searching for potatoes, but found few even of these. + 

Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled⁠—if any remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations. + 

The Pávlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals, death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able to drag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals. When spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called “Máshka’s sweet root.” It was very bitter, but they wandered about the fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it, though they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That spring a new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs, and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite of all this, the soldiers of Denísov’s squadron fed chiefly on “Máshka’s sweet root,” because it was the second week that the last of the biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man and the last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen. + 

The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of felty winter hair. + 

Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the cauldrons from which they rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told and listened to stories of Potëmkin’s and Suvórov’s campaigns, or to legends of Alësha the Sly, or the priest’s laborer Mikólka. + 

The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half-ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague feeling that in the main it was going badly. + 

Rostóv lived, as before, with Denísov, and since their furlough they had become more friendly than ever. Denísov never spoke of Rostóv’s family, but by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostóv felt that the elder hussar’s luckless love for Natásha played a part in strengthening their friendship. Denísov evidently tried to expose Rostóv to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his safe return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in a deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of provisions, Rostóv found a family consisting of an old Pole and his daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostóv brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and kept them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostóv, saying that he was more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostóv took the joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the officer that it was all Denísov could do to prevent a duel. When the officer had gone away, Denísov, who did not himself know what Rostóv’s relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid him for his quickness of temper, and Rostóv replied: + 

“Say what you like.⁠ ⁠… She is like a sister to me, and I can’t tell you how it offended me⁠ ⁠… because⁠ ⁠… well, for that reason.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Denísov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room without looking at Rostóv, as was his way at moments of deep feeling. + 

“Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostóvs are!” he muttered, and Rostóv noticed tears in his eyes. + 

XVI + 

In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor’s arrival, but Rostóv had no chance of being present at the review he held at Bartenstein, as the Pávlograds were at the outposts far beyond that place. + 

They were bivouacking. Denísov and Rostóv were living in an earth hut, dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep, and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room, in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board, lying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof was so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench and could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table. Denísov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his squadron liked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end, with a piece of (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it was very cold, embers from the soldiers’ campfire were placed on a bent sheet of iron on the steps in the “reception room”⁠—as Denísov called that part of the hut⁠—and it was then so warm that the officers, of whom there were always some with Denísov and Rostóv, sat in their shirt sleeves. + 

In April, Rostóv was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm, then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and, his face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denísov, who had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk. + 

Suddenly he heard Denísov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut, evidently much excited. Rostóv moved to the window to see whom he was speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topchéenko. + 

“I ordered you not to let them eat that Máshka woot stuff!” Denísov was shouting. “And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchúk bwought some fwom the fields.” + 

“I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don’t obey,” answered the quartermaster. + 

Rostóv lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: “Let him fuss and bustle now, my job’s done and I’m lying down⁠—capitally!” He could hear that Lavrúshka⁠—that sly, bold orderly of Denísov’s⁠—was talking, as well as the quartermaster. Lavrúshka was saying something about loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen when he had gone out for provisions. + 

Then Denísov’s voice was heard shouting farther and farther away. “Saddle! Second platoon!” + 

“Where are they off to now?” thought Rostóv. + 

Five minutes later, Denísov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took his leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to Rostóv’s inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly that he had some business. + 

“Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!” said Denísov going out, and Rostóv heard the hoofs of several horses splashing through the mud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denísov had gone. Having got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave the hut till toward evening. Denísov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared up, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing sváyka, laughing as they threw their missiles which buried themselves in the soft mud. Rostóv joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on their skinny horses behind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew up to the picket ropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them. + 

“There now, Denísov has been worrying,” said Rostóv, “and here are the provisions.” + 

“So they are!” said the officers. “Won’t the soldiers be glad!” + 

A little behind the hussars came Denísov, accompanied by two infantry officers with whom he was talking. + 

Rostóv went to meet them. + 

“I warn you, Captain,” one of the officers, a short thin man, evidently very angry, was saying. + 

“Haven’t I told you I won’t give them up?” replied Denísov. + 

“You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny⁠—seizing the transport of one’s own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days.” + 

“And mine have had nothing for two weeks,” said Denísov. + 

“It is robbery! You’ll answer for it, sir!” said the infantry officer, raising his voice. + 

“Now, what are you pestewing me for?” cried Denísov, suddenly losing his temper. “I shall answer for it and not you, and you’d better not buzz about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!” he shouted at the officers. + 

“Very well, then!” shouted the little officer, undaunted and not riding away. “If you are determined to rob, I’ll⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Go to the devil! quick ma’ch, while you’re safe and sound!” and Denísov turned his horse on the officer. + 

“Very well, very well!” muttered the officer, threateningly, and turning his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle. + 

“A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!” shouted Denísov after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can address to a mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostóv, he burst out laughing. + 

“I’ve taken twansports from the infantwy by force!” he said. “After all, can’t let our men starve.” + 

The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrúshka that the transport was unescorted, Denísov with his hussars had seized it by force. The soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared them with the other squadrons. + 

The next day the regimental commander sent for Denísov, and holding his fingers spread out before his eyes said: + 

“This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and won’t begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle the business there in the commissariat department and if possible sign a receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as the demand was booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair may end badly.” + 

From the regimental commander’s, Denísov rode straight to the staff with a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came back to his dugout in a state such as Rostóv had never yet seen him in. Denísov could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostóv asked what was the matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse, feeble voice. + 

Alarmed at Denísov’s condition, Rostóv suggested that he should undress, drink some water, and send for the doctor. + 

“Twy me for wobbewy⁠ ⁠… oh! Some more water⁠ ⁠… Let them twy me, but I’ll always thwash scoundwels⁠ ⁠… and I’ll tell the Empewo’⁠ ⁠… Ice⁠ ⁠…” he muttered. + 

The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary to bleed Denísov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy arm and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him. + 

“I get there,” began Denísov. “ ‘Now then, where’s your chief’s quarters?’ They were pointed out. ‘Please to wait.’ ‘I’ve widden twenty miles and have duties to attend to and no time to wait. Announce me.’ Vewy well, so out comes their head chief⁠—also took it into his head to lecture me: ‘It’s wobbewy!’⁠—‘Wobbewy,’ I say, ‘is not done by man who seizes pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to fill his own pockets!’ ‘Will you please be silent?’ ‘Vewy good!’ Then he says: ‘Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair will be passed on to headquarters.’ I go to the commissioner. I enter, and at the table⁠ ⁠… who do you think? No, but wait a bit!⁠ ⁠… Who is it that’s starving us?” shouted Denísov, hitting the table with the fist of his newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and the tumblers on it jumped about. “Telyánin! ‘What? So it’s you who’s starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!’ and I hit him so pat, stwaight on his snout⁠ ⁠… ‘Ah, what a⁠ ⁠… what a⁠ ⁠… !’ and I sta’ted fwashing him⁠ ⁠… Well, I’ve had a bit of fun I can tell you!” cried Denísov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing under his black mustache. “I’d have killed him if they hadn’t taken him away!” + 

“But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself,” said Rostóv. “You’ve set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again.” + 

Denísov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and cheerful. + 

But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostóv’s and Denísov’s dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed them a paper addressed to Major Denísov from the regimental commander in which inquiries were made about yesterday’s occurrence. The adjutant told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn: that a court-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the severity with which marauding and insubordination were now regarded, degradation to the ranks would be the best that could be hoped for. + 

The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after seizing the transports, Major Denísov, being drunk, went to the chief quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them. + 

In answer to Rostóv’s renewed questions, Denísov said, laughing, that he thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up in it, but that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the least fear any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him he would give them an answer that they would not easily forget. + 

Denísov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostóv knew him too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart he feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denísov was ordered to hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before the staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat office. On the previous day Plátov reconnoitered with two Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denísov, as was his wont, rode out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by a French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at another time Denísov would not have left the regiment for so slight a wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing at the staff and went into hospital. + 

XVII + 

In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pávlograds did not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostóv, who felt his friend’s absence very much, having no news of him since he left and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denísov in hospital. + 

The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets, tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about. + 

The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the yard. + 

Directly Rostóv entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant. + 

“I can’t tear myself to pieces,” the doctor was saying. “Come to Makár Alexéevich in the evening. I shall be there.” + 

The assistant asked some further questions. + 

“Oh, do the best you can! Isn’t it all the same?” The doctor noticed Rostóv coming upstairs. + 

“What do you want, sir?” said the doctor. “What do you want? The bullets having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir.” + 

“How so?” asked Rostóv. + 

“Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makéev and I” (he pointed to the assistant), “keep on here. Some five of us doctors have died in this place.⁠ ⁠… When a new one comes he is done for in a week,” said the doctor with evident satisfaction. “Prussian doctors have been invited here, but our allies don’t like it at all.” + 

Rostóv explained that he wanted to see Major Denísov of the hussars, who was wounded. + 

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in charge of three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It’s well that the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some lint each month or we should be lost!” he laughed. “Four hundred, sir, and they’re always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?” he asked, turning to the assistant. + 

The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient for the talkative doctor to go. + 

“Major Denísov,” Rostóv said again. “He was wounded at Molliten.” + 

“Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makéev?” queried the doctor, in a tone of indifference. + 

The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor’s words. + 

“Is he tall and with reddish hair?” asked the doctor. + 

Rostóv described Denísov’s appearance. + 

“There was one like that,” said the doctor, as if pleased. “That one is dead, I fancy. However, I’ll look up our list. We had a list. Have you got it, Makéev?” + 

“Makár Alexéevich has the list,” answered the assistant. “But if you’ll step into the officers’ wards you’ll see for yourself,” he added, turning to Rostóv. + 

“Ah, you’d better not go, sir,” said the doctor, “or you may have to stay here yourself.” + 

But Rostóv bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant to show him the way. + 

“Only don’t blame me!” the doctor shouted up after him. + 

Rostóv and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so strong there that Rostóv held his nose and had to pause and collect his strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostóv saw that the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and overcoats. + 

“May I go in and look?” + 

“What is there to see?” said the assistant. + 

But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in, Rostóv entered the soldiers’ ward. The foul air, to which he had already begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It was a little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it originated. + 

In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows, the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and paid no attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at Rostóv with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and envy of another’s health. Rostóv went to the middle of the room and looking through the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same thing there. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept repeating. Rostóv listened and made out the word. It was “drink, drink, a drink!” Rostóv glanced round, looking for someone who would put this man back in his place and bring him water. + 

“Who looks after the sick here?” he asked the assistant. + 

Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostóv. + 

“Good day, your honor!” he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostóv and evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities. + 

“Get him to his place and give him some water,” said Rostóv, pointing to the Cossack. + 

“Yes, your honor,” the soldier replied complacently, and rolling his eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not move. + 

“No, it’s impossible to do anything here,” thought Rostóv, lowering his eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense look fixed on him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on an overcoat, sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skeleton, with a stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostóv. The man’s neighbor on one side whispered something to him, pointing at Rostóv, who noticed that the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew nearer and saw that the old man had only one leg bent under him, the other had been amputated above the knee. His neighbor on the other side, who lay motionless some distance from him with his head thrown back, was a young soldier with a snub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled and his eyes were rolled back. Rostóv looked at the young soldier and a cold chill ran down his back. + 

“Why, this one seems⁠ ⁠…” he began, turning to the assistant. + 

“And how we’ve been begging, your honor,” said the old soldier, his jaw quivering. “He’s been dead since morning. After all we’re men, not dogs.” + 

“I’ll send someone at once. He shall be taken away⁠—taken away at once,” said the assistant hurriedly. “Let us go, your honor.” + 

“Yes, yes, let us go,” said Rostóv hastily, and lowering his eyes and shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of reproachful envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the room. + 

XVIII + 

Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostóv to the officers’ wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing gowns. The first person Rostóv met in the officers’ ward was a thin little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth. Rostóv looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before. + 

“See where we’ve met again!” said the little man. “Túshin, Túshin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schön Grabern? And I’ve had a bit cut off, you see⁠ ⁠…” he went on with a smile, pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing gown. “Looking for Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov? My neighbor,” he added, when he heard who Rostóv wanted. “Here, here,” and Túshin led him into the next room, from whence came sounds of several laughing voices. + 

“How can they laugh, or even live at all here?” thought Rostóv, still aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those envious looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face of that young soldier with eyes rolled back. + 

Denísov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though it was nearly noon. + 

“Ah, Wostóv? How are you, how are you?” he called out, still in the same voice as in the regiment, but Rostóv noticed sadly that under this habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed itself in the expression of Denísov’s face and the intonations of his voice. + 

His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostóv. What struck him was that Denísov did not seem glad to see him, and smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about the general state of affairs, and when Rostóv spoke of these matters did not listen. + 

Rostóv even noticed that Denísov did not like to be reminded of the regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and was only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On Rostóv’s inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began reading his paper and specially drew Rostóv’s attention to the stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions, who had gathered round Rostóv⁠—a fresh arrival from the world outside⁠—gradually began to disperse as soon as Denísov began reading his answer. Rostóv noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had already heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only the man who had the next bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed, gloomily frowning and smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Túshin still listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan interrupted Denísov. + 

“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostóv, “it would be best simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards will now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Me petition the Empewo’!” exclaimed Denísov, in a voice to which he tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like an expression of irritable impotence. “What for? If I were a wobber I would ask mercy, but I’m being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers to book. Let them twy me, I’m not afwaid of anyone. I’ve served the Tsar and my countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be degwaded?⁠ ⁠… Listen, I’m w’iting to them stwaight. This is what I say: ‘If I had wobbed the Tweasuwy⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

“It’s certainly well written,” said Túshin, “but that’s not the point, Vasíli Dmítrich,” and he also turned to Rostóv. “One has to submit, and Vasíli Dmítrich doesn’t want to. You know the auditor told you it was a bad business.” + 

“Well, let it be bad,” said Denísov. + 

“The auditor wrote out a petition for you,” continued Túshin, “and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he” (indicating Rostóv) “has connections on the staff. You won’t find a better opportunity.” + 

“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denísov interrupted him, went on reading his paper. + 

Rostóv had not the courage to persuade Denísov, though he instinctively felt that the way advised by Túshin and the other officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of service to Denísov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper. + 

When the reading of Denísov’s virulent reply, which took more than an hour, was over, Rostóv said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day in a most dejected state of mind amid Denísov’s hospital comrades, who had gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their stories. Denísov was moodily silent all the evening. + 

Late in the evening, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denísov whether he had no commission for him. + 

“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denísov, glancing round at the officers, and taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where he had an inkpot, and sat down to write. + 

“It seems it’s no use knocking one’s head against a wall!” he said, coming from the window and giving Rostóv a large envelope. In it was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which Denísov, without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat officials, simply asked for pardon. + 

“Hand it in. It seems⁠ ⁠…” + 

He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile. + 

XIX + 

Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of Denísov’s affairs, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor. + 

On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important personage on whom he was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at Tilsit. + 

“I should like to see the great man,” he said, alluding to Napoleon, whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte. + 

“You are speaking of Buonaparte?” asked the general, smiling. + 

Borís looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was being tested. + 

“I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,” he replied. The general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile. + 

“You will go far,” he said, and took him to Tilsit with him. + 

Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon’s arrival, saw both Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon⁠—reaching the raft first⁠—stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the highest circles Borís had made it his habit to watch attentively all that went on around him and to note it down. At the time of the meeting at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to words spoken by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went into the pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and fifty-three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other facts he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor’s suite was a very small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who valued his success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Borís felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not only become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted him. Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from cold-shouldering him as at first when they considered him a newcomer, would now have been surprised had he been absent. + 

Borís lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilínski. Zhilínski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and lunching with him and Borís. + 

On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilínski arranged a supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of Napoleon’s, there were also several French officers of the Guard, and a page of Napoleon’s, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family. That same day, Rostóv, profiting by the darkness to avoid being recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging occupied by Borís and Zhilínski. + 

Rostóv, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far from having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the French⁠—who from being foes had suddenly become friends⁠—that had taken place at headquarters and in Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack officers, Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening to meet a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv had maintained with heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of French officers in Borís’ lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been accustomed to see from quite a different point of view from the outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, who thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of hostility which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskóy lived there. Borís, hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face on first recognizing Rostóv. + 

“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however, coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first impulse. + 

“I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have business,” he said coldly. + 

“No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans un moment je suis à vous,” he said, answering someone who called him. + 

“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated. + 

The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís’ face: having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both Rostóv’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking serenely and steadily at Rostóv, seemed to be veiled by something, as if screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostóv. + 

“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Borís, and he led him into the room where the supper table was laid and introduced him to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but an hussar officer, and an old friend of his. + 

“Count Zhilínski⁠—le Comte N. N.⁠—le Capitaine S. S.,” said he, naming his guests. Rostóv looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed reluctantly, and remained silent. + 

Zhilínski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostóv. Borís did not appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he had met Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostóv, saying that the latter had probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor. + 

“No, I came on business,” replied Rostóv, briefly. + 

Rostóv had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of dissatisfaction on Borís’ face, and as always happens to those in a bad humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion and that he was in everybody’s way. He really was in their way, for he alone took no part in the conversation which again became general. The looks the visitors cast on him seemed to say: “And what is he sitting here for?” He rose and went up to Borís. + 

“Anyhow, I’m in your way,” he said in a low tone. “Come and talk over my business and I’ll go away.” + 

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Borís. “But if you are tired, come and lie down in my room and have a rest.” + 

“Yes, really⁠ ⁠…” + 

They went into the little room where Borís slept. Rostóv, without sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Borís were to blame in some way) telling him about Denísov’s affair, asking him whether, through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on Denísov’s behalf and get Denísov’s petition handed in. When he and Borís were alone, Rostóv felt for the first time that he could not look Borís in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Borís, with one leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of his right, listened to Rostóv as a general listens to the report of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into Rostóv’s eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened Rostóv felt uncomfortable and cast down his eyes. + 

“I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe in such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.⁠ ⁠… But in general, I think⁠ ⁠…” + 

“So you don’t want to do anything? Well then, say so!” Rostóv almost shouted, not looking Borís in the face. + 

Borís smiled. + 

“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought⁠ ⁠…” + 

At that moment Zhilínski’s voice was heard calling Borís. + 

“Well then, go, go, go⁠ ⁠…” said Rostóv, and refusing supper and remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room. + 

XX + 

Rostóv had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on Denísov’s behalf. He could not himself go to the general in attendance as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so, and Borís, even had he wished to, could not have done so on the following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andréy of the First Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by a battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhénsk battalion. The Emperors were to be present at that banquet. + 

Rostóv felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Borís that, when the latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next morning went away, avoiding Borís. In his civilian clothes and a round hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed. + 

“Borís doesn’t want to help me and I don’t want to ask him. That’s settled,” thought Nikoláy. “All is over between us, but I won’t leave here without having done all I can for Denísov and certainly not without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!⁠ ⁠… He is here!” thought Rostóv, who had unconsciously returned to the house where Alexander lodged. + 

Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out. + 

“I may see him at any moment,” thought Rostóv. “If only I were to hand the letter direct to him and tell him all⁠ ⁠… could they really arrest me for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on whose side justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for being here, what would it matter?” thought he, looking at an officer who was entering the house the Emperor occupied. “After all, people do go in.⁠ ⁠… It’s all nonsense! I’ll go in and hand the letter to the Emperor myself so much the worse for Drubetskóy who drives me to it!” And suddenly with a determination he himself did not expect, Rostóv felt for the letter in his pocket and went straight to the house. + 

“No, I won’t miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz,” he thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. “I will fall at his feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even thank me. ‘I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the greatest happiness,’ ” Rostóv fancied the sovereign saying. And passing people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the Emperor’s house. + 

A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the lower floor. + 

“Whom do you want?” someone inquired. + 

“To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,” said Nikoláy, with a tremor in his voice. + 

“A petition? This way, to the officer on duty” (he was shown the door leading downstairs), “only it won’t be accepted.” + 

On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostóv grew frightened at what he was doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away, but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostóv entered. + 

A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a new pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason, attracted Rostóv’s attention. This man was speaking to someone in the adjoining room. + 

“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but on seeing Rostóv, he stopped short and frowned. + 

“What is it? A petition?” + 

“What is it?” asked the person in the other room. + 

“Another petitioner,” answered the man with the braces. + 

“Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out directly, we must go.” + 

“Later⁠ ⁠… later! Tomorrow. It’s too late⁠ ⁠…” + 

Rostóv turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped him. + 

“Whom have you come from? Who are you?” + 

“I come from Major Denísov,” answered Rostóv. + 

“Are you an officer?” + 

“Lieutenant Count Rostóv.” + 

“What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with you⁠ ⁠… go,” and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed him. + 

Rostóv went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass. + 

Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostóv, with downcast eyes, was making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a familiar voice called him and a hand detained him. + 

“What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?” asked a deep voice. + 

It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor’s special favor during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in which Rostóv was serving. + 

Rostóv, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly, jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denísov, whom the general knew. Having heard Rostóv to the end, the general shook his head gravely. + 

“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.” + 

Hardly had Rostóv handed him the letter and finished explaining Denísov’s case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard on the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The gentlemen of the Emperor’s suite ran down the stairs and went to their horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the Emperor’s horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostóv knew at once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized, Rostóv went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored: that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and mildness.⁠ ⁠… And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign rose again in Rostóv’s soul in all its old force. In the uniform of the Preobrazhénsk regiment⁠—white chamois-leather breeches and high boots⁠—and wearing a star Rostóv did not know (it was that of the Légion d’honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on his gloves and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about him, brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few words to some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of Rostóv’s division, smiled and beckoned to him. + 

All the suite drew back and Rostóv saw the general talking for some time to the Emperor. + 

The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse. Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom was Rostóv) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse, with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all: + 

“I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I,” and he raised his foot to the stirrup. + 

The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm, Rostóv ran after him with the crowd. + 

XXI + 

The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion of the Preobrazhénsk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left. + 

As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and at the head of them Rostóv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a white vest, and the St. Andréy ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did so, Rostóv, with his cavalryman’s eye, could not help noticing that Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions shouted “Hurrah!” and “Vive l’Empereur!” Napoleon said something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was saying something affable to him. + 

In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which were pushing back the crowd, Rostóv kept his eyes on every movement of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter to him. + 

Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached the right flank of the Preobrazhénsk battalion and came straight up to the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close to the Emperors that Rostóv, standing in the front row, was afraid he might be recognized. + 

“Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the bravest of your soldiers,” said a sharp, precise voice, articulating every letter. + 

This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly. + 

“To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war,” added Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance exasperating to Rostóv, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their Emperor. + 

“Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?” said Alexander and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlóvski, the commander of the battalion. + 

Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand, tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him rushed forward and picked it up. + 

“To whom shall it be given?” the Emperor Alexander asked Kozlóvski, in Russian in a low voice. + 

“To whomever Your Majesty commands.” + 

The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back, remarked: + 

“But we must give him an answer.” + 

Kozlóvski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostóv in his scrutiny. + 

“Can it be me?” thought Rostóv. + 

“Lázarev!” the colonel called, with a frown, and Lázarev, the first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward. + 

“Where are you off to? Stop here!” voices whispered to Lázarev who did not know where to go. Lázarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers called before the ranks. + 

Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed something from one to another, and a page⁠—the same one Rostóv had seen the previous evening at Borís’⁠—ran forward and, bowing respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking, pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he approached Lázarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his own monarch), looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white hand holding the Order touched one of Lázarev’s buttons. It was as if Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch that soldier’s breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded, and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid the cross on Lázarev’s breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it really did. + 

Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and fastened it to the uniform. Lázarev glanced morosely at the little man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander’s eyes, as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in that rigid position. + 

The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhénsk battalion, breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables prepared for them. + 

Lázarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square. Two officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by Rostóv. + 

“What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate,” one of them was saying. “Have you seen Lázarev?” + 

“I have.” + 

“Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhénskis will give them a dinner.” + 

“Yes, but what luck for Lázarev! Twelve hundred francs’ pension for life.” + 

“Here’s a cap, lads!” shouted a Preobrazhénsk soldier, donning a shaggy French cap. + 

“It’s a fine thing! First-rate!” + 

“Have you heard the password?” asked one Guards’ officer of another. “The day before yesterday it was ‘Napoléon, France, bravoure’; yesterday, ‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.’ One day our Emperor gives it and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St. George’s Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He must respond in kind.” + 

Borís, too, with his friend Zhilínski, came to see the Preobrazhénsk banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostóv standing by the corner of a house. + 

“Rostóv! How d’you do? We missed one another,” he said, and could not refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and troubled was Rostóv’s face. + 

“Nothing, nothing,” replied Rostóv. + 

“You’ll call round?” + 

“Yes, I will.” + 

Rostóv stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he remembered Denísov with his changed expression, his submission, and the whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and legs and those dead men?⁠ ⁠… Then again he thought of Lázarev rewarded and Denísov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened. + 

The smell of the food the Preobrazhénskis were eating and a sense of hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning. There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself, had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition. Nikoláy ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the officers’ saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostóv began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to the surprise of the officers: + 

“How can you judge what’s best?” he cried, the blood suddenly rushing to his face. “How can you judge the Emperor’s actions? What right have we to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor’s aims or his actions!” + 

“But I never said a word about the Emperor!” said the officer, justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostóv’s outburst, except on the supposition that he was drunk. + 

But Rostóv did not listen to him. + 

“We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more,” he went on. “If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we’re punished, it means that we have deserved it, it’s not for us to judge. If the Emperor pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That way we shall be saying there is no God⁠—nothing!” shouted Nikoláy, banging the table⁠—very little to the point as it seemed to his listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own thoughts. + 

“Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That’s all.⁠ ⁠…” said he. + 

“And to drink,” said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel. + 

“Yes, and to drink,” assented Nikoláy. “Hullo there! Another bottle!” he shouted. + 

Part + 

III + 

1808⁠–⁠10 + 

I + 

In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting. + 

In 1809 the intimacy between “the world’s two arbiters,” as Napoleon and Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared war on Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to cooperate with our old enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and in court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one of Alexander’s sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of foreign policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the departments of government. + 

Life meanwhile⁠—real life, with its essential interests of health and sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions⁠—went on as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction. + 

Prince Andréy had spent two years continuously in the country. + 

All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates⁠—and constantly changing from one thing to another had never accomplished⁠—were carried out by Prince Andréy without display and without perceptible difficulty. + 

He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked, and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going. + 

On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became free agricultural laborers⁠—this being one of the first examples of the kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs’ compulsory labor was commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Boguchárovo at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to the children of the peasants and household serfs. + 

Prince Andréy spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in “Boguchárovo Cloister,” as his father called Prince Andréy’s estate. Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had expressed to Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received many books, and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visitors from Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged behind himself⁠—who never left the country⁠—in knowledge of what was happening in home and foreign affairs. + 

Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of books, Prince Andréy was at this time busy with a critical survey of our last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a reform of the army rules and regulations. + 

In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazán estates which had been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was. + 

Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the calèche looking at the new grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of anything, but looked absentmindedly and cheerfully from side to side. + 

They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before. They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge, uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year’s leaves. The coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly. + 

Pyotr the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented. But apparently the coachman’s sympathy was not enough for Pyotr, and he turned on the box toward his master. + 

“How pleasant it is, your excellency!” he said with a respectful smile. + 

“What?” + 

“It’s pleasant, your excellency!” + 

“What is he talking about?” thought Prince Andréy. “Oh, the spring, I suppose,” he thought as he turned round. “Yes, really everything is green already.⁠ ⁠… How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are coming out.⁠ ⁠… But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!” + 

At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged, stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak, refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or the sunshine. + 

“Spring, love, happiness!” this oak seemed to say. “Are you not weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the same and always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out my broken and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my back or my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in your hopes and your lies.” + 

As he passed through the forest Prince Andréy turned several times to look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak, too, were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid, misshapen, and grim as ever. + 

“Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,” thought Prince Andréy. “Let others⁠—the young⁠—yield afresh to that fraud, but we know life, our life is finished!” + 

A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as it were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion, restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything anew⁠—but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not disturbing himself or desiring anything. + 

II + 

Prince Andréy had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district in connection with the affairs of the Ryazán estate of which he was trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv, and in the middle of May Prince Andréy went to visit him. + 

It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to bathe. + 

Prince Andréy, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds of the Rostóvs’ house at Otrádnoe. He heard merry girlish cries behind some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross the path of his calèche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a dark-haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with a white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him. + 

Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful, the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and cheerful in her own separate⁠—probably foolish⁠—but bright and happy life. “What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of the military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazán serfs’ quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?” Prince Andréy asked himself with instinctive curiosity. + 

In 1809 Count Ilyá Andréevich was living at Otrádnoe just as he had done in former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince Andréy, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying the night. + 

During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count’s house was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince Andréy repeatedly glanced at Natásha, gay and laughing among the younger members of the company, and asked himself each time, “What is she thinking about? Why is she so glad?” + 

That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the stupid old man (as he called Rostóv), who had made him stay by assuring him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he was vexed with himself for having stayed. + 

He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andréy leaned his elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky. + 

His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also awake. He heard female voices overhead. + 

“Just once more,” said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andréy recognized at once. + 

“But when are you coming to bed?” replied another voice. + 

“I won’t, I can’t sleep, what’s the use? Come now for the last time.” + 

Two girlish voices sang a musical passage⁠—the end of some song. + 

“Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there’s an end of it.” + 

“You go to sleep, but I can’t,” said the first voice, coming nearer to the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the rustle of her dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was stone-still, like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince Andréy, too, dared not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional presence. + 

“Sónya! Sónya!” he again heard the first speaker. “Oh, how can you sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up, Sónya!” she said almost with tears in her voice. “There never, never was such a lovely night before!” + 

Sónya made some reluctant reply. + 

“Do just come and see what a moon!⁠ ⁠… Oh, how lovely! Come here.⁠ ⁠… Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight, as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Take care, you’ll fall out.” + 

He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sónya’s disapproving voice: “It’s past one o’clock.” + 

“Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!” + 

Again all was silent, but Prince Andréy knew she was still sitting there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh. + 

“O God, O God! What does it mean?” she suddenly exclaimed. “To bed then, if it must be!” and she slammed the casement. + 

“For her I might as well not exist!” thought Prince Andréy while he listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she might say something about him. “There she is again! As if it were on purpose,” thought he. + 

In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once. + 

III + 

Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andréy set off for home. + 

It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots. + 

The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only a small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade, the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away. + 

“Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed,” thought Prince Andréy. “But where is it?” he again wondered, gazing at the left side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with admiration at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now. Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran could have produced. + 

“Yes, it is the same oak,” thought Prince Andréy, and all at once he was seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with the lofty heavens, his wife’s dead reproachful face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and the moon, and⁠ ⁠… all this rushed suddenly to his mind. + 

“No, life is not over at thirty-one!” Prince Andréy suddenly decided finally and decisively. “It is not enough for me to know what I have in me⁠—everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!” + 

On reaching home Prince Andréy decided to go to Petersburg that autumn and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him to go to Petersburg, and even to reenter the service, kept springing up in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey to Ryazán he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up, went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would turn away to the portrait of his dead Liza, who with hair curled à la grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply, merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andréy, crossing his arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as he reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman’s beauty and love. And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was particularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical. + 

“My dear,” Princess Márya entering at such a moment would say, “Nikolúshka can’t go out today, it’s very cold.” + 

“If it were hot,” Prince Andréy would reply at such times very dryly to his sister, “he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he must wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is what follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who needs fresh air should remain at home,” he would add with extreme logic, as if punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred within him. + 

At such moments Princess Márya would think how intellectual work dries men up. + 

IV + 

Prince Andréy arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time when the youthful Speránski was at the zenith of his fame and his reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same August the Emperor was thrown from his calèche, injured his leg, and remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speránski every day and no one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared that so agitated society⁠—abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor⁠—and not merely these but a whole state constitution, intended to change the existing order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, and financial, from the Council of State down to the district tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had tried to put into effect with the aid of his associates, Czartorýski, Novosíltsev, Kochubéy, and Strógonov⁠—whom he himself in jest had called his Comité de salut public⁠—were taking shape and being realized. + 

Now all these men were replaced by Speránski on the civil side, and Arakchéev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andréy, as a gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word. It had always seemed to Prince Andréy before that he was antipathetic to the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained the Emperor’s neglect of him by His Majesty’s displeasure at Bolkónski’s not having served since 1805. + 

“I know myself that one cannot help one’s sympathies and antipathies,” thought Prince Andréy, “so it will not do to present my proposal for the reform of the army regulations to the Emperor personally, but the project will speak for itself.” + 

He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend of his father’s. The field marshal made an appointment to see him, received him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few days later Prince Andréy received notice that he was to go to see the Minister of War, Count Arakchéev. + 

On the appointed day Prince Andréy entered Count Arakchéev’s waiting room at nine in the morning. + 

He did not know Arakchéev personally, had never seen him, and all he had heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man. + 

“He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted,” thought Prince Andréy as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people in Count Arakchéev’s waiting room. + 

During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andréy had seen the anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms were well known to him. Count Arakchéev’s anteroom had quite a special character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of those of higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered by a mask of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and the person for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and down, others whispered and laughed. Prince Andréy heard the nickname “Síla Andréevich” and the words, “Uncle will give it to us hot,” in reference to Count Arakchéev. One general (an important personage), evidently feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat crossing and uncrossing his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself. + 

But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all faces⁠—that of fear. Prince Andréy for the second time asked the adjutant on duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and was told that his turn would come in due course. After some others had been shown in and out of the minister’s room by the adjutant on duty, an officer who struck Prince Andréy by his humiliated and frightened air was admitted at that terrible door. This officer’s audience lasted a long time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard from the other side of the door, and the officer⁠—with pale face and trembling lips⁠—came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching his head. + 

After this Prince Andréy was conducted to the door and the officer on duty said in a whisper, “To the right, at the window.” + 

Prince Andréy entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles, scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red nose. Arakchéev turned his head toward him without looking at him. + 

“What is your petition?” asked Arakchéev. + 

“I am not petitioning, your excellency,” returned Prince Andréy quietly. + 

Arakchéev’s eyes turned toward him. + 

“Sit down,” said he. “Prince Bolkónski?” + 

“I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me⁠ ⁠…” + 

“You see, my dear sir, I have read your project,” interrupted Arakchéev, uttering only the first words amiably and then⁠—again without looking at Prince Andréy⁠—relapsing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt. “You are proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no one to carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs laws, it is easier writing than doing.” + 

“I came at His Majesty the Emperor’s wish to learn from your excellency how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have presented,” said Prince Andréy politely. + 

“I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the committee. I do not approve of it,” said Arakchéev, rising and taking a paper from his writing table. “Here!” and he handed it to Prince Andréy. + 

Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters, misspelled, and without punctuation: “Unsoundly constructed because resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles of War needlessly deviating.” + 

“To what committee has the memorandum been referred?” inquired Prince Andréy. + 

“To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary.” + 

Prince Andréy smiled. + 

“I don’t want one.” + 

“A member without salary,” repeated Arakchéev. “I have the honor⁠ ⁠… Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?” he shouted, bowing to Prince Andréy. + 

V + 

While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee Prince Andréy looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was supposed to be a man of genius⁠—Speránski. And this movement of reconstruction of which Prince Andréy had a vague idea, and Speránski its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his consciousness. + 

Prince Andréy was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because he was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal. The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations, turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account of his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this the general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony, and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him. + 

The day after his interview with Count Arakchéev, Prince Andréy spent the evening at Count Kochubéy’s. He told the count of his interview with Síla Andréevich (Kochubéy spoke of Arakchéev by that nickname with the same vague irony Prince Andréy had noticed in the Minister of War’s anteroom). + 

“Mon cher, even in this case you can’t do without Mikháil Mikháilovich. He manages everything. I’ll speak to him. He has promised to come this evening.” + 

“What has Speránski to do with the army regulations?” asked Prince Andréy. + 

Kochubéy shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkónski’s simplicity. + 

“We were talking to him about you a few days ago,” Kochubéy continued, “and about your freed plowmen.” + 

“Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?” said an old man of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkónski. + 

“It was a small estate that brought in no profit,” replied Prince Andréy, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man uselessly. + 

“Afraid of being late⁠ ⁠…” said the old man, looking at Kochubéy. + 

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” he continued. “Who will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to rule.⁠ ⁠… Just the same as now⁠—I ask you, Count⁠—who will be heads of the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?” + 

“Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,” replied Kochubéy, crossing his legs and glancing round. + 

“Well, I have Pryánichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a priceless man, but he’s sixty. Is he to go up for examination?” + 

“Yes, that’s a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but⁠ ⁠…” + 

Count Kochubéy did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andréy by the arm, and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallowtail coat with a cross suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Speránski. Prince Andréy recognized him at once, and felt a throb within him, as happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from respect, envy, or anticipation, he did not know. Speránski’s whole figure was of a peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which Prince Andréy lived he had never seen anyone who together with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression as that in those half-closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing; nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face or hands⁠—hands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such whiteness and softness Prince Andréy had only seen on the faces of soldiers who had been long in hospital. This was Speránski, Secretary of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and talked with Napoleon. + 

Speránski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing. + 

Prince Andréy followed Speránski’s every word and movement with particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone new⁠—especially anyone whom, like Speránski, he knew by reputation⁠—expected to discover in him the perfection of human qualities. + 

Speránski told Kochubéy he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor had kept him, and Prince Andréy noticed this affectation of modesty. When Kochubéy introduced Prince Andréy, Speránski slowly turned his eyes to Bolkónski with his customary smile and looked at him in silence. + 

“I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as everyone has,” he said after a pause. + 

Kochubéy said a few words about the reception Arakchéev had given Bolkónski. Speránski smiled more markedly. + 

“The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend Monsieur Magnítski,” he said, fully articulating every word and syllable, “and if you like I can put you in touch with him.” He paused at the full stop. “I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to cooperate in promoting all that is reasonable.” + 

A circle soon formed round Speránski, and the old man who had talked about his subordinate Pryánichnikov addressed a question to him. + 

Prince Andréy without joining in the conversation watched every movement of Speránski’s: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity student, who now, Bolkónski thought, held in his hands⁠—those plump white hands⁠—the fate of Russia. Prince Andréy was struck by the extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speránski answered the old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from an immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud, Speránski smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of what pleased the sovereign. + 

Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speránski rose and coming up to Prince Andréy took him along to the other end of the room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in Bolkónski. + 

“I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me,” he said with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he and Prince Andréy understood the insignificance of the people with whom he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andréy. “I have known of you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your serfs, a first example, of which it is very desirable that there should be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much gossip and tittle-tattle.” + 

“No,” said Prince Andréy, “my father did not wish me to take advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade.” + 

“Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely reestablishes natural justice.” + 

“I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,” returned Prince Andréy, trying to resist Speránski’s influence, of which he began to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in everything and felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with Speránski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous man’s personality. + 

“Grounds of personal ambition maybe,” Speránski put in quietly. + 

“And of state interest to some extent,” said Prince Andréy. + 

“What do you mean?” asked Speránski quietly, lowering his eyes. + 

“I am an admirer of Montesquieu,” replied Prince Andréy, “and his idea that le principe des monarchies est l’honneur me paraît incontestable. Certains droits et privilèges de la noblesse me paraissent être des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment.” + 

The smile vanished from Speránski’s white face, which was much improved by the change. Probably Prince Andréy’s thought interested him. + 

“Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,” he began, pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower than in Russian but quite calmly. + 

Speránski went on to say that honor, l’honneur, cannot be upheld by privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l’honneur, is either a negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it. His arguments were concise, simple, and clear. + 

“An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one similar to the Légion d’honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not harmful but helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or court privilege.” + 

“I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges have attained the same end,” returned Prince Andréy. “Every courtier considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily.” + 

“Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince,” said Speránski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an argument which was embarrassing for his companion. “If you will do me the honor of calling on me on Wednesday,” he added, “I will, after talking with Magnítski, let you know what may interest you, and shall also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you.” + 

Closing his eyes, he bowed à la française, without taking leave, and trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room. + 

VI + 

During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andréy felt the whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city. + 

On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere, absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did not even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked successfully, of what he had thought while in the country. + 

He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking of nothing. + 

As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubéy’s, Speránski produced a strong impression on Prince Andréy on the Wednesday, when he received him tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and confidentially. + 

To Bolkónski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in Speránski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous man. Had Speránski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed the same breeding and traditions, Bolkónski would soon have discovered his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speránski’s strange and logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because he did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speránski, either because he appreciated the other’s capacity or because he considered it necessary to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness before Prince Andréy and flattered him with that subtle flattery which goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption that one’s companion is the only man besides oneself capable of understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness and profundity of one’s own ideas. + 

During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speránski more than once remarked: “We regard everything that is above the common level of rooted custom⁠ ⁠…” or, with a smile: “But we want the wolves to be fed and the sheep to be safe⁠ ⁠…” or: “They cannot understand this⁠ ⁠…” and all in a way that seemed to say: “We, you and I, understand what they are and who we are.” + 

This first long conversation with Speránski only strengthened in Prince Andréy the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting. He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andréy’s eyes Speránski was the man he would himself have wished to be⁠—one who explained all the facts of life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and was capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything seemed so simple and clear in Speránski’s exposition that Prince Andréy involuntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and argued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and not submit to Speránski’s opinions entirely. Everything was right and everything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince Andréy. This was Speránski’s cold, mirrorlike look, which did not allow one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Prince Andréy involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of those who possess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated Prince Andréy, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly struck, too, by the excessive contempt for others that he observed in Speránski, and by the diversity of lines of argument he used to support his opinions. He made use of every kind of mental device, except analogy, and passed too boldly, it seemed to Prince Andréy, from one to another. Now he would take up the position of a practical man and condemn dreamers; now that of a satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics. (This last resource was one he very frequently employed.) He would transfer a question to metaphysical heights, pass on to definitions of space, time, and thought, and, having deduced the refutation he needed, would again descend to the level of the original discussion. + 

In general the trait of Speránski’s mentality which struck Prince Andréy most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and authority of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur to him which to Prince Andréy seemed so natural, namely, that it is after all impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the doubt, “Is not all I think and believe nonsense?” And it was just this peculiarity of Speránski’s mind that particularly attracted Prince Andréy. + 

During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkónski felt a passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speránski was the son of a village priest, and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andréy to cherish his sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it. + 

On that first evening Bolkónski spent with him, having mentioned the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speránski told him sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes. + 

“And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent,” said he. “We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no laws. That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in these times!” + 

Prince Andréy said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was needed which he did not possess. + 

“But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious circle from which we must break a way out.” + 

A week later Prince Andréy was a member of the Committee on Army Regulations and⁠—what he had not at all expected⁠—was chairman of a section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speránski’s request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up and, with the aid of the Code Napoléon and the Institutes of Justinian, he worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights. + 

VII + 

Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms, in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular. He supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in Petersburg. + 

His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the bachelor circles in which he moved. + 

Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest upon it, the more Masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him. At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog. + 

Osip Alexéevich was not in Petersburg⁠—he had of late stood aside from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Iván Vasílevich D., whom he knew in society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the Masonic aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up twenty to thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a dozen members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre remembered the Masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote all his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to dwell arose in his soul. + 

He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of God, the three primordial elements⁠—sulphur, mercury, and salt⁠—or the meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Osip Alexéevich himself, but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical aspect of Freemasonry. + 

In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him, seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so. + 

In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master of the principal lodge. + 

Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged, particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre’s observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank, and of whom there were very many in the lodge. + 

Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry, at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely on externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated from its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order. + 

In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew from correspondence with those abroad that Bezúkhov had obtained the confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with him much that might conduce to the advantage of the Masonic cause in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was preparing something for them and concealing it. + 

A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began his address. + 

“Dear Brothers,” he began, blushing and stammering, with a written speech in his hand, “it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in the seclusion of our lodge⁠—we must act⁠—act! We are drowsing, but we must act.” Pierre raised his notebook and began to read. + 

“For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of virtue,” he read, “we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity of purpose and possessed of authority and power. + 

“To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world, receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is to be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow everything, repel force by force?⁠ ⁠… No! We are very far from that. Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no violence. + 

“The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction⁠—aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding universal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other governments can continue in their customary course and do everything except what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself. It taught men to be wise and good and for their own benefit to follow the example and instruction of the best and wisest men. + 

“At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching alone was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with special strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is now necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue a charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end. + 

“As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state, each of them again training two others and all being closely united, everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret accomplished much for the welfare of mankind.” + 

This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs of Illuminism, met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men’s minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself understood it. + 

At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will reproved Bezúkhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute. Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the usual formalities he left the lodge and went home. + 

VIII + 

Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at home receiving no one and going nowhere. + 

It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she wished to devote her whole life to him. + 

At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would return to Petersburg from abroad. + 

Following this letter one of the Masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the conversation upon Pierre’s matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong and that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not forgiving the penitent. + 

At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasíli’s wife, sent to him imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him. Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife. + 

“No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to blame,” he thought. + 

If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away. Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference whether he lived with his wife or not? + 

Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Osip Alexéevich. This is what he noted in his diary: + 

Moscow, 17th November + 

I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I have experienced. Osip Alexéevich is living poorly and has for three years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working at science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed on which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges. I told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of my rupture with the Brothers. Osip Alexéevich, having remained silent and thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which at once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow. He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of the order: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The purification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The improvement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which is the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of the human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground Osip Alexéevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said to me, “the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary, my dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge⁠—for man can only know himself by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue⁠—love of death. Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our innate love of death or of rebirth to a new life.” These words are all the more remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings, Osip Alexéevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for which⁠—in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man⁠—he does not yet feel himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained to me fully the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out to me that the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He advised me not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but to take up only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while diverting the Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path self-knowledge and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for myself personally above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end he gave me a notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will in future note down all my actions. + 

Petersburg, 23rd November + 

I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and said that Elèn was here and that she implored me to hear her; that she was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew that if I once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on refusing what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and advice to seek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what to do. I went to my room and reread Osip Alexéevich’s letters and recalled my conversations with him, and deduced from it all that I ought not to refuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to everyone⁠—especially to one so closely bound to me⁠—and that I must bear my cross. But if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then let union with her have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided, and what I wrote to Osip Alexéevich. I told my wife that I begged her to forget the past, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her, and that I had nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She need not know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on the upper floor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of regeneration. + 

IX + 

At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyántsev and Caulaincourt. In this group Elèn, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members of the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for their intellect and polished manners. + 

Elèn had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and had brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself had noticed her in the theater and said of her: “C’est un superbe animal.” Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did surprise him was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded in gaining the reputation “d’ une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que belle.” The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page letters. Bilíbin saved up his epigrams to produce them in Countess Bezúkhova’s presence. To be received in the Countess Bezúkhova’s salon was regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men read books before attending Elèn’s evenings, to have something to say in her salon, and secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confided diplomatic secrets to her, so that in a way Elèn was a power. Pierre, who knew she was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a strange feeling of perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties, where politics, poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties his feelings were like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick to be found out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just what was needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived found pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and Elèna Vasílievna Bezúkhova’s reputation as a lovely and clever woman became so firmly established that she could say the emptiest and stupidest things and everybody would go into raptures over every word of hers and look for a profound meaning in it of which she herself had no conception. + 

Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was that absentminded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one’s way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his wife’s circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern, indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered his wife’s drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him and, regardless of whether any “gentlemen of the embassy” were present or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not at all in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general opinion concerning the queer husband of “the most distinguished woman in Petersburg” was so well established that no one took his freaks seriously. + 

Among the many young men who frequented her house every day, Borís Drubetskóy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was the most intimate friend of the Bezúkhov household since Elèn’s return from Erfurt. Elèn spoke of him as “mon page” and treated him like a child. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody, but sometimes that smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Borís behaved with a particularly dignified and sad deference. This shade of deference also disturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three years before from the mortification to which his wife had subjected him that he now protected himself from the danger of its repetition, first by not being a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself to suspect. + 

“No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced her former infatuations,” he told himself. “There has never been an instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart”⁠—a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source, he believed implicitly. Yet strange to say Borís’ presence in his wife’s drawing room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre; it constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom of his movements. + 

“What a strange antipathy,” thought Pierre, “yet I used to like him very much.” + 

In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place all this time in Pierre’s soul, revealing much to him and causing him many spiritual doubts and joys. + 

X + 

Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during that time: + 

24th November + 

Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Osip Alexéevich’s advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined alone⁠—the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers. In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody laughed loudly at it. + 

I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation, (2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs. + 

27th November + 

I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God, help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures, but without proper feeling. Brother Urúsov came and we talked about worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor’s new projects. I began to criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor’s words⁠—that a true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state when his aid is required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to assist. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we had a preliminary talk about the reception of a new Brother. They laid on me the duty of Rhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our talk turned to the interpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the Temple, the seven sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the evening the admission took place. The new decoration of the Premises contributed much to the magnificence of the spectacle. It was Borís Drubetskóy who was admitted. I nominated him and was the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me all the time I was alone with him in the dark chamber. I caught myself harboring a feeling of hatred toward him which I vainly tried to overcome. That is why I should really like to save him from evil and lead him into the path of truth, but evil thoughts of him did not leave me. It seemed to me that his object in entering the Brotherhood was merely to be intimate and in favor with members of our lodge. Apart from the fact that he had asked me several times whether N. and S. were members of our lodge (a question to which I could not reply) and that according to my observation he is incapable of feeling respect for our holy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied with the outer man to desire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to doubt him, but he seemed to me insincere, and all the time I stood alone with him in the dark temple it seemed to me that he was smiling contemptuously at my words, and I wished really to stab his bare breast with the sword I held to it. I could not be eloquent, nor could I frankly mention my doubts to the Brothers and to the Grand Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me to find the true path out of the labyrinth of lies! + 

After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the following was written: + 

I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who advised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place. The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and life. The Trinity⁠—the three elements of matter⁠—are sulphur, mercury, and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with salt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means of which it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination produces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence. Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!⁠ ⁠… + 

3rd December + 

Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dólokhov, meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife’s absence. At the time I gave him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in my mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected myself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Borís Drubetskóy came and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the first, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared up and said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became silent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I cannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient to my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God, grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave so that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, “Thy day!” + 

I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led me to a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank. I stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature, help me to tear from myself these dogs⁠—my passions especially the last, which unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and aid me to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in my dream. + 

7th December + 

I dreamed that Osip Alexéevich was sitting in my house, and that I was very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young, and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order, but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on the floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down too. And he said, “Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do you know it? I think you know it already.” Abashed by this question, I replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one’s embraces and gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that I should be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I awoke and found in my mind the text from the Gospel: “The life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Osip Alexéevich’s face had looked young and bright. That day I received a letter from my benefactor in which he wrote about “conjugal duties.” + 

9th December + 

I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that I was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Osip Alexéevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, “Hast thou noticed that my face is different?” I looked at him, still holding him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he had no hair on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said, “I should have known you had I met you by chance,” and I thought to myself, “Am I telling the truth?” And suddenly I saw him lying like a dead body; then he gradually recovered and went with me into my study carrying a large book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, “I drew that,” and he answered by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on all the pages there were excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew that these drawings represented the love adventures of the soul with its beloved. And on its pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden in transparent garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the clouds. And I seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a representation of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I dreamed I felt that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away from them. Lord, help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy will be done; but if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I shall perish of my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me! + 

XI + 

The Rostóvs’ monetary affairs had not improved during the two years they had spent in the country. + 

Though Nikoláy Rostóv had kept firmly to his resolution and was still serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little, the way of life at Otrádnoe⁠—Mítenka’s management of affairs, in particular⁠—was such that the debts inevitably increased every year. The only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to apply for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one and also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last time. + 

Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Véra and was accepted. + 

Though in Moscow the Rostóvs belonged to the best society without themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them. + 

The Rostóvs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in Moscow, and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country neighbors from Otrádnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters, Perónskaya a maid of honor, Pierre Bezúkhov, and the son of their district postmaster who had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the men who very soon became frequent visitors at the Rostóvs’ house in Petersburg were Borís, Pierre whom the count had met in the street and dragged home with him, and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostóvs’ and paid the eldest daughter, Countess Véra, the attentions a young man pays when he intends to propose. + 

Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had obtained two decorations for Austerlitz. + 

In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near the commander in chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had done after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and so insistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do this, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In 1809 he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special lucrative posts in Petersburg. + 

Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg’s merits, it could not be denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent terms with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career before him and an assured position in society. + 

Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow theater, Berg had pointed out Véra Rostóva to him and had said in German, “das soll mein Weib werden,” and from that moment had made up his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the Rostóvs’ position and his own, he decided that the time had come to propose. + 

Berg’s proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostóva; but Berg’s chief characteristic was such a naive and good natured egotism that the Rostóvs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing, since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed excellent. Moreover, the Rostóvs’ affairs were seriously embarrassed, as the suitor could not but know; and above all, Véra was twenty-four, had been taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking and sensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their consent. + 

“You see,” said Berg to his comrade, whom he called “friend” only because he knew that everyone has friends, “you see, I have considered it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out or if it were in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and mamma are now provided for⁠—I have arranged that rent for them in the Baltic Provinces⁠—and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with her fortune and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not marrying for money⁠—I consider that dishonorable⁠—but a wife should bring her share and a husband his. I have my position in the service, she has connections and some means. In our times that is worth something, isn’t it? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl, and she loves me.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Berg blushed and smiled. + 

“And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good. Now the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite different⁠—an unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence. She is so⁠ ⁠… you know?⁠ ⁠… Unpleasant⁠ ⁠… But my fiancée!⁠ ⁠… Well, you will be coming,” he was going to say, “to dine,” but changed his mind and said “to take tea with us,” and quickly doubling up his tongue he blew a small round ring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying his dream of happiness. + 

After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg’s proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere. In the family’s feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness and constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved Véra sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The old count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state the cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted to, or what dowry he could give Véra. When his daughters were born he had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Véra. Nor had he any money. + 

Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the count thought of giving her the Ryazán estate or of selling a forest, at another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before the wedding Berg entered the count’s study early one morning and, with a pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let him know what Véra’s dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by this long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first reply that came into his head. “I like your being businesslike about it.⁠ ⁠… I like it. You shall be satisfied.⁠ ⁠…” + 

And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not know for certain how much Véra would have and did not receive at least part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off. + 

“Because, consider, Count⁠—if I allowed myself to marry now without having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting badly.⁠ ⁠…” + 

The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand for eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in ready money. “Or at least twenty thousand, Count,” he added, “and then a note of hand for only sixty thousand.” + 

“Yes, yes, all right!” said the count hurriedly. “Only excuse me, my dear fellow, I’ll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for eighty thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me.” + 

XII + 

Natásha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which she had counted on her fingers with Borís after they had kissed four years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sónya and her mother, if Borís happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of that episode as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not worth mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question whether her engagement to Borís was a jest or an important, binding promise tormented her. + 

Since Borís left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the Rostóvs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near Otrádnoe, but had never been to see them. + 

Sometimes it occurred to Natásha that he did not wish to see her, and this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke of him. + 

“Nowadays old friends are not remembered,” the countess would say when Borís was mentioned. + 

Anna Mikháylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on which he had entered. When the Rostóvs came to Petersburg Borís called on them. + 

He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natásha was his most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of letting her and her parents feel that the childish relations between himself and Natásha could not be binding either on her or on him. He had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezúkhova, a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he was beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered the Rostóvs’ drawing room Natásha was in her own room. When she heard of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming with a more than cordial smile. + 

Borís remembered Natásha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different Natásha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This expression on his face pleased Natásha. + 

“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” asked the countess. + 

Borís kissed Natásha’s hand and said that he was astonished at the change in her. + 

“How handsome you have grown!” + 

“I should think so!” replied Natásha’s laughing eyes. + 

“And is Papa older?” she asked. + 

Natásha sat down and, without joining in Borís’ conversation with the countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood’s suitor. He felt the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at her occasionally. + 

Borís’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natásha noticed at once. He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not accidentally, Natásha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the highest aristocracy, to an ambassador’s ball he had attended, and to invitations he had received from N. N. and S. S. + 

All this time Natásha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Borís more and more. He looked round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying. He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked at him. After his first visit Borís said to himself that Natásha attracted him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that feeling, because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would mean ruin to his career, while to renew their former relations without intending to marry her would be dishonorable. Borís made up his mind to avoid meeting Natásha, but despite that resolution he called again a few days later and began calling often and spending whole days at the Rostóvs’. It seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with Natásha and tell her that the old times must be forgotten, that in spite of everything⁠ ⁠… she could not be his wife, that he had no means, and they would never let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt awkward about entering on such an explanation. From day to day he became more and more entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sónya that Natásha was in love with Borís as of old. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her album, making him write in it, did not allow him to allude to the past, letting it be understood how delightful was the present; and every day he went away in a fog, without having said what he meant to, and not knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how it would all end. He left off visiting Elèn and received reproachful notes from her every day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostóvs. + 

XIII + 

One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket, without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natásha, also in a dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in curlpapers, ran in. The countess⁠—her prayerful mood dispelled⁠—looked round and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: “Can it be that this couch will be my grave?” Natásha, flushed and eager, seeing her mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and unconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that her mother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly slipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than the one below. Natásha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled over to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled down, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost inaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a stern face, but seeing that Natásha’s head was covered, she smiled in her kind, weak way. + 

“Now then, now then!” said she. + 

“Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?” said Natásha. “Now, just one on your throat and another⁠ ⁠… that’ll do!” And seizing her mother round the neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother Natásha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased. + 

“Well, what is it tonight?” said the mother, having arranged her pillows and waited until Natásha, after turning over a couple of times, had settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and assumed a serious expression. + 

These visits of Natásha’s at night before the count returned from his club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter. + 

“What is it tonight?⁠—But I have to tell you⁠ ⁠…” + 

Natásha put her hand on her mother’s mouth. + 

“About Borís⁠ ⁠… I know,” she said seriously; “that’s what I have come about. Don’t say it⁠—I know. No, do tell me!” and she removed her hand. “Tell me, Mamma! He’s nice?” + 

“Natásha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Borís is nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?⁠ ⁠… What are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see that.⁠ ⁠…” + 

As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natásha was lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess only saw her daughter’s face in profile. That face struck her by its peculiarly serious and concentrated expression. + 

Natásha was listening and considering. + 

“Well, what then?” said she. + 

“You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You know you can’t marry him.” + 

“Why not?” said Natásha, without changing her position. + 

“Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation⁠ ⁠… and because you yourself don’t love him.” + 

“How do you know?” + 

“I know. It is not right, darling!” + 

“But if I want to⁠ ⁠…” said Natásha. + 

“Leave off talking nonsense,” said the countess. + 

“But if I want to⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Natásha, I am in earnest⁠ ⁠…” + 

Natásha did not let her finish. She drew the countess’ large hand to her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, “January, February, March, April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don’t you say anything? Speak!” said she, turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter and in that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to say. + 

“It won’t do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all it torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and wealthy match, and now he’s half crazy.” + 

“Crazy?” repeated Natásha. + 

“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I know! Kiríla Matvéich⁠ ⁠… but he is old.” + 

“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natásha, I’ll have a talk with Borís. He need not come so often.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Why not, if he likes to?” + 

“Because I know it will end in nothing.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“How can you know? No, Mamma, don’t speak to him! What nonsense!” said Natásha in the tone of one being deprived of her property. “Well, I won’t marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy it.” Natásha smiled and looked at her mother. “Not to marry, but just so,” she added. + 

“How so, my pet?” + 

“Just so. There’s no need for me to marry him. But⁠ ⁠… just so.” + 

“Just so, just so,” repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh. + 

“Don’t laugh, stop!” cried Natásha. “You’re shaking the whole bed! You’re awfully like me, just such another giggler.⁠ ⁠… Wait⁠ ⁠…” and she seized the countess’ hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger, saying, “June,” and continued, kissing, “July, August,” on the other hand. “But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was anybody ever so much in love with you? And he’s very nice, very, very nice. Only not quite my taste⁠—he is so narrow, like the dining-room clock.⁠ ⁠… Don’t you understand? Narrow, you know⁠—gray, light gray⁠ ⁠…” + 

“What rubbish you’re talking!” said the countess. + 

Natásha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nikólenka would understand.⁠ ⁠… Bezúkhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is square.” + 

“You flirt with him too,” said the countess, laughing. + 

“No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and red.⁠ ⁠… How can I explain it to you?” + 

“Little countess!” the count’s voice called from behind the door. “You’re not asleep?” Natásha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and ran barefoot to her own room. + 

It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one could understand all that she understood and all there was in her. + 

“Sónya?” she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten with her enormous plait of hair. “No, how could she? She’s virtuous. She fell in love with Nikólenka and does not wish to know anything more. Even Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how⁠ ⁠… charming she is,” she went on, speaking of herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise man⁠—the wisest and best of men⁠—who was saying it of her. “There is everything, everything in her,” continued this man. “She is unusually intelligent, charming⁠ ⁠… and then she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile⁠—she swims and rides splendidly⁠ ⁠… and her voice! One can really say it’s a wonderful voice!” + 

She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately fall asleep, called Dunyásha the maid to put out the candle, and before Dunyásha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in reality, and even more so because it was different. + 

Next day the countess called Borís aside and had a talk with him, after which he ceased coming to the Rostóvs’. + 

XIV + 

On the thirty-first of December, New Year’s Eve, 1809⁠–⁠10 an old grandee of Catherine’s day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present. + 

The grandee’s well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch. Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize at the entrance. + 

Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the crowd and caps were doffed. + 

“The Emperor?⁠ ⁠… No, a minister⁠ ⁠… prince⁠ ⁠… ambassador. Don’t you see the plumes?⁠ ⁠…” was whispered among the crowd. + 

One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day. + 

A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed. + 

There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the Rostóv family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as it should be. + 

Márya Ignátevna Perónskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the countess and piloted the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society, was to accompany them to the ball. + 

They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten o’clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not yet dressed. + 

Natásha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they all⁠—she herself, Mamma, and Sónya⁠—should be as well dressed as possible. Sónya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands. The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their hair dressed à la grecque. + 

Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the hairdressing was almost done. Sónya was finishing dressing and so was the countess, but Natásha, who had bustled about helping them all, was behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sónya stood ready dressed in the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went through it. + 

“That’s not the way, that’s not the way, Sónya!” cried Natásha turning her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the maid who was dressing it had not time to release. “That bow is not right. Come here!” + 

Sónya sat down and Natásha pinned the ribbon on differently. + 

“Allow me, Miss! I can’t do it like that,” said the maid who was holding Natásha’s hair. + 

“Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That’s right, Sónya.” + 

“Aren’t you ready? It is nearly ten,” came the countess’ voice. + 

“Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?” + 

“I have only my cap to pin on.” + 

“Don’t do it without me!” called Natásha. “You won’t do it right.” + 

“But it’s already ten.” + 

They had decided to be at the ball by half-past ten, and Natásha had still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens. + 

When her hair was done, Natásha, in her short petticoat from under which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket, ran up to Sónya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother’s head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her skirt. + 

The cause of the delay was Natásha’s skirt, which was too long. Two maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the countess and Sónya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment up high on one uplifted hand. + 

“Mávrusha, quicker, darling!” + 

“Give me my thimble, Miss, from there⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Whenever will you be ready?” asked the count coming to the door. “Here is some scent. Perónskaya must be tired of waiting.” + 

“It’s ready, Miss,” said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze dress with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if by this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what she held. + 

Natásha began putting on the dress. + 

“In a minute! In a minute! Don’t come in, Papa!” she cried to her father as he opened the door⁠—speaking from under the filmy skirt which still covered her whole face. + 

Sónya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was wearing a blue swallowtail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed and his hair pomaded. + 

“Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!” cried Natásha, as she stood in the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze. + 

“If you please, Miss! allow me,” said the maid, who on her knees was pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her mouth to the other with her tongue. + 

“Say what you like,” exclaimed Sónya, in a despairing voice as she looked at Natásha, “say what you like, it’s still too long.” + 

Natásha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress was too long. + 

“Really, madam, it is not at all too long,” said Mávrusha, crawling on her knees after her young lady. + 

“Well, if it’s too long we’ll tack it up⁠ ⁠… we’ll tack it up in one minute,” said the resolute Dunyásha taking a needle that was stuck on the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to work once more. + 

At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap and velvet gown. + 

“Oo-oo, my beauty!” exclaimed the count, “she looks better than any of you!” + 

He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to be rumpled. + 

“Mamma, your cap, more to this side,” said Natásha. “I’ll arrange it,” and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking up her skirt could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn off. + 

“Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!” + 

“Never mind, I’ll run it up, it won’t show,” said Dunyásha. + 

“What a beauty⁠—a very queen!” said the nurse as she came to the door. “And Sonyúshka! They are lovely!” + 

At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started. But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens. + 

Perónskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she had gone through the same process as the Rostóvs, but with less flurry⁠—for to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was washed, perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed behind her ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in her yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old lady’s maid was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostóvs’ servants had been. + 

She praised the Rostóvs’ toilets. They praised her taste and toilet, and at eleven o’clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled themselves in their carriages and drove off. + 

XV + 

Natásha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once had time to think of what lay before her. + 

In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms⁠—with music, flowers, dances, the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true, so out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her fur cloak, and, beside Sónya and in front of her mother, mounted the brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But, fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering, also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms. + 

Natásha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession. On entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and greetings deafened Natásha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals, “Charmé de vous voir,” greeted the Rostóvs and Perónskaya in the same manner. + 

The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her black hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess’ eye involuntarily rested longer on the slim Natásha. She looked at her and gave her alone a special smile in addition to her usual smile as hostess. Looking at her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable days of her own girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed Natásha with his eyes and asked the count which was his daughter. + 

“Charming!” said he, kissing the tips of his fingers. + 

In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting the Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows of that crowd. Natásha heard and felt that several people were asking about her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked her, and this observation helped to calm her. + 

“There are some like ourselves and some worse,” she thought. + 

Perónskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people at the ball. + 

“That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,” she said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly hair, who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said. + 

“Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezúkhova,” said Perónskaya, indicating Elèn who had just entered. “How lovely! She is quite equal to Márya Antónovna. See how the men, young and old, pay court to her. Beautiful and clever⁠ ⁠… they say Prince ⸻ is quite mad about her. But see, those two, though not good-looking, are even more run after.” + 

She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain daughter. + 

“She is a splendid match, a millionairess,” said Perónskaya. “And look, here come her suitors.” + 

“That is Bezúkhova’s brother, Anatole Kurágin,” she said, indicating a handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them with head erect, looking at something over the heads of the ladies. “He’s handsome, isn’t he? I hear they will marry him to that rich girl. But your cousin, Drubetskóy, is also very attentive to her. They say she has millions. Oh yes, that’s the French ambassador himself!” she replied to the countess’ inquiry about Caulaincourt. “Looks as if he were a king! All the same, the French are charming, very charming. No one more charming in society. Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the most beautiful of them all, our Márya Antónovna! And how simply she is dressed! Lovely! And that stout one in spectacles is the universal Freemason,” she went on, indicating Pierre. “Put him beside his wife and he looks a regular buffoon!” + 

Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently looking for someone. + 

Natásha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, “the buffoon,” as Perónskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for them, and for her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and introduce partners to her. + 

But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natásha at once recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was Bolkónski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and better-looking. + 

“There’s someone else we know⁠—Bolkónski, do you see, Mamma?” said Natásha, pointing out Prince Andréy. “You remember, he stayed a night with us at Otrádnoe.” + 

“Oh, you know him?” said Perónskaya. “I can’t bear him. Il fait à présent la pluie et le beau temps. He’s too proud for anything. Takes after his father. And he’s hand in glove with Speránski, writing some project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies! There’s one talking to him and he has turned away,” she said, pointing at him. “I’d give it to him if he treated me as he does those ladies.” + 

XVI + 

Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left as if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that had been set to it, beginning: “Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts you ravish quite⁠ ⁠…” The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the crowd made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from the drawing room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies, asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take their places for the polonaise. + 

Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the music. The host followed with Márya Antónovna Narýshkina; then came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Perónskaya diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners and were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the polonaise. Natásha felt that she would be left with her mother and Sónya among a minority of women who crowded near the wall, not having been invited to dance. She stood with her slender arms hanging down, her scarcely defined bosom rising and falling regularly, and with bated breath and glittering, frightened eyes gazed straight before her, evidently prepared for the height of joy or misery. She was not concerned about the Emperor or any of those great people whom Perónskaya was pointing out⁠—she had but one thought: “Is it possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among the first to dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will notice me? They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as if they were saying, ‘Ah, she’s not the one I’m after, so it’s not worth looking at her!’ No, it’s impossible,” she thought. “They must know how I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would enjoy dancing with me.” + 

The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natásha’s ears. She wanted to cry. Perónskaya had left them. The count was at the other end of the room. She and the countess and Sónya were standing by themselves as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers, with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andréy with a lady passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome Anatole was smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at Natásha as one looks at a wall. Borís passed them twice and each time turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them. + 

This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natásha⁠—as if there were nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not listen to or look at Véra, who was telling her something about her own green dress. + 

At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced with three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the Rostóvs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess Bezúkhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and laid it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an adept in his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with confident deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Elèn’s left hand and turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-quickening music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his rapid, agile feet, while at every third beat his partner’s velvet dress spread out and seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natásha gazed at them and was ready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn of the waltz. + 

Prince Andréy, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the front row of the circle not far from the Rostóvs. Baron Firhoff was talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be held next day. Prince Andréy, as one closely connected with Speránski and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle. + 

Prince Andréy was watching these men abashed by the Emperor’s presence, and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to dance. + 

Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm. + 

“You always dance. I have a protégée, the young Rostóva, here. Ask her,” he said. + 

“Where is she?” asked Bolkónski. “Excuse me!” he added, turning to the baron, “we will finish this conversation elsewhere⁠—at a ball one must dance.” He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated. The despairing, dejected expression of Natásha’s face caught his eye. He recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her début, remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostóva. + 

“Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess, with heightened color. + 

“I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess remembers me,” said Prince Andréy with a low and courteous bow quite belying Perónskaya’s remarks about his rudeness, and approaching Natásha he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed his invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on Natásha’s face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile. + 

“I have long been waiting for you,” that frightened happy little girl seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she raised her hand to Prince Andréy’s shoulder. They were the second couple to enter the circle. Prince Andréy was one of the best dancers of his day and Natásha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare arms and neck were not beautiful⁠—compared to Elèn’s her shoulders looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Elèn seemed, as it were, hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned her person, while Natásha was like a girl exposed for the first time, who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this was absolutely necessary. + 

Prince Andréy liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed to him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked, caused by the Emperor’s presence, he danced, and had chosen Natásha because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he felt himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood breathing deeply and watching the other dancers. + 

XVII + 

After Prince Andréy, Borís came up to ask Natásha for a dance, and then the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men, so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners to Sónya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and saw nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to notice that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador, and how particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Elèn had great success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, but she did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone because the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the merry cotillions before supper Prince Andréy was again her partner. He reminded her of their first encounter in the Otrádnoe avenue, and how she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he had involuntarily overheard her. Natásha blushed at that recollection and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be ashamed of in what Prince Andréy had overheard. + 

Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andréy liked meeting someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was Natásha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natásha, still out of breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately put her hand gaily on the man’s shoulder, smiling at Prince Andréy. + 

“I’d be glad to sit beside you and rest: I’m tired; but you see how they keep asking me, and I’m glad of it, I’m happy and I love everybody, and you and I understand it all,” and much, much more was said in her smile. When her partner left her Natásha ran across the room to choose two ladies for the figure. + 

“If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be my wife,” said Prince Andréy to himself quite to his own surprise, as he watched her. She did go first to her cousin. + 

“What rubbish sometimes enters one’s head!” thought Prince Andréy, “but what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original, that she won’t be dancing here a month before she will be married.⁠ ⁠… Such as she are rare here,” he thought, as Natásha, readjusting a rose that was slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him. + 

When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to the dancers. He invited Prince Andréy to come and see them, and asked his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natásha did not answer at once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: “How can you ask such a question?” + 

“I have never enjoyed myself so much before!” she said, and Prince Andréy noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her father and instantly dropped again. Natásha was happier than she had ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of evil, unhappiness, or sorrow. + 

At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position his wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absentminded. A deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared over his spectacles seeing no one. + 

On her way to supper Natásha passed him. + 

Pierre’s gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him. She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own happiness. + 

“How delightful it is, Count!” said she. “Isn’t it?” + 

Pierre smiled absentmindedly, evidently not grasping what she said. + 

“Yes, I am very glad,” he said. + 

“How can people be dissatisfied with anything?” thought Natásha. “Especially such a capital fellow as Bezúkhov!” In Natásha’s eyes all the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid people, loving one another; none of them capable of injuring another⁠—and so they ought all to be happy. + 

XVIII + 

Next day Prince Andréy thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell on it long. “Yes, it was a very brilliant ball,” and then⁠ ⁠… “Yes, that little Rostóva is very charming. There’s something fresh, original, un-Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her.” That was all he thought about yesterday’s ball, and after his morning tea he set to work. + 

But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming. + 

The visitor was Bítski, who served on various committees, frequented all the societies in Petersburg, and was a passionate devotee of the new ideas and of Speránski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger⁠—one of those men who choose their opinions like their clothes according to the fashion, but who for that very reason appear to be the warmest partisans. Hardly had he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince Andréy’s room with a preoccupied air and at once began talking. He had just heard particulars of that morning’s sitting of the Council of State opened by the Emperor, and he spoke of it enthusiastically. The Emperor’s speech had been extraordinary. It had been a speech such as only constitutional monarchs deliver. “The Sovereign plainly said that the Council and Senate are estates of the realm, he said that the government must rest not on authority but on secure bases. The Emperor said that the fiscal system must be reorganized and the accounts published,” recounted Bítski, emphasizing certain words and opening his eyes significantly. + 

“Ah, yes! Today’s events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our history,” he concluded. + 

Prince Andréy listened to the account of the opening of the Council of State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He listened with quiet irony to Bítski’s enthusiastic account of it. A very simple thought occurred to him: “What does it matter to me or to Bítski what the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that make me any happier or better?” + 

And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince Andréy had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that evening at Speránski’s, “with only a few friends,” as the host had said when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andréy, especially as he had not yet seen Speránski in his domestic surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it. + 

At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speránski owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room of this small house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a monastery), Prince Andréy, who was rather late, found the friendly gathering of Speránski’s intimate acquaintances already assembled at five o’clock. There were no ladies present except Speránski’s little daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other guests were Gervais, Magnítski, and Stolýpin. While still in the anteroom Prince Andréy heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh⁠—a laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone⁠—it sounded like Speránski⁠—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andréy had never before heard Speránski’s famous laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him. + 

He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two windows at a small table laid with hors-d’oeuvres. Speránski, wearing a gray swallowtail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His guests surrounded him. Magnítski, addressing himself to Speránski, was relating an anecdote, and Speránski was laughing in advance at what Magnítski was going to say. When Prince Andréy entered the room Magnítski’s words were again crowned by laughter. Stolýpin gave a deep bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais laughed softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speránski in a high-pitched staccato manner. + 

Still laughing, Speránski held out his soft white hand to Prince Andréy. + 

“Very pleased to see you, Prince,” he said. “One moment⁠ ⁠…” he went on, turning to Magnítski and interrupting his story. “We have agreed that this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about business!” and turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh. + 

Prince Andréy looked at the laughing Speránski with astonishment, regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not Speránski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared mysterious and fascinating in Speránski suddenly became plain and unattractive. + 

At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnítski had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state service, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored ridicule. Speránski related how at the Council that morning a deaf dignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too. Gervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the stupidity of everybody concerned. Stolýpin, stuttering, broke into the conversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed under the former order of things⁠—threatening to give a serious turn to the conversation. Magnítski starting quizzing Stolýpin about his vehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its former lively tone. + 

Evidently Speránski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement in a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried to enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince Andréy mirthless and tiresome. Speránski’s high-pitched voice struck him unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false note. Prince Andréy did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay. + 

He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could not jest with them. + 

There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed. + 

After dinner Speránski’s daughter and her governess rose. He patted the little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture, too, seemed unnatural to Prince Andréy. + 

The men remained at table over their port⁠—English fashion. In the midst of a conversation that was started about Napoleon’s Spanish affairs, which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andréy began to express a contrary opinion. Speránski smiled and, with an evident wish to prevent the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a story that had no connection with the previous conversation. For a few moments all were silent. + 

Having sat some time at table, Speránski corked a bottle of wine and, remarking, “Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair,” passed it to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to Speránski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly and quietly with one another. + 

“Now for the recitation!” said Speránski on returning from his study. “A wonderful talent!” he said to Prince Andréy, and Magnítski immediately assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French which he had composed about various well-known Petersburg people. He was interrupted several times by applause. When the verses were finished Prince Andréy went up to Speránski and took his leave. + 

“Where are you off to so early?” asked Speránski. + 

“I promised to go to a reception.” + 

They said no more. Prince Andréy looked closely into those mirrorlike, impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have expected anything from Speránski and from any of his own activities connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what Speránski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince Andréy’s ears long after he had left the house. + 

When he reached home Prince Andréy began thinking of his life in Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered how carefully and at what length everything relating to form and procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and promptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had translated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself Boguchárovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazán; he remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally applying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he felt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless work. + 

XIX + 

Next day Prince Andréy called at a few houses he had not visited before, and among them at the Rostóvs’ with whom he had renewed acquaintance at the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home. + 

Natásha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue house dress in which Prince Andréy thought her even prettier than in her ball dress. She and all the Rostóv family welcomed him as an old friend, simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly judged severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, and kindly people. The old count’s hospitality and good nature, which struck one especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such that Prince Andréy could not refuse to stay to dinner. “Yes,” he thought, “they are capital people, who of course have not the slightest idea what a treasure they possess in Natásha; but they are kindly folk and form the best possible setting for this strikingly poetic, charming girl, overflowing with life!” + 

In Natásha Prince Andréy was conscious of a strange world completely alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world, that in the Otrádnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night had already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it found in it a new enjoyment. + 

After dinner Natásha, at Prince Andréy’s request, went to the clavichord and began singing. Prince Andréy stood by a window talking to the ladies and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for him. He looked at Natásha as she sang, and something new and joyful stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad. He had absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What about? His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?⁠ ⁠… His hopes for the future?⁠ ⁠… Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden, vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable within him and that limited and material something that he, and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him while she sang. + 

As soon as Natásha had finished she went up to him and asked how he liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he liked her singing as he liked everything she did. + 

Prince Andréy left the Rostóvs’ late in the evening. He went to bed from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had stepped out of a stuffy room into God’s own fresh air. It did not enter his head that he was in love with Natásha; he was not thinking about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life appeared in a new light. “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?” said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend to his son’s education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see England, Switzerland and Italy. “I must use my freedom while I feel so much strength and youth in me,” he said to himself. “Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!” thought he. + 

XX + 

One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair. + 

“I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate with you,” he said with a smile. + 

“What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service.” + 

“I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count” (Berg said this with perfect conviction that this information could not but be agreeable), “and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own and my wife’s friends.” (He smiled still more pleasantly.) “I wished to ask the countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea and to supper.” + 

Only Countess Elèna Vasílievna, considering the society of such people as the Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation. Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared to run into some expense for the sake of good society⁠—that Pierre could not refuse, and promised to come. + 

“But don’t be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten minutes to eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He is very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will do me the favor.” + 

Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the Bergs’ house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight. + 

Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready for their guests’ arrival. + 

In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then does one get satisfaction from acquaintances. + 

“You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I managed from my first promotion.” (Berg measured his life not by years but by promotions.) “My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to be your husband.” (He rose and kissed Véra’s hand, and on the way to her straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) “And how have I obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my aquaintances. It goes without saying that one must be conscientious and methodical.” + 

Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man’s dignity, what it was ein Mann zu sein. Véra at the same time smiling with a sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the same understood life wrongly, as according to Véra all men did. Berg, judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Véra, judging only by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed that all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone. + 

Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the lips. + 

“The only thing is, we mustn’t have children too soon,” he continued, following an unconscious sequence of ideas. + 

“Yes,” answered Véra, “I don’t at all want that. We must live for society.” + 

“Princess Yusúpova wore one exactly like this,” said Berg, pointing to the fichu with a happy and kindly smile. + 

Just then Count Bezúkhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming the honor of this visit. + 

“This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances,” thought Berg. “This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself.” + 

“But please don’t interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests,” said Véra, “because I know what interests each of them and what to say to different people.” + 

Berg smiled again. + 

“It can’t be helped: men must sometimes have masculine conversation,” said he. + 

They received Pierre in their small, new drawing room, where it was impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry, neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle the question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a chair for himself, and Berg and Véra immediately began their evening party, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their guest. + 

Véra, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be entertained with conversation about the French embassy, at once began accordingly. Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was required, interrupted his wife’s remarks and touched on the question of the war with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general subject to personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take part in the Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them. Though the conversation was very incoherent and Véra was angry at the intrusion of the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with satisfaction that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had begun very well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party with its talk, tea, and lighted candles. + 

Before long Borís, Berg’s old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Véra. After Borís came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the Rostóvs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other evening parties. Berg and Véra could not repress their smiles of satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it, especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilyá Andréevich, who was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere else. + 

XXI + 

Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with Count Rostóv, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he happened to be directly facing Natásha, and was struck by a curious change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by her look of gentle indifference to everything around. + 

“What’s the matter with her?” thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking at him, made some reply to Borís who sat down beside her. After playing out a whole suit and to his partner’s delight taking five tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at Natásha. + 

“What has happened to her?” he asked himself with still greater surprise. + 

Prince Andréy was standing before her, saying something to her with a look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had again become what she had been at the ball. + 

Prince Andréy went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and youthful expression in his friend’s face. + 

Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with his back to Natásha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six rubbers he watched her and his friend. + 

“Something very important is happening between them,” thought Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and made him neglect the game. + 

After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing like that, and Pierre was released. Natásha on one side was talking with Sónya and Borís, and Véra with a subtle smile was saying something to Prince Andréy. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Véra, having noticed Prince Andréy’s attentions to Natásha, decided that at a party, a real evening party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Prince Andréy was alone, began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andréy to be, she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact. + 

When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Véra was being carried away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andréy seemed embarrassed, a thing that rarely happened with him. + 

“What do you think?” Véra was saying with an arch smile. “You are so discerning, Prince, and understand people’s characters so well at a glance. What do you think of Natáli? Could she be constant in her attachments? Could she, like other women” (Véra meant herself), “love a man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider true love. What do you think, Prince?” + 

“I know your sister too little,” replied Prince Andréy, with a sarcastic smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, “to be able to solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be,” he added, and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them. + 

“Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days,” continued Véra⁠—mentioning “our days” as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of “our days” and that human characteristics change with the times⁠—“in our days a girl has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted often stifles real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Nathalie is very susceptible.” This return to the subject of Natáli caused Prince Andréy to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Véra continued with a still more subtle smile: + 

“I think no one has been more courted than she,” she went on, “but till quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count,” she said to Pierre, “even our dear cousin Borís, who, between ourselves, was very far gone in the land of tenderness⁠ ⁠…” (alluding to a map of love much in vogue at that time). + 

Prince Andréy frowned and remained silent. + 

“You are friendly with Borís, aren’t you?” asked Véra. + 

“Yes, I know him.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natásha?” + 

“Oh, there was childish love?” suddenly asked Prince Andréy, blushing unexpectedly. + 

“Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. Don’t you think so?” + 

“Oh, undoubtedly!” said Prince Andréy, and with sudden and unnatural liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside. + 

“Well?” asked Pierre, seeing his friend’s strange animation with surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natásha as he rose. + 

“I must⁠ ⁠… I must have a talk with you,” said Prince Andréy. “You know that pair of women’s gloves?” (He referred to the Masonic gloves given to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he loved.) “I⁠ ⁠… but no, I will talk to you later on,” and with a strange light in his eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andréy approached Natásha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andréy asked her something and how she flushed as she replied. + 

But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on the affairs in Spain. + 

Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face. The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had seen. Everything was similar: the ladies’ subtle talk, the cards, the general raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it. + 

XXII + 

Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andréy dined with the Rostóvs and spent the rest of the day there. + 

Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andréy came, and without concealing it he tried to be with Natásha all day. Not only in the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natásha, but in the whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes at Prince Andréy when he talked to Natásha and timidly started some artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way. Sónya was afraid to leave Natásha and afraid of being in the way when she was with them. Natásha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andréy surprised her by his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could not bring himself to do so. + 

In the evening, when Prince Andréy had left, the countess went up to Natásha and whispered: “Well, what?” + 

“Mamma! For heaven’s sake don’t ask me anything now! One can’t talk about that,” said Natásha. + 

But all the same that night Natásha, now agitated and now frightened, lay a long time in her mother’s bed gazing straight before her. She told her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going abroad, asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he had asked her about Borís. + 

“But such a⁠ ⁠… such a⁠ ⁠… never happened to me before!” she said. “Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I’m with him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it’s the real thing? Yes? Mamma, are you asleep?” + 

“No, my love; I am frightened myself,” answered her mother. “Now go!” + 

“All the same I shan’t sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy! Mummy! such a thing never happened to me before,” she said, surprised and alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. “And could we ever have thought!⁠ ⁠…” + 

It seemed to Natásha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andréy at Otrádnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her. + 

“And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this! Already then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar.” + 

“What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them⁠ ⁠…” said her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andréy had written in Natásha’s album. + 

“Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?” + 

“Don’t, Natásha! Pray to God. ‘Marriages are made in heaven,’ ” said her mother. + 

“Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!” cried Natásha, shedding tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother. + 

At that very time Prince Andréy was sitting with Pierre and telling him of his love for Natásha and his firm resolve to make her his wife. + 

That day Countess Elèna Vasílievna had a reception at her house. The French ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of late become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and struck everyone by his preoccupied, absentminded, and morose air. + 

Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time the feeling he had noticed between his protégée Natásha and Prince Andréy accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position and his friend’s. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife, and about Natásha and Prince Andréy; and again everything seemed to him insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what? presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at Masonic labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward midnight, after he had left the countess’ apartments, he was sitting upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andréy. + 

“Ah, it’s you!” said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. “And I, you see, am hard at it.” He pointed to his manuscript book with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at their work. + 

Prince Andréy, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look, smiled at him with the egotism of joy. + 

“Well, dear heart,” said he, “I wanted to tell you about it yesterday and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it before. I am in love, my friend!” + 

Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on the sofa beside Prince Andréy. + 

“With Natásha Rostóva, yes?” said he. + 

“Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it, but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can’t live without her! But can she love me?⁠ ⁠… I am too old for her.⁠ ⁠… Why don’t you speak?” + 

“I? I? What did I tell you?” said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning to pace up and down the room. “I always thought it.⁠ ⁠… That girl is such a treasure⁠ ⁠… she is a rare girl.⁠ ⁠… My dear friend, I entreat you, don’t philosophize, don’t doubt, marry, marry, marry.⁠ ⁠… And I am sure there will not be a happier man than you.” + 

“But what of her?” + 

“She loves you.” + 

“Don’t talk rubbish⁠ ⁠…” said Prince Andréy, smiling and looking into Pierre’s eyes. + 

“She does, I know,” Pierre cried fiercely. + 

“But do listen,” returned Prince Andréy, holding him by the arm. “Do you know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone.” + 

“Well, go on, go on. I am very glad,” said Pierre, and his face really changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince Andréy. Prince Andréy seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite a new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not sacrifice his own happiness to his father’s caprice, and spoke of how he would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her, or would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that had mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of himself. + 

“I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of such love,” said Prince Andréy. “It is not at all the same feeling that I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Darkness and gloom,” reiterated Pierre: “yes, yes, I understand that.” + 

“I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake.” + 

“Yes, yes,” Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andréy’s lot appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own. + 

XXIII + 

Prince Andréy needed his father’s consent to his marriage, and to obtain this he started for the country next day. + 

His father received his son’s communication with external composure, but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already ending. “If only they would let me end my days as I want to,” thought the old man, “then they might do as they please.” With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter. + 

In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andréy was no longer as young as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. “Fourthly and finally,” the father said, looking ironically at his son, “I beg you to put it off for a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German tutor for Prince Nikoláy. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy⁠—as you please⁠—is still as great, marry! And that’s my last word on it. Mind, the last⁠ ⁠…” concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that nothing would make him alter his decision. + 

Prince Andréy saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or his fiancée’s, would not stand a year’s test, or that he (the old prince himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his father’s wish⁠—to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year. + 

Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostóvs, Prince Andréy returned to Petersburg. + 

Next day after her talk with her mother Natásha expected Bolkónski all day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same. Pierre did not come either and Natásha, not knowing that Prince Andréy had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself. + 

Three weeks passed in this way. Natásha had no desire to go out anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and pitying her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her misery. + 

Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why it is being punished. + 

The countess began to soothe Natásha, who after first listening to her mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her: + 

“Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think, and don’t want to think about it! He just came and then left off, left off.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went on quietly: + 

“And I don’t at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I have now become quite calm, quite calm.” + 

The day after this conversation Natásha put on the old dress which she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt cheerful. “What’s the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as it is,” she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror she glanced into it. “There, that’s me!” the expression of her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. “Well, and very nice too! I need nobody.” + 

A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood⁠—love of, and delight in, herself. “How charming that Natásha is!” she said again, speaking as some third, collective, male person. “Pretty, a good voice, young, and in nobody’s way if only they leave her in peace.” But however much they left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and immediately felt this. + 

In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, “At home?” and then footsteps were heard. Natásha was looking at the mirror, but did not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors. + 

Pale and agitated, Natásha ran into the drawing room. + 

“Mamma! Bolkónski has come!” she said. “Mamma, it is awful, it is unbearable! I don’t want⁠ ⁠… to be tormented? What am I to do?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Before the countess could answer, Prince Andréy entered the room with an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natásha his face brightened. He kissed the countess’ hand and Natásha’s, and sat down beside the sofa. + 

“It is long since we had the pleasure⁠ ⁠…” began the countess, but Prince Andréy interrupted her by answering her intended question, obviously in haste to say what he had to. + 

“I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my father’s. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only got back last night,” he said glancing at Natásha; “I want to have a talk with you, Countess,” he added after a moment’s pause. + 

The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply. + 

“I am at your disposal,” she murmured. + 

Natásha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so: something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared straight at Prince Andréy with wide-open eyes. + 

“At once? This instant!⁠ ⁠… No, it can’t be!” she thought. + 

Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided. + 

“Go, Natásha! I will call you,” said the countess in a whisper. + 

Natásha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andréy and at her mother and went out. + 

“I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,” said Prince Andréy. + 

The countess’ face flushed hotly, but she said nothing. + 

“Your offer⁠ ⁠…” she began at last sedately. He remained silent, looking into her eyes. “Your offer⁠ ⁠…” (she grew confused) “is agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband⁠ ⁠… I hope⁠ ⁠… but it will depend on her.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I will speak to her when I have your consent.⁠ ⁠… Do you give it to me?” said Prince Andréy. + 

“Yes,” replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. “I am sure my husband will consent,” said the countess, “but your father⁠ ⁠…” + 

“My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a year. And I wished to tell you of that,” said Prince Andréy. + 

“It is true that Natásha is still young, but⁠—so long as that?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“It is unavoidable,” said Prince Andréy with a sigh. + 

“I will send her to you,” said the countess, and left the room. + 

“Lord have mercy upon us!” she repeated while seeking her daughter. + 

Sónya said that Natásha was in her bedroom. Natásha was sitting on the bed, pale and dry-eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped up and flew to her. + 

“Well, Mamma?⁠ ⁠… Well?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand,” said the countess, coldly it seemed to Natásha. “Go⁠ ⁠… go,” said the mother, sadly and reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away. + 

Natásha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she came in and saw him she paused. “Is it possible that this stranger has now become everything to me?” she asked herself, and immediately answered, “Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the world.” Prince Andréy came up to her with downcast eyes. + 

“I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?” + 

He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of her face. Her face said: “Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know? Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?” + 

She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it. + 

“Do you love me?” + 

“Yes, yes!” Natásha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob. + 

“What is it? What’s the matter?” + 

“Oh, I am so happy!” she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she might, and then kissed him. + 

Prince Andréy held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious. + 

“Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?” asked Prince Andréy, still looking into her eyes. + 

“Is it possible that I⁠—the ‘chit of a girl,’ as everybody called me,” thought Natásha⁠—“is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?” + 

“No,” she replied, but she had not understood his question. + 

“Forgive me!” he said. “But you are so young, and I have already been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know yourself.” + 

Natásha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to take in the meaning of his words. + 

“Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,” continued Prince Andréy, “it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should you come to love⁠ ⁠…” said Prince Andréy with an unnatural smile. + 

“Why do you say that?” Natásha interrupted him. “You know that from the very day you first came to Otrádnoe I have loved you,” she cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth. + 

“In a year you will learn to know yourself.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“A whole year!” Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that the marriage was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a year?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Prince Andréy began to explain to her the reasons for this delay. Natásha did not hear him. + 

“And can’t it be helped?” she asked. Prince Andréy did not reply, but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision. + 

“It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!” Natásha suddenly cried, and again burst into sobs. “I shall die, waiting a year: it’s impossible, it’s awful!” She looked into her lover’s face and saw in it a look of commiseration and perplexity. + 

“No, no! I’ll do anything!” she said, suddenly checking her tears. “I am so happy.” + 

The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple their blessing. + 

From that day Prince Andréy began to frequent the Rostóvs’ as Natásha’s affianced lover. + 

XXIV + 

No betrothal ceremony took place and Natásha’s engagement to Bolkónski was not announced; Prince Andréy insisted on that. He said that as he was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole burden of it; that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but that he did not wish to bind Natásha and gave her perfect freedom. If after six months she felt that she did not love him she would have full right to reject him. Naturally neither Natásha nor her parents wished to hear of this, but Prince Andréy was firm. He came every day to the Rostóvs’, but did not behave to Natásha as an affianced lover: he did not use the familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand. After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andréy; he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natásha trained the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he only appeared to be different, but was really just like all of them, and that she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few days they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his presence pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He could talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the countess and Natásha, and about albums and fancywork with Sónya. Sometimes the household both among themselves and in his presence expressed their wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident omens there had been of it: Prince Andréy’s coming to Otrádnoe and their coming to Petersburg, and the likeness between Natásha and Prince Andréy which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andréy’s encounter with Nikoláy in 1805, and many other incidents betokening that it had to be. + 

In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and go away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely spoke of their future life. Prince Andréy was afraid and ashamed to speak of it. Natásha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince Andréy blushed, as he often did now⁠—Natásha particularly liked it in him⁠—and said that his son would not live with them. + 

“Why not?” asked Natásha in a frightened tone. + 

“I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides⁠ ⁠…” + 

“How I should have loved him!” said Natásha, immediately guessing his thought; “but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding fault with us.” + 

Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andréy, and ask his advice about Pétya’s education or Nikoláy’s service. The old countess sighed as she looked at them; Sónya was always getting frightened lest she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for leaving them alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andréy spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natásha listened to him with pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed attentively and scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity: “What does he look for in me? He is trying to discover something by looking at me! What if what he seeks in me is not there?” Sometimes she fell into one of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and then she particularly loved to hear and see how Prince Andréy laughed. He seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natásha would have been completely happy if the thought of the separation awaiting her and drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere thought of it made him turn pale and cold. + 

On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andréy brought with him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostóvs’ once since the ball. Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and Natásha sat down beside a little chess table with Sónya, thereby inviting Prince Andréy to come too. He did so. + 

“You have known Bezúkhov a long time?” he asked. “Do you like him?” + 

“Yes, he’s a dear, but very absurd.” + 

And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his absentmindedness, some of which had even been invented about him. + 

“Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natáli,” Prince Andréy said with sudden seriousness⁠—“I am going away and heaven knows what may happen. You may cease to⁠ ⁠… all right, I know I am not to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here⁠ ⁠…” + 

“What can happen?” + 

“Whatever trouble may come,” Prince Andréy continued, “I beg you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for advice and help! He is a most absentminded and absurd fellow, but he has a heart of gold.” + 

Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sónya, nor Prince Andréy himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on Natásha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day, dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed her hand for the last time. “Don’t go!” she said in a tone that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying now and then, “Oh, why did he go away?” + 

But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face. + 

XXV + 

During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nikoláy Andréevich Bolkónski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Márya who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Márya had two passions and consequently two joys⁠—her nephew, Nikolúshka, and religion⁠—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. “You want to make him”⁠—Nikólenka⁠—“into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andréy wants a son and not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Márya’s presence how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke about them. + 

He continually hurt Princess Márya’s feelings and tormented her, but it cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust? And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word “justice.” All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law⁠—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did. + 

During the winter Prince Andréy had come to Bald Hills and had been gay, gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Márya had known him for a long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with his father about something, and Princess Márya noticed that before his departure they were dissatisfied with one another. + 

Soon after Prince Andréy had gone, Princess Márya wrote to her friend Julie Karágina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream) of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her own brother, killed in Turkey. + 

Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie. + 

Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can⁠—I will not say comfort us⁠—but save us from despair. Religion alone can explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life⁠—not merely harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others⁠—are called away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I saw, and one I shall never forget⁠—that of my dear sister-in-law⁠—left that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had to die, so I asked why that angel Liza, who not only never wronged anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother’s duties. As a young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so as a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince Andréy, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you of the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not a single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for our good. + 

You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is this: my father’s health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but from my father’s remarks and his talks with Mikháil Ivánovich I know all that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred on Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow; for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will be decided very shortly. + 

Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andréy’s absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me, that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active, cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as that you write about⁠—I mean the report of my brother’s betrothal to the little Rostóva. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andréy. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Goodbye, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses. + 

XXVI + 

In the middle of the summer Princess Márya received an unexpected letter from Prince Andréy in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natásha Rostóva. The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Márya should ask her father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt of his displeasure without attaining her object. “Besides,” he wrote, “the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and always shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months.” + 

After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Márya gave the letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly: + 

“Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.⁠ ⁠… It won’t be long⁠—I shall soon set him free.” + 

The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak and, raising his voice more and more, cried: + 

“Marry, marry, my boy!⁠ ⁠… A good family!⁠ ⁠… Clever people, eh? Rich, eh? Yes, a nice stepmother Nikolúshka will have! Write and tell him that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be Nikolúshka’s stepmother and I’ll marry Bourienne!⁠ ⁠… Ha, ha, ha! He mustn’t be without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in my house⁠—let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and live with him too?” he added, turning to Princess Márya. “Go in heaven’s name! Go out into the frost⁠ ⁠… the frost⁠ ⁠… the frost!” + 

After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter. But repressed vexation at his son’s poor-spirited behavior found expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for irony a fresh one was now added⁠—allusions to stepmothers and amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne. + 

“Why shouldn’t I marry her?” he asked his daughter. “She’ll make a splendid princess!” + 

And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Márya noticed that her father was really associating more and more with the Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andréy about the reception of his letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the idea. + 

Nikolúshka and his education, her brother André, and religion were Princess Márya’s joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Márya in the profoundest depths of her heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation of her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God’s folk⁠—the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the prince’s knowledge. The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder at the shortsightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to obtain that impossible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andréy had loved his wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness to another woman. Her father objected to this because he wanted a more distinguished and wealthier match for Andréy. And they all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it. “How is it that no one realizes this?” thought Princess Márya. “No one except these despised God’s folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back door, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by him but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and all the cares of worldly welfare, in order without clinging to anything to wander in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing no one any harm but praying for all⁠—for those who drive one away as well as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth there is no life or truth!” + 

There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called Fëdosyushka, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn heavy chains. Princess Márya was particularly fond of her. Once, when in a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Fëdosyushka was talking of her life, the thought that Fëdosyushka alone had found the true path of life suddenly came to Princess Márya with such force that she resolved to become a pilgrim herself. When Fëdosyushka had gone to sleep Princess Márya thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that, strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akínfi, the monk, and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the pilgrims, Princess Márya prepared a pilgrim’s complete costume for herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief. Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure, Princess Márya paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to put her project into execution. + 

Often, listening to the pilgrims’ tales, she was so stimulated by their simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning, that several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and running away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself by Fëdosyushka’s side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a wallet on her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from one saint’s shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and reaching at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but eternal joy and bliss. + 

“I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till my legs fail, and I’ll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor sighing⁠ ⁠…” thought Princess Márya. + 

But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko (Nikolúshka), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God. + 

Part + 

VI + 

1810⁠—11 + 

I + 

The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor⁠—idleness⁠—was a condition of the first man’s blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man’s primitive blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is the lot of a whole class⁠—the military. The chief attraction of military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and irreproachable idleness. + 

Nikoláy Rostóv experienced this blissful condition to the full when, after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pávlograd regiment, in which he already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denísov. + 

Rostóv had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come back to gladden and comfort his old parents. + 

Reading these letters, Nikoláy felt a dread of their wanting to take him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that sooner or later he would have to reenter that whirlpool of life, with its embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts with stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with Sónya’s love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult and complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters in French, beginning: “My dear Mamma,” and ending: “Your obedient son,” which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received letters from his parents, in which they told him of Natásha’s engagement to Bolkónski, and that the wedding would be in a year’s time because the old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified Nikoláy. In the first place he was sorry that Natásha, for whom he cared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to the home; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not to have been there to show that fellow Bolkónski that connection with him was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natásha he might dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natásha before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations about Sónya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nikoláy again put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from his mother, written without his father’s knowledge, and that letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mítenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him and things were going from bad to worse. “For God’s sake, I implore you, come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole family wretched,” wrote the countess. + 

This letter touched Nikoláy. He had that common sense of a matter-of-fact man which showed him what he ought to do. + 

The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrúshka (Denísov’s servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would go away without having heard from the staff⁠—and this interested him extremely⁠—whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostóv had betted he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the Uhlans who had given one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place without him⁠—he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he obtained his leave. His hussar comrades⁠—not only those of his own regiment, but the whole brigade⁠—gave Rostóv a dinner to which the subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two bands and two choirs of singers. Rostóv danced the Trepák with Major Básov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostóv; the soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted “hurrah!” and then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first post station. + 

During the first half of the journey⁠—from Kremenchúg to Kiev⁠—all Rostóv’s thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his three roans and Dozhoyvéyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously how things would be at Otrádnoe and what he would find there. Thoughts of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it⁠—far stronger, as though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which the force of attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. At the last post station before Otrádnoe he gave the driver a three-ruble tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of his home. + 

After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied expectation⁠—the feeling that “everything is just the same, so why did I hurry?”⁠—Nikoláy began to settle down in his old home world. His father and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to be, and which, as Nikoláy soon found out, was due to the bad state of their affairs. Sónya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier and promised nothing more than she was already, but that was enough. She exhaled happiness and love from the time Nikoláy returned, and the faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him. Pétya and Natásha surprised Nikoláy most. Pétya was a big handsome boy of thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice that was already breaking. As for Natásha, for a long while Nikoláy wondered and laughed whenever he looked at her. + 

“You’re not the same at all,” he said. + 

“How? Am I uglier?” + 

“On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!” he whispered to her. + 

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Natásha, joyfully. + 

She told him about her romance with Prince Andréy and of his visit to Otrádnoe and showed him his last letter. + 

“Well, are you glad?” Natásha asked. “I am so tranquil and happy now.” + 

“Very glad,” answered Nikoláy. “He is an excellent fellow.⁠ ⁠… And are you very much in love?” + 

“How shall I put it?” replied Natásha. “I was in love with Borís, with my teacher, and with Denísov, but this is quite different. I feel at peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am calm and contented now. Not at all as before.” + 

Nikoláy expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage for a year; but Natásha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing to enter a family against the father’s will, and that she herself wished it so. + 

“You don’t at all understand,” she said. + 

Nikoláy was silent and agreed with her. + 

Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at all like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was even-tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed Nikoláy and even made him regard Bolkónski’s courtship skeptically. He could not believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with Prince Andréy. It always seemed to him that there was something not quite right about this intended marriage. + 

“Why this delay? Why no betrothal?” he thought. Once, when he had touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too had doubts about this marriage. + 

“You see he writes,” said she, showing her son a letter of Prince Andréy’s, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a daughter’s future married happiness, “he writes that he won’t come before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health is very delicate. Don’t tell Natásha. And don’t attach importance to her being so bright: that’s because she’s living through the last days of her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive a letter from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!” (She always ended with these words.) “He is an excellent man!” + 

II + 

After reaching home Nikoláy was at first serious and even dull. He was worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he was going, to Mítenka’s lodge and demanded an account of everything. But what an account of everything might be Nikoláy knew even less than the frightened and bewildered Mítenka. The conversation and the examination of the accounts with Mítenka did not last long. The village elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in the passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count’s voice roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other. + 

“Robber!⁠ ⁠… Ungrateful wretch!⁠ ⁠… I’ll hack the dog to pieces! I’m not my father!⁠ ⁠… Robbing us!⁠ ⁠…” and so on. + 

Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mítenka out by the scruff of the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility at convenient moments between the words, shouting, “Be off! Never let me see your face here again, you villain!” + 

Mítenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits at Otrádnoe. Mítenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used to hide there, and many of the residents at Otrádnoe, hiding from Mítenka, knew of its protective qualities.) + 

Mítenka’s wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and where the steward’s high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt. + 

The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by with resolute strides and went into the house. + 

The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another. + 

Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed smile, said to him: + 

“But you know, my dear boy, it’s a pity you got excited! Mítenka has told me all about it.” + 

“I knew,” thought Nikoláy, “that I should never understand anything in this crazy world.” + 

“You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they were carried forward⁠—and you did not look at the other page.” + 

“Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have done, I have done; but, if you like, I won’t speak to him again.” + 

“No, my dear boy” (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had mismanaged his wife’s property and was to blame toward his children, but he did not know how to remedy it). “No, I beg you to attend to the business. I am old. I⁠ ⁠…” + 

“No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I understand it all less than you do.” + 

“Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings forward from page to page,” he thought. “I used to understand what a ‘corner’ and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another page I don’t understand at all,” said he to himself, and after that he did not meddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikháylovna for two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with it. + 

“This,” answered Nikoláy. “You say it rests with me. Well, I don’t like Anna Mikháylovna and I don’t like Borís, but they were our friends and poor. Well then, this!” and he tore up the note, and by so doing caused the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostóv took no further part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit⁠—the chase⁠—for which his father kept a large establishment. + 

III + 

The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young sportsman Rostóv had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were so jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a three days’ rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an undisturbed litter of wolf cubs. + 

All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw. On the fifteenth, when young Rostóv, in his dressing gown, looked out of the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any wind. The only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in the kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist. Nikoláy went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of decaying leaves and of dog. Mílka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched bitch with prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched her hind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and licked him right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching sight of his master from the garden path, arched his back and, rushing headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing himself against his legs. + 

“O-hoy!” came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman’s call which unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner came Danílo the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not offensive to his master. Nikoláy knew that this Danílo, disdainful of everybody and who considered himself above them, was all the same his serf and huntsman. + 

“Danílo!” Nikoláy said timidly, conscious at the sight of the weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away by that irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his previous resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress. + 

“What orders, your excellency?” said the huntsman in his deep bass, deep as a proto-deacon’s and hoarse with hallooing⁠—and two flashing black eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent. “Can you resist it?” those eyes seemed to be asking. + 

“It’s a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?” asked Nikoláy, scratching Mílka behind the ears. + 

Danílo did not answer, but winked instead. + 

“I sent Uvárka at dawn to listen,” his bass boomed out after a minute’s pause. “He says she’s moved them into the Otrádnoe enclosure. They were howling there.” (This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otrádnoe copse, a small place a mile and a half from the house.) + 

“We ought to go, don’t you think so?” said Nikoláy. “Come to me with Uvárka.” + 

“As you please.” + 

“Then put off feeding them.” + 

“Yes, sir.” + 

Five minutes later Danílo and Uvárka were standing in Nikoláy’s big study. Though Danílo was not a big man, to see him in a room was like seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and surroundings of human life. Danílo himself felt this, and as usual stood just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of breaking something in the master’s apartment, and he hastened to say all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the open under the sky once more. + 

Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Danílo an opinion that the hounds were fit (Danílo himself wished to go hunting), Nikoláy ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Danílo was about to go Natásha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or finished dressing and with her old nurse’s big shawl wrapped round her. Pétya ran in at the same time. + 

“You are going?” asked Natásha. “I knew you would! Sónya said you wouldn’t go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you couldn’t help going.” + 

“Yes, we are going,” replied Nikoláy reluctantly, for today, as he intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natásha and Pétya. “We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you.” + 

“You know it is my greatest pleasure,” said Natásha. “It’s not fair; you are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said nothing to us about it.” + 

“ ‘No barrier bars a Russian’s path’⁠—we’ll go!” shouted Pétya. + 

“But you can’t. Mamma said you mustn’t,” said Nikoláy to Natásha. + 

“Yes, I’ll go. I shall certainly go,” said Natásha decisively. “Danílo, tell them to saddle for us, and Mikháilo must come with my dogs,” she added to the huntsman. + 

It seemed to Danílo irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business, careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young lady. + 

IV + 

The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment but had now handed it all completely over to his son’s care, being in very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out with the others. + 

In an hour’s time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nikoláy, with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for attending to trifles, went past Natásha and Pétya who were trying to tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his chestnut Donéts, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otrádnoe wood. The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyánka, was led by the groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a small trap straight to a spot reserved for him. + 

They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and thirty dogs and twenty horsemen. + 

Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk, along the road and field leading to the Otrádnoe covert. + 

The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air was still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling hound could be heard. + 

When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with dogs appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostóvs. In front rode a fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache. + 

“Good morning, Uncle!” said Nikoláy, when the old man drew near. + 

“That’s it. Come on!⁠ ⁠… I was sure of it,” began “Uncle.” (He was a distant relative of the Rostóvs’, a man of small means, and their neighbor.) “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it and it’s a good thing you’re going. That’s it! Come on!” (This was “Uncle’s” favorite expression.) “Take the covert at once, for my Gírchik says the Ilágins are at Kornikí with their hounds. That’s it. Come on!⁠ ⁠… They’ll take the cubs from under your very nose.” + 

“That’s where I’m going. Shall we join up our packs?” asked Nikoláy. + 

The hounds were joined into one pack, and “Uncle” and Nikoláy rode on side by side. Natásha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Pétya who always kept close to her, by Mikháilo, a huntsman, and by a groom appointed to look after her. Pétya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled at his horse. Natásha sat easily and confidently on her black Arábchik and reined him in without effort with a firm hand. + 

“Uncle” looked round disapprovingly at Pétya and Natásha. He did not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting. + 

“Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!” shouted Pétya. + 

“Good morning, good morning! But don’t go overriding the hounds,” said “Uncle” sternly. + 

“Nikólenka, what a fine dog Truníla is! He knew me,” said Natásha, referring to her favorite hound. + 

“In the first place, Truníla is not a ‘dog,’ but a harrier,” thought Nikoláy, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natásha understood it. + 

“You mustn’t think we’ll be in anyone’s way, Uncle,” she said. “We’ll go to our places and won’t budge.” + 

“A good thing too, little countess,” said “Uncle,” “only mind you don’t fall off your horse,” he added, “because⁠—that’s it, come on!⁠—you’ve nothing to hold on to.” + 

The oasis of the Otrádnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off, the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostóv, having finally settled with “Uncle” where they should set on the hounds, and having shown Natásha where she was to stand⁠—a spot where nothing could possibly run out⁠—went round above the ravine. + 

“Well, nephew, you’re going for a big wolf,” said “Uncle.” “Mind and don’t let her slip!” + 

“That’s as may happen,” answered Rostóv. “Karáy, here!” he shouted, answering “Uncle’s” remark by this call to his borzoi. Karáy was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a big wolf unaided. They all took up their places. + 

The old count, knowing his son’s ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not to be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count Ilyá Andréevich, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him, where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed, and comfortable horse, Viflyánka, which was turning gray, like himself. His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilyá Andréevich, though not at heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to the bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins, settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked about with a smile. + 

Beside him was Semën Chekmár, his personal attendant, an old horseman now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmár held in leash three formidable wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along the edge of the wood stood Mítka, the count’s other groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux. + 

He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle, wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an outing. + 

The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmár, having got everything ready, kept glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman’s cloak, with a tall peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman’s name, Nastásya Ivánovna. + 

“Well, Nastásya Ivánovna!” whispered the count, winking at him. “If you scare away the beast, Danílo’ll give it you!” + 

“I know a thing or two myself!” said Nastásya Ivánovna. + 

“Hush!” whispered the count and turned to Semën. “Have you seen the young countess?” he asked. “Where is she?” + 

“With Pyotr Ilýnich, by the Zhárov rank grass,” answered Semën, smiling. “Though she’s a lady, she’s very fond of hunting.” + 

“And you’re surprised at the way she rides, Semën, eh?” said the count. “She’s as good as many a man!” + 

“Of course! It’s marvelous. So bold, so easy!” + 

“And Nikolásha? Where is he? By the Lyádov upland, isn’t he?” + 

“Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well that Danílo and I are often quite astounded,” said Semën, well knowing what would please his master. + 

“Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?” + 

“A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the Zavárzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight when they rushed from the covert⁠ ⁠… the horse worth a thousand rubles and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to find another as smart.” + 

“To search far⁠ ⁠…” repeated the count, evidently sorry Semën had not said more. “To search far,” he said, turning back the skirt of his coat to get at his snuffbox. + 

“The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Mikháil Sidórych⁠ ⁠…” Semën did not finish, for on the still air he had distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning finger at his master. “They are on the scent of the cubs⁠ ⁠…” he whispered, “straight to the Lyádov uplands.” + 

The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds came the deep tones of the wolf call from Danílo’s hunting horn; the pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry, with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Danílo’s voice, now a deep bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and carried far beyond out into the open field. + 

After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it was with this that Danílo’s voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming more distant. + 

Semën sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand, opened it and took a pinch. “Back!” cried Semën to a borzoi that was pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the snuffbox. Nastásya Ivánovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and Semën were looking at him. + 

Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Danílo ulyulyuing were just in front of them. + 

The count turned and saw on his right Mítka staring at him with eyes starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the other side. + 

“Look out!” he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped toward the count. + 

The count and Semën galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet lope farther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the horses’ feet at the wolf. + 

The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly, like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel bushes parted behind the hounds and Danílo’s chestnut horse appeared, dark with sweat. On its long back sat Danílo, hunched forward, capless, his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face. + 

“Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!⁠ ⁠…” he cried. When he caught sight of the count his eyes flashed lightning. + 

“Blast you!” he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the count. + 

“You’ve let the wolf go!⁠ ⁠… What sportsmen!” and as if scorning to say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Semën’s sympathy for his plight. But Semën was no longer there. He was galloping round by the bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so. + 

V + 

Nikoláy Rostóv meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. By the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs whose notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and from what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God that the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement arising from trivial causes. “What would it be to Thee to do this for me?” he said to God. “I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask this of Thee, but for God’s sake do let the old wolf come my way and let Karáy spring at it⁠—in sight of ‘Uncle’ who is watching from over there⁠—and seize it by the throat in a death grip!” A thousand times during that half-hour Rostóv cast eager and restless glances over the edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and “Uncle’s” cap just visible above the bush on his right. + 

“No, I shan’t have such luck,” thought Rostóv, “yet what wouldn’t it be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always unlucky.” Memories of Austerlitz and of Dólokhov flashed rapidly and clearly through his mind. “Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I want only that!” thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the left and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of note in the cries of the dogs. + 

Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across the deserted field. “No, it can’t be!” thought Rostóv, taking a deep breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The height of happiness was reached⁠—and so simply, without warning, or noise, or display, that Rostóv could not believe his eyes and remained in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no one saw her. Rostóv, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois. They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation. Old Karáy had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas, baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs. + 

“Ulyulyulyu!” whispered Rostóv, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karáy finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down. + 

“Shall I loose them or not?” Nikoláy asked himself as the wolf approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf’s whole physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never seen before⁠—human eyes fixed upon her⁠—and turning her head a little toward Rostóv, she paused. + 

“Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward⁠ ⁠…” the wolf seemed to say to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope. + 

“Ulyulyu!” cried Nikoláy, in a voice not his own, and of its own accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to head off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still. Nikoláy did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor see the borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the wolf, who, increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along the hollow. The first to come into view was Mílka, with her black markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and nearer⁠ ⁠… now she was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face her, and instead of putting on speed as she usually did Mílka suddenly raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs. + 

“Ulyulyulyulyu!” shouted Nikoláy. + 

The reddish Lyubím rushed forward from behind Mílka, sprang impetuously at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but immediately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, and again rose and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a couple of feet by all the borzois, who did not get any closer to her. + 

“She’ll get away! No, it’s impossible!” thought Nikoláy, still shouting with a hoarse voice. + 

“Karáy, ulyulyu!⁠ ⁠…” he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi who was now his only hope. Karáy, with all the strength age had left him, stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped heavily aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf’s lope and the borzoi’s slower pace made it plain that Karáy had miscalculated. Nikoláy could already see not far in front of him the wood where the wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But, coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost straight at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one Nikoláy did not know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the wolf from in front and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped up more quickly than anyone could have expected and, gnashing her teeth, flew at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell with its head on the ground, bleeding from a gash in its side. + 

“Karáy? Old fellow!⁠ ⁠…” wailed Nikoláy. + 

Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf’s path, the old dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karáy, tucked her tail yet further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here Nikoláy only saw that something happened to Karáy⁠—the borzoi was suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in front of them. + 

That instant, when Nikoláy saw the wolf struggling in the gully with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears laid back (Karáy was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the gully. She clicked her teeth (Karáy no longer had her by the throat), leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karáy, his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with difficulty out of the gully. + 

“Oh my God! Why?” Nikoláy cried in despair. + 

“Uncle’s” huntsman was galloping from the other side across the wolf’s path and his borzois once more stopped the animal’s advance. She was again hemmed in. + 

Nikoláy and his attendant, with “Uncle” and his huntsman, were all riding round the wolf, crying “ulyulyu!” shouting and preparing to dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she would be safe. + 

Already, at the beginning of this chase, Danílo, hearing the ulyulyuing, had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karáy seize the wolf, and checked his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for safety, Danílo set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight toward the wood, just as Karáy had run to cut the animal off. As a result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been stopped a second time by “Uncle’s” borzois. + 

Danílo galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if it were a flail. + 

Nikoláy neither saw nor heard Danílo until the chestnut, breathing heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Danílo lying on the wolf’s back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Danílo rose a little, took a step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on the wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nikoláy was about to stab her, but Danílo whispered, “Don’t! We’ll gag her!” and, changing his position, set his foot on the wolf’s neck. A stick was thrust between her jaws and she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were bound together, and Danílo rolled her over once or twice from side to side. + 

With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws, gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly yet simply at everybody. Count Ilyá Andréevich also rode up and touched the wolf. + 

“Oh, what a formidable one!” said he. “A formidable one, eh?” he asked Danílo, who was standing near. + 

“Yes, your excellency,” answered Danílo, quickly doffing his cap. + 

The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with Danílo. + 

“Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!” said the count. + 

For sole reply Danílo gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable smile. + 

VI + 

The old count went home, and Natásha and Pétya promised to return very soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees. Nikoláy standing in a fallow field could see all his whips. + 

Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed before Nikoláy heard one he knew, Voltórn, giving tongue at intervals; other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine toward the ryefield and away from Nikoláy. + 

He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself at any moment on the ryefield opposite. + 

The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and Nikoláy saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard across the field. The borzois bore down on it.⁠ ⁠… Now they drew close to the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat. + 

“What’s this?” thought Nikoláy. “Where’s that huntsman from? He is not ‘Uncle’s’ man.” + 

The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight. + 

“That’s Ilágin’s huntsman having a row with our Iván,” said Nikoláy’s groom. + 

Nikoláy sent the man to call Natásha and Pétya to him, and rode at a footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together. Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on. + 

Nikoláy dismounted, and with Natásha and Pétya, who had ridden up, stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black, but he probably was not even aware of it. + 

“What has happened?” asked Nikoláy. + 

“A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!⁠ ⁠… He snatches at the fox! I gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste of this?⁠ ⁠…” said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably imagining himself still speaking to his foe. + 

Nikoláy, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Pétya to wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy’s, Ilágin’s, hunting party was. + 

The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there, surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits. + 

The facts were that Ilágin, with whom the Rostóvs had a quarrel and were at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostóvs, and had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostóvs were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased. + 

Nikoláy, though he had never seen Ilágin, with his usual absence of moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his enemy. + 

Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in a beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse, accompanied by two hunt servants. + 

Instead of an enemy, Nikoláy found in Ilágin a stately and courteous gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count’s acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nikoláy, Ilágin raised his beaver cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else’s borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited him to draw his covert. + 

Natásha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly greetings, she rode up to them. Ilágin lifted his beaver cap still higher to Natásha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her beauty, of which he had heard much. + 

To expiate his huntsman’s offense, Ilágin pressed the Rostóvs to come to an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nikoláy agreed, and the hunt, now doubled, moved on. + 

The way to Iligin’s upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell into line. The masters rode together. “Uncle,” Rostóv, and Ilágin kept stealthily glancing at one another’s dogs, trying not to be observed by their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois. + 

Rostóv was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, purebred, red-spotted bitch on Ilágin’s leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness of Ilágin’s borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own Mílka. + 

In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilágin about the year’s harvest, Nikoláy pointed to the red-spotted bitch. + 

“A fine little bitch, that!” said he in a careless tone. “Is she swift?” + 

“That one? Yes, she’s a good dog, gets what she’s after,” answered Ilágin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erzá, for which, a year before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. “So in your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?” he went on, continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to return the young count’s compliment, Ilágin looked at his borzois and picked out Mílka who attracted his attention by her breadth. “That black-spotted one of yours is fine⁠—well shaped!” said he. + 

“Yes, she’s fast enough,” replied Nikoláy, and thought: “If only a full-grown hare would cross the field now I’d show you what sort of borzoi she is,” and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble to anyone who found a hare. + 

“I don’t understand,” continued Ilágin, “how some sportsmen can be so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy riding in company such as this⁠ ⁠… what could be better?” (he again raised his cap to Natásha) “but as for counting skins and what one takes, I don’t care about that.” + 

“Of course not!” + 

“Or being upset because someone else’s borzoi and not mine catches something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so, Count? For I consider that⁠ ⁠…” + 

“A-tu!” came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, “A-tu!” (This call and the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.) + 

“Ah, he has found one, I think,” said Ilágin carelessly. “Yes, we must ride up.⁠ ⁠… Shall we both course it?” answered Nikoláy, seeing in Erzá and “Uncle’s” red Rugáy two rivals he had never yet had a chance of pitting against his own borzois. “And suppose they outdo my Mílka at once!” he thought as he rode with “Uncle” and Ilágin toward the hare. + 

“A full-grown one?” asked Ilágin as he approached the whip who had sighted the hare⁠—and not without agitation he looked round and whistled to Erzá. + 

“And you, Mikháil Nikanórovich?” he said, addressing “Uncle.” + 

The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face. + 

“How can I join in? Why, you’ve given a village for each of your borzois! That’s it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours against one another, you two, and I’ll look on!” + 

“Rugáy, hey, hey!” he shouted. “Rugáyushka!” he added, involuntarily by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this red borzoi. Natásha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it. + 

The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately. + 

“How is it pointing?” asked Nikoláy, riding a hundred paces toward the whip who had sighted the hare. + 

But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt, who had been moving slowly, shouted, “Stop!” calling in the hounds, while the borzoi whips, with a cry of “A-tu!” galloped across the field setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilágin, Nikoláy, Natásha, and “Uncle” flew, reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even for an instant of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his ears listening to the shouting and trampling that resounded from all sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him, and, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble, but in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The two borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the nearest, were the first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far before Ilágin’s red-spotted Erzá passed them, got within a length, flew at the hare with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his back and bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erzá rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted Mílka and began rapidly gaining on the hare. + 

“Miláshka, dear!” rose Nikoláy’s triumphant cry. It looked as if Mílka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and flew past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erzá reached him, but when close to the hare’s scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg. + 

“Erzá, darling!” Ilágin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erzá did not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye and the stubble. Again Erzá and Mílka were abreast, running like a pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so quickly. + 

“Rugáy, Rugáyushka! That’s it, come on!” came a third voice just then, and “Uncle’s” red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only the delighted “Uncle” dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without himself knowing whom to or what about. “That’s it, come on! That’s a dog!⁠ ⁠… There, it has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as the one-ruble borzois. That’s it, come on!” said he, panting and looking wrathfully around as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies and had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in justifying himself. “There are your thousand-ruble ones.⁠ ⁠… That’s it, come on!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Rugáy, here’s a pad for you!” he said, throwing down the hare’s muddy pad. “You’ve deserved it, that’s it, come on!” + 

“She’d tired herself out, she’d run it down three times by herself,” said Nikoláy, also not listening to anyone and regardless of whether he were heard or not. + 

“But what is there in running across it like that?” said Ilágin’s groom. + 

“Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take it,” Ilágin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and his excitement. At the same moment Natásha, without drawing breath, screamed joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone’s ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by all talking at once, and it was so strange that she must herself have been ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have been amazed at it at any other time. “Uncle” himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly and smartly across his horse’s back as if by that gesture he meant to rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone, mounted his bay and rode off. The others all followed, dispirited and shamefaced, and only much later were they able to regain their former affectation of indifference. For a long time they continued to look at red Rugáy who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring of his leash, walked along just behind “Uncle’s” horse with the serene air of a conqueror. + 

“Well, I am like any other dog as long as it’s not a question of coursing. But when it is, then look out!” his appearance seemed to Nikoláy to be saying. + 

When, much later, “Uncle” rode up to Nikoláy and began talking to him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, “Uncle” deigned to speak to him. + 

VII + 

Toward evening Ilágin took leave of Nikoláy, who found that they were so far from home that he accepted “Uncle’s” offer that the hunting party should spend the night in his little village of Mikháylovna. + 

“And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That’s it, come on!” said “Uncle.” “You see it’s damp weather, and you could rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap.” + 

“Uncle’s” offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otrádnoe for a trap, while Nikoláy rode with Natásha and Pétya to “Uncle’s” house. + 

Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natásha⁠—a woman, a lady, and on horseback⁠—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what was said about her. + 

“Arínka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt dangles.⁠ ⁠… See, she’s got a little hunting horn!” + 

“Goodness gracious! See her knife?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Isn’t she a Tartar!” + 

“How is it you didn’t go head over heels?” asked the boldest of all, addressing Natásha directly. + 

“Uncle” dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to receive the guests and the visitors. + 

The serfs all dispersed. “Uncle” lifted Natásha off her horse and taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean⁠—it did not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless⁠—but neither was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about. + 

“Uncle” led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, of the host’s father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. “Uncle” asked his visitors to sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room. Rugáy, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be seen. From behind this came women’s laughter and whispers. Natásha, Nikoláy, and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Pétya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natásha and Nikoláy were silent. Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in the house, Nikoláy no longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority over his sister), Natásha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before they had a pretext ready to account for it. + 

After a while “Uncle” came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and small top boots. And Natásha felt that this costume, the very one she had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otrádnoe, was just the right thing and not at all worse than a swallowtail or frock coat. “Uncle” too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother’s and sister’s laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment. + 

“That’s right, young countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw anyone like her!” said he, offering Nikoláy a pipe with a long stem and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been cut short. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!” + 

Soon after “Uncle’s” reappearance the door was opened, evidently from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head, this woman (who was “Uncle’s” housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors d’oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her face. “Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her expression said to Rostóv. How could one help understanding? Not only Nikoláy, but even Natásha understood the meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when Anísya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves made with sugar. + 

All this was the fruit of Anísya Fëdorovna’s housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anísya Fëdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles. + 

“Take this, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, as she offered Natásha first one thing and then another. + 

Natásha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such a chicken anywhere. Anísya Fëdorovna left the room. + 

After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostóv and “Uncle” talked of past and future hunts, of Rugáy and Ilágin’s dogs, while Natásha sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several times to wake Pétya that he might eat something, but he only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natásha felt so lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one’s own house, “Uncle,” answering a thought that was in his visitors’ minds, said: + 

“This, you see, is how I am finishing my days⁠ ⁠… Death will come. That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?” + 

“Uncle’s” face was very significant and even handsome as he said this. Involuntarily Rostóv recalled all the good he had heard about him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province “Uncle” had the reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer. + 

“Why don’t you enter the service, Uncle?” + 

“I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That’s it, come on! I can’t make head or tail of it. That’s for you⁠—I haven’t brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter⁠—that’s it, come on! Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why have you shut it?” + 

The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen’s room, as they called the room for the hunt servants. + 

There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sounds of a balaláyka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was playing. Natásha had been listening to those strains for some time and now went out into the passage to hear better. + 

“That’s Mítka, my coachman.⁠ ⁠… I have got him a good balaláyka. I’m fond of it,” said “Uncle.” + 

It was the custom for Mítka to play the balaláyka in the huntsmen’s room when “Uncle” returned from the chase. “Uncle” was fond of such music. + 

“How good! Really very good!” said Nikoláy with some unintentional superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him very much. + 

“Very good?” said Natásha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s tone. “Not ‘very good’⁠—it’s simply delicious!” + 

Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment, seemed to her the acme of musical delight. + 

“More, please, more!” cried Natásha at the door as soon as the balaláyka ceased. Mítka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balaláyka to the air of “My Lady,” with trills and variations. “Uncle” sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was repeated a hundred times. The balaláyka was retuned several times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anísya Fëdorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost. + 

“You like listening?” she said to Natásha, with a smile extremely like “Uncle’s.” “That’s a good player of ours,” she added. + 

“He doesn’t play that part right!” said “Uncle” suddenly, with an energetic gesture. “Here he ought to burst out⁠—that’s it, come on!⁠—ought to burst out.” + 

“Do you play then?” asked Natásha. + 

“Uncle” did not answer, but smiled. + 

“Anísyushka, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven’t touched it for a long time. That’s it⁠—come on! I’ve given it up.” + 

Anísya Fëdorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her errand and brought back the guitar. + 

Without looking at anyone, “Uncle” blew the dust off it and, tapping the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at Anísya Fëdorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not “My Lady,” but the well-known song: “Came a maiden down the street.” The tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the hearts of Nikoláy and Natásha, arousing in them the same kind of sober mirth as radiated from Anísya Fëdorovna’s whole being. Anísya Fëdorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the room. “Uncle” continued to play correctly, carefully, with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression at the spot where Anísya Fëdorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap. + 

“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” shouted Natásha as soon as he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. “Nikólenka, Nikólenka!” she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: “What is it moves me so?” + 

Nikoláy too was greatly pleased by “Uncle’s” playing, and “Uncle” played the piece over again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces⁠ ⁠… + 

Fetching water clear and sweet, + 

Stop, dear maiden, I entreat⁠— + 

played “Uncle” once more, running his fingers skillfully over the strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders. + 

“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life depended on it. + 

“Uncle” rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance. + 

“Now then, niece!” he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that had just struck a chord. + 

Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face “Uncle,” and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her shoulders and struck an attitude. + 

Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an émigré French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit and obtained that manner which the pas de châle would, one would have supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that “Uncle” had expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized Nikoláy and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her. + 

She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision, that Anísya Fëdorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in Anísya and in Anísya’s father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian man and woman. + 

“Well, little countess; that’s it⁠—come on!” cried “Uncle,” with a joyous laugh, having finished the dance. “Well done, niece! Now a fine young fellow must be found as husband for you. That’s it⁠—come on!” + 

“He’s chosen already,” said Nikoláy smiling. + 

“Oh?” said “Uncle” in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natásha, who nodded her head with a happy smile. + 

“And such a one!” she said. But as soon as she had said it a new train of thoughts and feelings arose in her. “What did Nikoláy’s smile mean when he said ‘chosen already’? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he thought my Bolkónski would not approve of or understand our gaiety. But he would understand it all. Where is he now?” she thought, and her face suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a second. “Don’t dare to think about it,” she said to herself, and sat down again smilingly beside “Uncle,” begging him to play something more. + 

“Uncle” played another song and a valse; then after a pause he cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song: + 

As ’twas growing dark last night + 

Fell the snow so soft and light⁠ ⁠… + 

“Uncle” sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natásha was in ecstasies over “Uncle’s” singing. She resolved to give up learning the harp and to play only the guitar. She asked “Uncle” for his guitar and at once found the chords of the song. + 

After nine o’clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent to look for them, arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of the men. + 

Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two traps. Natásha and Nikoláy got into the other. “Uncle” wrapped Natásha up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed, so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride in front with lanterns. + 

“Goodbye, dear niece,” his voice called out of the darkness⁠—not the voice Natásha had known previously, but the one that had sung “As ’twas growing dark last night.” + 

In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a cheerful smell of smoke. + 

“What a darling Uncle is!” said Natásha, when they had come out onto the high road. + 

“Yes,” returned Nikoláy. “You’re not cold?” + 

“No. I’m quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!” answered Natásha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but only heard them splashing through the unseen mud. + 

What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she suddenly struck up the air of “As ’twas growing dark last night”⁠—the tune of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last caught. + 

“Got it?” said Nikoláy. + 

“What were you thinking about just now, Nikoláy?” inquired Natásha. + 

They were fond of asking one another that question. + 

“I?” said Nikoláy, trying to remember. “Well, you see, first I thought that Rugáy, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were a man he would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then for his manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don’t you think so?⁠ ⁠… Well, and you?” + 

“I? Wait a bit, wait.⁠ ⁠… Yes, first I thought that we are driving along and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows where we are really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and suddenly find that we are not in Otrádnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I thought⁠ ⁠… No, nothing else.” + 

“I know, I expect you thought of him,” said Nikoláy, smiling as Natásha knew by the sound of his voice. + 

“No,” said Natásha, though she had in reality been thinking about Prince Andréy at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would have liked “Uncle.” “And then I was saying to myself all the way, ‘How well Anísyushka carried herself, how well!’ ” And Nikoláy heard her spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. “And do you know,” she suddenly said, “I know that I shall never again be as happy and tranquil as I am now.” + 

“Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!” exclaimed Nikoláy, and he thought: “How charming this Natásha of mine is! I have no other friend like her and never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive about together!” + 

“What a darling this Nikoláy of mine is!” thought Natásha. + 

“Ah, there are still lights in the drawing room!” she said, pointing to the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety darkness of the night. + 

VIII + 

Count Ilyá Andréevich had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did not improve. Natásha and Nikoláy often noticed their parents conferring together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the fine ancestral Rostóv house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary to entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal, and life at Otrádnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the enormous house and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty sat down to table every day. These were all their own people who had settled down in the house almost as members of the family, or persons who were, it seemed, obliged to live in the count’s house. Such were Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belóva, an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as Pétya’s tutors, the girls’ former governess, and other people who simply found it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count’s house than at home. They had not as many visitors as before, but the old habits of life without which the count and countess could not conceive of existence remained unchanged. There was still the hunting establishment which Nikoláy had even enlarged, the same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents and dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the count’s games of whist and boston, at which⁠—spreading out his cards so that everybody could see them⁠—he let himself be plundered of hundreds of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to play a rubber with Count Ilyá Andréevich as a most profitable source of income. + 

The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count’s fault for he could not help being what he was⁠—that (though he tried to hide it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his children’s ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position. From her feminine point of view she could see only one solution, namely, for Nikoláy to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their last hope and that if Nikoláy refused the match she had found for him, she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match was with Julie Karágina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents, a girl the Rostóvs had known from childhood, and who had now become a wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers. + 

The countess had written direct to Julie’s mother in Moscow suggesting a marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from her. Karágina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and everything depend on her daughter’s inclination. She invited Nikoláy to come to Moscow. + 

Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl and tried to discover what he thought about marriage. + 

At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow during the holidays to amuse himself. Nikoláy guessed what his mother’s remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations induced her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie Karágina. + 

“But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you expect me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?” he asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only wishing to show his noble-mindedness. + 

“No, you have not understood me,” said his mother, not knowing how to justify herself. “You have not understood me, Nikólenka. It is your happiness I wish for,” she added, feeling that she was telling an untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry. + 

“Mamma, don’t cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I will give my life, anything, to put you at ease,” said Nikoláy. “I would sacrifice anything for you⁠—even my feelings.” + 

But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice for him. + 

“No, you have not understood me, don’t let us talk about it,” she replied, wiping away her tears. + 

“Maybe I do love a poor girl,” said Nikoláy to himself. “Am I to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could speak so to me. Because Sónya is poor I must not love her,” he thought, “must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always sacrifice my feelings for my family’s welfare,” he said to himself, “but I can’t coerce my feelings. If I love Sónya, that feeling is for me stronger and higher than all else.” + 

Nikoláy did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and the portionless Sónya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sónya, often pulling her up without reason, addressing her stiffly as “my dear,” and using the formal “you” instead of the intimate “thou” in speaking to her. The kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sónya because that poor, dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in love with Nikoláy, that there were no grounds for finding fault with her. + 

Nikoláy was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had come from Prince Andréy, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till the beginning of the new year. Natásha was still as much in love with her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone⁠—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved. + 

Things were not cheerful in the Rostóvs’ home. + 

IX + 

Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though the calm frost of twenty degrees Réaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day, and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special celebration of the season. + 

On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time of the day. Nikoláy, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning, was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his study. Sónya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastásya Ivánovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old ladies. Natásha came into the room, went up to Sónya, glanced at what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without speaking. + 

“Why are you wandering about like an outcast?” asked her mother. “What do you want?” + 

“Him⁠ ⁠… I want him⁠ ⁠… now, this minute! I want him!” said Natásha, with glittering eyes and no sign of a smile. + 

The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter. + 

“Don’t look at me, Mamma! Don’t look; I shall cry directly.” + 

“Sit down with me a little,” said the countess. + 

“Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?” + 

Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to hide them and left the room. + 

She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then went into the maids’ room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from the serfs’ quarters. + 

“Stop playing⁠—there’s a time for everything,” said the old woman. + 

“Let her alone, Kondrátevna,” said Natásha. “Go, Mavrúshka, go.” + 

Having released Mavrúshka, Natásha crossed the dancing hall and went to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing cards. They broke off and rose as she entered. + 

“What can I do with them?” thought Natásha. + 

“Oh, Nikíta, please go⁠ ⁠… where can I send him?⁠ ⁠… Yes, go to the yard and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats.” + 

“Just a few oats?” said Misha, cheerfully and readily. + 

“Go, go quickly,” the old man urged him. + 

“And you, Fëdor, get me a piece of chalk.” + 

On her way past the butler’s pantry she told them to set a samovar, though it was not at all the time for tea. + 

Fóka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natásha liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked whether the samovar was really wanted. + 

“Oh dear, what a young lady!” said Fóka, pretending to frown at Natásha. + 

No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as Natásha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one’s orders so readily as they did hers. “What can I do, where can I go?” thought she, as she went slowly along the passage. + 

“Nastásya Ivánovna, what sort of children shall I have?” she asked the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman’s jacket. + 

“Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers,” answered the buffoon. + 

“O Lord, O Lord, it’s always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am I to do with myself?” And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story. + 

Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natásha sat down, listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got up again. + 

“The island of Madagascar,” she said, “Ma‑da‑gas‑car,” she repeated, articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room. + 

Her brother Pétya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him he was preparing fireworks to let off that night. + 

“Pétya! Pétya!” she called to him. “Carry me downstairs.” + 

Pétya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her. + 

“No, don’t⁠ ⁠… the island of Madagascar!” she said, and jumping off his back she went downstairs. + 

Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natásha betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andréy. What she drew from the guitar would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her imagination a whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds. She sat behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light escaping from the pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She was in a mood for brooding on the past. + 

Sónya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natásha glanced at her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she remembered the light falling through that crack once before and Sónya passing with a glass in her hand. “Yes it was exactly the same,” thought Natásha. + 

“Sónya, what is this?” she cried, twanging a thick string. + 

“Oh, you are there!” said Sónya with a start, and came near and listened. “I don’t know. A storm?” she ventured timidly, afraid of being wrong. + 

“There! That’s just how she started and just how she came up smiling timidly when all this happened before,” thought Natásha, “and in just the same way I thought there was something lacking in her.” + 

“No, it’s the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!” and Natásha sang the air of the chorus so that Sónya should catch it. “Where were you going?” she asked. + 

“To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design.” + 

“You always find something to do, but I can’t,” said Natásha. “And where’s Nikólenka?” + 

“Asleep, I think.” + 

“Sónya, go and wake him,” said Natásha. “Tell him I want him to come and sing.” + 

She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was with him and he was looking at her with a lover’s eyes. + 

“Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be! And, worst of all, I am growing old⁠—that’s the thing! There won’t then be in me what there is now. But perhaps he’ll come today, will come immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it.” She rose, put down the guitar, and went to the drawing room. + 

All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already at the tea table. The servants stood round the table⁠—but Prince Andréy was not there and life was going on as before. + 

“Ah, here she is!” said the old count, when he saw Natásha enter. “Well, sit down by me.” But Natásha stayed by her mother and glanced round as if looking for something. + 

“Mamma!” she muttered, “give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly, quickly!” and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs. + 

She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the elders and Nikoláy, who had also come to the table. “My God, my God! The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the same way!” thought Natásha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the same. + 

After tea, Nikoláy, Sónya, and Natásha went to the sitting room, to their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began. + 

X + 

“Does it ever happen to you,” said Natásha to her brother, when they settled down in the sitting room, “does it ever happen to you to feel as if there were nothing more to come⁠—nothing; that everything good is past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?” + 

“I should think so!” he replied. “I have felt like that when everything was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come into my mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was music⁠ ⁠… and suddenly I felt so depressed⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!” Natásha interrupted him. “When I was quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat sobbing in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent⁠—that was the chief thing,” said Natásha. “Do you remember?” + 

“I remember,” answered Nikoláy. “I remember that I came to you afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give it to you. Do you remember?” + 

“And do you remember,” Natásha asked with a pensive smile, “how once, long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into the study⁠—that was in the old house⁠—and it was dark⁠—we went in and suddenly there stood⁠ ⁠…” + 

“A Negro,” chimed in Nikoláy with a smile of delight. “Of course I remember. Even now I don’t know whether there really was a Negro, or if we only dreamed it or were told about him.” + 

“He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked at us.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Sónya, do you remember?” asked Nikoláy. + 

“Yes, yes, I do remember something too,” Sónya answered timidly. + 

“You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro,” said Natásha, “and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you remember!” + 

“Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them.” + 

“How strange it is! It’s as if it were a dream! I like that.” + 

“And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real or not? Do you remember what fun it was?” + 

“Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in the porch?” + 

So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones⁠—those impressions of one’s most distant past in which dreams and realities blend⁠—and they laughed with quiet enjoyment. + 

Sónya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared the same reminiscences. + 

Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it. + 

She only really took part when they recalled Sónya’s first arrival. She told them how afraid she had been of Nikoláy because he had on a corded jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with cords. + 

“And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a cabbage,” said Natásha, “and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable.” + 

While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of the sitting room. + 

“They have brought the cock, Miss,” she said in a whisper. + 

“It isn’t wanted, Pólya. Tell them to take it away,” replied Natásha. + 

In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound. + 

“Eduárd Karlých, please play my favorite nocturne by Field,” came the old countess’ voice from the drawing room. + 

Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natásha, Nikoláy, and Sónya, remarked: “How quiet you young people are!” + 

“Yes, we’re philosophizing,” said Natásha, glancing round for a moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams. + 

Dimmler began to play; Natásha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table, took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently uncertain whether to stop or to play something else. + 

“Do you know,” said Natásha in a whisper, moving closer to Nikoláy and Sónya, “that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at last begins to remember what happened before one was in the world.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“That is metempsychosis,” said Sónya, who had always learned well, and remembered everything. “The Egyptians believed that our souls have lived in animals, and will go back into animals again.” + 

“No, I don’t believe we ever were in animals,” said Natásha, still in a whisper though the music had ceased. “But I am certain that we were angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we remember.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“May I join you?” said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat down by them. + 

“If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?” said Nikoláy. “No, that can’t be!” + 

“Not lower, who said we were lower?⁠ ⁠… How do I know what I was before?” Natásha rejoined with conviction. “The soul is immortal⁠—well then, if I shall always live I must have lived before, lived for a whole eternity.” + 

“Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity,” remarked Dimmler, who had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now spoke as quietly and seriously as they. + 

“Why is it hard to imagine eternity?” said Natásha. “It is now today, and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the day before.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Natásha! Now it’s your turn. Sing me something,” they heard the countess say. “Why are you sitting there like conspirators?” + 

“Mamma, I don’t at all want to,” replied Natásha, but all the same she rose. + 

None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but Natásha got up and Nikoláy sat down at the clavichord. Standing as usual in the middle of the hall and choosing the place where the resonance was best, Natásha began to sing her mother’s favorite song. + 

She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The count, from his study where he was talking to Mítenka, heard her and, like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mítenka stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nikoláy did not take his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sónya, as she listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She thought of Natásha and of her own youth, and of how there was something unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natásha and Prince Andréy. + 

Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with closed eyes. + 

“Ah, Countess,” he said at last, “that’s a European talent, she has nothing to learn⁠—what softness, tenderness, and strength.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!” said the countess, not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that Natásha had too much of something, and that because of this she would not be happy. Before Natásha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old Pétya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers had arrived. + 

Natásha stopped abruptly. + 

“Idiot!” she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long time. + 

“It’s nothing, Mamma, really it’s nothing; only Pétya startled me,” she said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still choked her. + 

The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks, innkeepers, and ladies⁠—frightening and funny⁠—bringing in with them the cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first timidly, into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed into the ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily and heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas games. The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom, smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had disappeared. + 

Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt⁠—this was Nikoláy. A Turkish girl was Pétya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natásha, and a Circassian was Sónya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows. + 

After the condescending surprise, non-recognition, and praise, from those who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere. + 

Nikoláy, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a dozen of the serf mummers and drive to “Uncle’s.” + 

“No, why disturb the old fellow?” said the countess. “Besides, you wouldn’t have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the Melyukóvs’.” + 

Melyukóva was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs. + 

“That’s right, my dear,” chimed in the old count, thoroughly aroused. “I’ll dress up at once and go with them. I’ll make Pashette open her eyes.” + 

But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if Luíza Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies might go to the Melyukóvs’, Sónya, generally so timid and shy, more urgently than anyone begging Luíza Ivánovna not to refuse. + 

Sónya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome, and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Luíza Ivánovna consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow, drove up to the porch. + 

Natásha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to one another, laughing, and shouting. + 

Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the old count’s with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as shaft horse, the fourth was Nikoláy’s own with a short shaggy black shaft horse. Nikoláy, in his old lady’s dress over which he had belted his hussar overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand. + 

It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof. + 

Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nikoláy’s sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya, into the old count’s, and the rest of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs. + 

“You go ahead, Zakhár!” shouted Nikoláy to his father’s coachman, wishing for a chance to race past him. + 

The old count’s troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward, squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar, and threw it up. + 

Nikoláy set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of the other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the frost-bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one after the other. + 

“A hare’s track, a lot of tracks!” rang out Natásha’s voice through the frost-bound air. + 

“How light it is, Nicolas!” came Sónya’s voice. + 

Nikoláy glanced round at Sónya, and bent down to see her face closer. Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up at him from her sable furs⁠—so close and yet so distant⁠—in the moonlight. + 

“That used to be Sónya,” thought he, and looked at her closer and smiled. + 

“What is it, Nicolas?” + 

“Nothing,” said he and turned again to the horses. + 

When they came out onto the beaten high road⁠—polished by sleigh runners and cut up by roughshod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the moonlight⁠—the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from side to side, moving his ears as if asking: “Isn’t it time to begin now?” In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhár could be clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers. + 

“Gee up, my darlings!” shouted Nikoláy, pulling the reins to one side and flourishing the whip. + 

It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the side horses who pulled harder⁠—ever increasing their gallop⁠—that one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nikoláy looked back. With screams, squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses to gallop⁠—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and ready to put on speed when required. + 

Nikoláy overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river. + 

“Where are we?” thought he. “It’s the Kosóy meadow, I suppose. But no⁠—this is something new I’ve never seen before. This isn’t the Kosóy meadow nor the Dëmkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! It is something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be⁠ ⁠…” And shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh. + 

Zakhár held back his horses and turned his face, which was already covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows. + 

Nikoláy gave the horses the rein, and Zakhár, stretching out his arms, clucked his tongue and let his horses go. + 

“Now, look out, master!” he cried. + 

Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved the feet of the galloping side horses. Nikoláy began to draw ahead. Zakhár, while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the reins. + 

“No you won’t, master!” he shouted. + 

Nikoláy put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhár. The horses showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh⁠—beside them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing. The whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls shrieking were heard from different sides. + 

Again checking his horses, Nikoláy looked around him. They were still surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with stars. + 

“Zakhár is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the left?” thought Nikoláy. “Are we getting to the Melyukóvs’? Is this Melyukóvka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows what is happening to us⁠—but it is very strange and pleasant whatever it is.” And he looked round in the sleigh. + 

“Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!” said one of the strange, pretty, unfamiliar people⁠—the one with fine eyebrows and mustache. + 

“I think this used to be Natásha,” thought Nikoláy, “and that was Madame Schoss, but perhaps it’s not, and this Circassian with the mustache I don’t know, but I love her.” + 

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked. + 

They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind shouted something⁠—probably something funny⁠—but they could not make out what he said. + 

“Yes, yes!” some voices answered, laughing. + 

“But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really Melyukóvka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and have come to Melyukóvka,” thought Nikoláy. + 

It really was Melyukóvka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came running, out to the porch carrying candles. + 

“Who is it?” asked someone in the porch. + 

“The mummers from the count’s. I know by the horses,” replied some voices. + 

XI + 

Pelagéya Danílovna Melyukóva, a broadly built, energetic woman wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and voices of new arrivals in the vestibule. + 

Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The clown⁠—Dimmler⁠—and the lady⁠—Nikoláy⁠—started a dance. Surrounded by the screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and disguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves about the room. + 

“Dear me! there’s no recognizing them! And Natásha! See whom she looks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Eduárd Karlých⁠—isn’t he good! I didn’t know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there’s a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonyúshka. And who is that? Well, you have cheered us up! Nikíta and Vanya⁠—clear away the tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!⁠ ⁠… The hussar, the hussar! Just like a boy! And the legs!⁠ ⁠… I can’t look at him⁠ ⁠…” different voices were saying. + 

Natásha, the young Melyukóvs’ favorite, disappeared with them into the back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukóvs joined the mummers. + 

Pelagéya Danílovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs, went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostóvs she failed to recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband’s dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on. + 

“And who is this?” she asked her governess, peering into the face of her own daughter dressed up as a Kazán-Tartar. “I suppose it is one of the Rostóvs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?” she asked Natásha. “Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!” she ordered the butler who was handing things round. “That’s not forbidden by his law.” + 

Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the dancers, who⁠—having decided once for all that being disguised, no one would recognize them⁠—were not at all shy, Pelagéya Danílovna hid her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter. + 

“My little Sásha! Look at Sásha!” she said. + 

After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelagéya Danílovna made the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together. + 

In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and merry faces. Pelagéya Danílovna began to recognize the mummers, admired their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the serfs had something served to them in the ballroom. + 

“Now to tell one’s fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!” said an old maid who lived with the Melyukóvs, during supper. + 

“Why?” said the eldest Melyukóv girl. + 

“You wouldn’t go, it takes courage.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I’ll go,” said Sónya. + 

“Tell what happened to the young lady!” said the second Melyukóv girl. + 

“Well,” began the old maid, “a young lady once went out, took a cock, laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a while, she suddenly hears someone coming⁠ ⁠… a sleigh drives up with harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a man, like an officer⁠—comes in and sits down to table with her.” + 

“Ah! ah!” screamed Natásha, rolling her eyes with horror. + 

“Yes? And how⁠ ⁠… did he speak?” + 

“Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Now, why frighten them?” said Pelagéya Danílovna. + 

“Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself⁠ ⁠…” said her daughter. + 

“And how does one do it in a barn?” inquired Sónya. + 

“Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what you hear; hammering and knocking⁠—that’s bad; but a sound of shifting grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too.” + 

“Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn.” + 

Pelagéya Danílovna smiled. + 

“Oh, I’ve forgotten⁠ ⁠…” she replied. “But none of you would go?” + 

“Yes, I will; Pelagéya Danílovna, let me! I’ll go,” said Sónya. + 

“Well, why not, if you’re not afraid?” + 

“Luíza Ivánovna, may I?” asked Sónya. + 

Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or talking as now, Nikoláy did not leave Sónya’s side, and gazed at her with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks to that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And really, that evening, Sónya was brighter, more animated, and prettier than Nikoláy had ever seen her before. + 

“So that’s what she is like; what a fool I have been!” he thought gazing at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous smile dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before. + 

“I’m not afraid of anything,” said Sónya. “May I go at once?” She got up. + 

They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen, and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and shoulders and glanced at Nikoláy. + 

“What a darling that girl is!” thought he. “And what have I been thinking of till now?” + 

Sónya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nikoláy went hastily to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people really had made the house stuffy. + 

Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was gay. + 

“I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?” thought Nikoláy, and running out from the porch he went round the corner of the house and along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sónya would pass that way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and across and along them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees fell on the snow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log walls of the barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out of some precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden snapped with the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His bosom seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and gladness. + 

From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard the voice of an old maidservant saying, “Straight, straight, along the path, Miss. Only, don’t look back.” + 

“I am not afraid,” answered Sónya’s voice, and along the path toward Nikoláy came the crunching, whistling sound of Sónya’s feet in her thin shoes. + 

Sónya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nikoláy she had known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman’s dress, with tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sónya. She ran rapidly toward him. + 

“Quite different and yet the same,” thought Nikoláy, looking at her face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sónya kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed them to his cheeks. + 

“Sónya!⁠ ⁠… Nicolas!”⁠ ⁠… was all they said. They ran to the barn and then back again, reentering, he by the front and she by the back porch. + 

XII + 

When they all drove back from Pelagéya Danílovna’s, Natásha, who always saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Luíza Ivánovna should go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sónya with Nikoláy and the maids. + 

On the way back Nikoláy drove at a steady pace instead of racing and kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sónya’s face and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and his present Sónya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again. He looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sónya, and being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss, inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in fairyland. + 

“Sónya, is it well with thee?” he asked from time to time. + 

“Yes!” she replied. “And with thee?” + 

When halfway home Nikoláy handed the reins to the coachman and ran for a moment to Natásha’s sleigh and stood on its wing. + 

“Natásha!” he whispered in French, “do you know I have made up my mind about Sónya?” + 

“Have you told her?” asked Natásha, suddenly beaming all over with joy. + 

“Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!⁠ ⁠… Natásha⁠—are you glad?” + 

“I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did not tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has, Nicolas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy while Sónya was not,” continued Natásha. “Now I am so glad! Well, run back to her.” + 

“No, wait a bit.⁠ ⁠… Oh, how funny you look!” cried Nikoláy, peering into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. “Natásha, it’s magical, isn’t it?” + 

“Yes,” she replied. “You have done splendidly.” + 

“Had I seen her before as she is now,” thought Nikoláy, “I should long ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me, and all would have been well.” + 

“So you are glad and I have done right?” + 

“Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it. Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of Sónya, for there is nothing but good in her.” + 

“Then it’s all right?” said Nikoláy, again scrutinizing the expression of his sister’s face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh. The same happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes looking up from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian was Sónya, and that Sónya was certainly his future happy and loving wife. + 

When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the evening at the Melyukóvs’, the girls went to their bedroom. When they had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how happy they would be. On Natásha’s table stood two looking glasses which Dunyásha had prepared beforehand. + 

“Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.⁠ ⁠… It would be too good!” said Natásha, rising and going to the looking glasses. + 

“Sit down, Natásha; perhaps you’ll see him,” said Sónya. + 

Natásha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking glasses, and sat down. + 

“I see someone with a mustache,” said Natásha, seeing her own face. + 

“You mustn’t laugh, Miss,” said Dunyásha. + 

With Sónya’s help and the maid’s, Natásha got the glass she held into the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andréy, in that last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing. She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses. + 

“Why is it others see things and I don’t?” she said. “You sit down now, Sónya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.⁠ ⁠… Today I feel so frightened!” + 

Sónya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began looking. + 

“Now, Sófya Alexándrovna is sure to see something,” whispered Dunyásha; “while you do nothing but laugh.” + 

Sónya heard this and Natásha’s whisper: + 

“I know she will. She saw something last year.” + 

For about three minutes all were silent. + 

“Of course she will!” whispered Natásha, but did not finish⁠ ⁠… suddenly Sónya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her eyes with her hand. + 

“Oh, Natásha!” she cried. + 

“Did you see? Did you? What was it?” exclaimed Natásha, holding up the looking glass. + 

Sónya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get up when she heard Natásha say, “Of course she will!” She did not wish to disappoint either Dunyásha or Natásha, but it was hard to sit still. She did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her when she covered her eyes. + 

“You saw him?” urged Natásha, seizing her hand. + 

“Yes. Wait a bit⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… saw him,” Sónya could not help saying, not yet knowing whom Natásha meant by him, Nikoláy or Prince Andréy. + 

“But why shouldn’t I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who can tell whether I saw anything or not?” flashed through Sónya’s mind. + 

“Yes, I saw him,” she said. + 

“How? Standing or lying?” + 

“No, I saw⁠ ⁠… At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down.” + 

“Andréy lying? Is he ill?” asked Natásha, her frightened eyes fixed on her friend. + 

“No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he turned to me.” And when saying this she herself fancied she had really seen what she described. + 

“Well, and then, Sónya?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and red.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Sónya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how afraid I am for him and for myself and about everything!⁠ ⁠…” Natásha began, and without replying to Sónya’s words of comfort she got into bed, and long after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless, gazing at the moonlight through the frosty windowpanes. + 

XIII + 

Soon after the Christmas holidays Nikoláy told his mother of his love for Sónya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who had long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would give their blessing to such a marriage. Nikoláy, for the first time, felt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love for him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son, she sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to inform him of the facts, in her son’s presence, but unable to restrain herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old count began irresolutely to admonish Nikoláy and beg him to abandon his purpose. Nikoláy replied that he could not go back on his word, and his father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sónya. On this occasion, he was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not been in disorder, no better wife for Nikoláy than Sónya could have been wished for, and that no one but himself with his Mítenka and his uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family finances. + 

The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again, but a few days later the countess sent for Sónya and, with a cruelty neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch Nikoláy and for ingratitude. Sónya listened silently with downcast eyes to the countess’ cruel words, without understanding what was required of her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her benefactors. Self-sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case she could not see what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could not help loving the countess and the whole Rostóv family, but neither could she help loving Nikoláy and knowing that his happiness depended on that love. She was silent and sad and did not reply. Nikoláy felt the situation to be intolerable and went to have an explanation with his mother. He first implored her to forgive him and Sónya and consent to their marriage, then he threatened that if she molested Sónya he would at once marry her secretly. + 

The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before, replied that he was of age, that Prince Andréy was marrying without his father’s consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never receive that intriguer as her daughter. + 

Exploding at the word intriguer, Nikoláy, raising his voice, told his mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.⁠ ⁠… But he had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face caused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it, for Natásha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door at which she had been listening. + 

“Nikólenka, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I tell you!⁠ ⁠…” she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice. + 

“Mamma darling, it’s not at all so⁠ ⁠… my poor, sweet darling,” she said to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of a rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and excitement of the conflict could not and would not give way. + 

“Nikólenka, I’ll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling,” said Natásha. + 

Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she was aiming. + 

The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter’s breast, while Nikoláy rose, clutching his head, and left the room. + 

Natásha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded that Nikoláy received a promise from his mother that Sónya should not be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything without his parents’ knowledge. + 

Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to retire from the army and return and marry Sónya, Nikoláy, serious, sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him, passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his regiment. + 

After Nikoláy had gone things in the Rostóv household were more depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation. + 

Sónya was unhappy at the separation from Nikoláy and still more so on account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to go to Moscow. But the countess’ health obliged them to delay their departure from day to day. + 

Natásha, who had borne the first period of separation from her betrothed lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and impatient every day. The thought that her best days, which she would have employed in loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage to anyone, tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part irritated her. It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the thought of him, he was living a real life, seeing new places and new people that interested him. The more interesting his letters were the more vexed she felt. Her letters to him, far from giving her any comfort, seemed to her a wearisome and artificial obligation. She could not write, because she could not conceive the possibility of expressing sincerely in a letter even a thousandth part of what she expressed by voice, smile, and glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry letters, to which she attached no importance herself, and in the rough copies of which the countess corrected her mistakes in spelling. + 

There was still no improvement in the countess’ health, but it was impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natásha’s trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andréy was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkónski was spending the winter, and Natásha felt sure he had already arrived. + 

So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sónya and Natásha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January. + 

Part + 

V + 

1811⁠–⁠12 + 

I + 

After Prince Andréy’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had devoted himself with such ardor⁠—all the zest of such a life vanished after the engagement of Andréy and Natásha and the death of Osip Alexéevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the club again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Elèna Vasílievna thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she was right, and to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow. + 

In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as, driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Krémlin Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and hovels of the Sívtsev Vrazhók, those old Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he saw those old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he felt himself at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and dirty as in an old dressing gown. + 

Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him. For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual, merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to everyone. + 

Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies, gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons, churches, and books⁠—no one and nothing met with a refusal from him, and had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from him and taken him under their protection, he would have given everything away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As soon as he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux he was surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there were quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the antagonists. The Masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not there. + 

When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile, yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was equally amiable to all, especially after supper. “Il est charmant; il n’a pas de sexe,” they said of him. + 

Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow. + 

How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him to seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in his position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one time longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia; then himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection? Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs? + 

But instead of all that⁠—here he was, the wealthy husband of an unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting he had so despised seven years before. + 

Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily, with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single tooth or hair remained. + 

In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to him that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid, contented fellows, satisfied with their position, “while I am still discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a path in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of circumstances, society, and race⁠—by that elemental force against which man is powerless⁠—to the condition I am in,” said he to himself in moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself. + 

Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment. “What for? Why? What is going on in the world?” he would ask himself in perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect anew on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience that there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away from them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollón Nikoláevich’s, to exchange the gossip of the town. + 

“Elèna Vasílievna, who has never cared for anything but her own body and is one of the stupidest women in the world,” thought Pierre, “is regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth of June they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear by the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections for the poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not understand. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty churches⁠—but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before his execution.” So thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him each time as if it were something new. “I understand the deception and confusion,” he thought, “but how am I to tell them all that I see? I have tried, and have always found that they too in the depths of their souls understand it as I do, and only try not to see it. So it appears that it must be so! But I⁠—what is to become of me?” thought he. He had the unfortunate capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part in it. Every sphere of work was connected, in his eyes, with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and falsehood of it repulsed him and blocked every path of activity. Yet he had to live and to find occupation. It was too dreadful to be under the burden of these insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to any distraction in order to forget them. He frequented every kind of society, drank much, bought pictures, engaged in building, and above all⁠—read. + 

He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women; from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the influence of wine he said to himself: “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get it unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now⁠—I’ll think it all out later on!” But the later on never came. + 

In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and if anyone came to see him he was glad. + 

Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy’s fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. “Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it’s all the same⁠—only to save oneself from it as best one can,” thought Pierre. “Only not to see it, that dreadful it!” + 

II + 

At the beginning of winter Prince Nikoláy Andréevich Bolkónski and his daughter moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander’s regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed there, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his originality, at once made Prince Nikoláy Andréevich an object of particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow opposition to the government. + 

The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful veneration⁠—especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his old-fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his abrupt stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing criticisms of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with its gigantic mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and the stern shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his gentle daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted to him presented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors did not reflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw their host, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the private and intimate life of the house continued. + 

Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Márya. There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures⁠—talks with the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills⁠—and she had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not go out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her go anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness and malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in the two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom she had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to her, and for various reasons Princess Márya avoided her. Julie, with whom she had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved to be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the death of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow, was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young men who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth. Julie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels that her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be decided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Márya remembered with a mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie⁠—whose presence gave her no pleasure⁠—was here and they met every week. Like the old émigré who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his evenings for years, she regretted Julie’s presence and having no one to write to. In Moscow Princess Márya had no one to talk to, no one to whom to confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then. The time for Prince Andréy’s return and marriage was approaching, but his request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention of the young Countess Rostóva the old prince (who apart from that was usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her consternation she detected in herself in relation to Nikolúshka some symptoms of her father’s irritability. However often she told herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily into the child⁠—who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment get angry⁠—that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the arm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner she would herself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and Nikolúshka, following her example, would sob, and without permission would leave his corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and comfort her. But what distressed the princess most of all was her father’s irritability, which was always directed against her and had of late amounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to the ground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water, it would never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but this loving despot⁠—the more cruel because he loved her and for that reason tormented himself and her⁠—knew how not merely to hurt and humiliate her deliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame for everything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented Princess Márya more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing intimacy with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment of receiving the news of his son’s intentions had occurred to him in jest⁠—that if Andréy got married he himself would marry Bourienne⁠—had evidently pleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it seemed to Princess Márya merely to offend her, shown special endearments to the companion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by demonstrations of love of Bourienne. + 

One day in Moscow in Princess Márya’s presence (she thought her father did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne’s hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately. Princess Márya flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Márya’s room smiling and making cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Márya hastily wiped away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and evidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: “It’s horrible, vile, inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness⁠ ⁠…” She did not finish. “Leave my room,” she exclaimed, and burst into sobs. + 

Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious, threw his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him conscripted for the army. + 

“He doesn’t obey⁠ ⁠… I said it twice⁠ ⁠… and he doesn’t obey! She is the first person in this house; she’s my best friend,” cried the prince. “And if you allow yourself,” he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess Márya for the first time, “to forget yourself again before her as you dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house. Go! Don’t let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!” + 

Princess Márya asked Amálya Evgénievna’s pardon, and also her father’s pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged for her intervention. + 

At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness, or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head sink over his plate. “He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn him!” she thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against herself. + 

III + 

In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor⁠—Métivier⁠—who had rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable as Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever doctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but as an equal. + 

Prince Nikoláy Andréevich had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on Mademoiselle Bourienne’s advice had allowed this doctor to visit him and had grown accustomed to him. Métivier came to see the prince about twice a week. + 

On December 6⁠—St. Nikoláy’s Day and the prince’s name day⁠—all Moscow came to the prince’s front door but he gave orders to admit no one and to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave to Princess Márya. + 

Métivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered it proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, as he told Princess Márya, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be understood himself. Princess Márya well knew this mood of quiet absorbed querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor’s arrival the morning had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Márya sat down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she could hear all that passed in the study. + 

At first she heard only Métivier’s voice, then her father’s, then both voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and on the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Métivier with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled downwards. + 

“You don’t understand?” shouted the prince, “but I do! French spy, slave of Bonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you⁠ ⁠…” and he slammed the door. + 

Métivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne who at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room. + 

“The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep calm, I will call again tomorrow,” said Métivier; and putting his fingers to his lips he hastened away. + 

Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry: “Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment’s peace in my own house!” + 

After Métivier’s departure the old prince called his daughter in, and the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list, and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he could not have a moment’s peace and could not die quietly. + 

“No, ma’am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand it! I cannot endure any more,” he said, and left the room. Then, as if afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying to appear calm added: “And don’t imagine I have said this in a moment of anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be carried out⁠—we must part; so find some place for yourself.⁠ ⁠…” But he could not restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one who loves is capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and screamed: + 

“If only some fool would marry her!” Then he slammed the door, sent for Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study. + 

At two o’clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner. + 

These guests⁠—the famous Count Rostopchín, Prince Lopukhín with his nephew, General Chatróv an old war comrade of the prince’s, and of the younger generation Pierre and Borís Drubetskóy⁠—awaited the prince in the drawing room. + 

Borís, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been anxious to be presented to Prince Nikoláy Andréevich, and had contrived to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house. + 

The prince’s house did not belong to what is known as fashionable society, but his little circle⁠—though not much talked about in town⁠—was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Borís had realized this the week before when the commander in chief in his presence invited Rostopchín to dinner on St. Nikoláy’s Day, and Rostopchín had replied that he could not come: + 

“On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince Nikoláy Andréevich.” + 

“Oh, yes, yes!” replied the commander in chief. “How is he?⁠ ⁠…” + 

The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince Nikoláy Andréevich came in serious and taciturn. Princess Márya seemed even quieter and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address her, feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count Rostopchín alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest town news, and now the latest political gossip. + 

Lopukhín and the old general occasionally took part in the conversation. Prince Nikoláy Andréevich listened as a presiding judge receives a report, only now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he took heed of what was being reported to him. The tone of the conversation was such as indicated that no one approved of what was being done in the political world. Incidents were related evidently confirming the opinion that everything was going from bad to worse, but whether telling a story or giving an opinion the speaker always stopped, or was stopped, at the point beyond which his criticism might touch the sovereign himself. + 

At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon’s seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and the Russian Note, hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts. + 

“Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel,” said Count Rostopchín, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times before. “One only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the crowned heads. Now the Pope’s turn has come and Bonaparte doesn’t scruple to depose the head of the Catholic Church⁠—yet all keep silent! Our sovereign alone has protested against the seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and even⁠ ⁠…” Count Rostopchín paused, feeling that he had reached the limit beyond which censure was impossible. + 

“Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of Oldenburg,” said Prince Nikoláy Andréevich. “He shifts the Dukes about as I might move my serfs from Bald Hills to Boguchárovo or my Ryazán estates.” + 

“The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable strength of character and resignation,” remarked Borís, joining in respectfully. + 

He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor of being presented to the Duke. Prince Nikoláy Andréevich glanced at the young man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind, evidently considering him too young. + 

“I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised how badly the Note was worded,” remarked Count Rostopchín in the casual tone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him. + 

Pierre looked at Rostopchín with naive astonishment, not understanding why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note. + 

“Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded,” he asked, “so long as its substance is forcible?” + 

“My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be easy to have a good style,” returned Count Rostopchín. + 

Pierre now understood the count’s dissatisfaction with the wording of the Note. + 

“One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up,” remarked the old prince. “There in Petersburg they are always writing⁠—not notes only but even new laws. My Andrúsha there has written a whole volume of laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!” and he laughed unnaturally. + 

There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared his throat to draw attention. + 

“Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The figure cut by the new French ambassador.” + 

“Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His Majesty’s presence.” + 

“His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march past,” continued the general, “and it seems the ambassador took no notice and allowed himself to reply that: ‘We in France pay no attention to such trifles!’ The Emperor did not condescend to reply. At the next review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address him.” + 

All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was impossible to pass any judgment. + 

“Impudent fellows!” said the prince. “You know Métivier? I turned him out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in spite of my request that they should let no one in,” he went on, glancing angrily at his daughter. + 

And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and the reasons that convinced him that Métivier was a spy. Though these reasons were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder. + 

After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate the old prince. Princess Márya, too, went round to him. + 

He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told her that he had not forgotten the morning’s talk, that his decision remained in force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his speaking of it to her now. + 

When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old men sat together. + 

Prince Nikoláy Andréevich grew more animated and expressed his views on the impending war. + 

He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. “We ought not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political interests are all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing is to have an armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to cross the Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!” + 

“How can we fight the French, Prince?” said Count Rostopchín. “Can we arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at our youths, look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our Kingdom of Heaven.” + 

He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone. + 

“French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned Métivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and a scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to a party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman Catholics and had the Pope’s indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays. And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people, Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great’s old cudgel out of the museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps out of them.” + 

All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchín with a smile and wagged his head approvingly. + 

“Well, goodbye, your excellency, keep well!” said Rostopchín, getting up with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the prince. + 

“Goodbye, my dear fellow.⁠ ⁠… His words are music, I never tire of hearing him!” said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and offering his cheek to be kissed. + 

Following Rostopchín’s example the others also rose. + 

IV + 

Princess Márya as she sat listening to the old men’s talk and faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered whether the guests had all observed her father’s hostile attitude toward her. She did not even notice the special attentions and amiabilities shown her during dinner by Borís Drubetskóy, who was visiting them for the third time already. + 

Princess Márya turned with absentminded questioning look to Pierre, who hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone in the drawing room. + 

“May I stay a little longer?” he said, letting his stout body sink into an armchair beside her. + 

“Oh yes,” she answered. “You noticed nothing?” her look asked. + 

Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before him and smiled quietly. + 

“Have you known that young man long, Princess?” he asked. + 

“Who?” + 

“Drubetskóy.” + 

“No, not long.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Do you like him?” + 

“Yes, he is an agreeable young man.⁠ ⁠… Why do you ask me that?” said Princess Márya, still thinking of that morning’s conversation with her father. + 

“Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an heiress.” + 

“You have observed that?” said Princess Márya. + 

“Yes,” returned Pierre with a smile, “and this young man now manages matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is too. I can read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay siege to⁠—you or Mademoiselle Julie Karágina. He is very attentive to her.” + 

“He visits them?” + 

“Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?” said Pierre with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good humored raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary. + 

“No,” replied Princess Márya. + 

“To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very melancholy with Mademoiselle Karágina,” said Pierre. + 

“Really?” asked Princess Márya, looking into Pierre’s kindly face and still thinking of her own sorrow. “It would be a relief,” thought she, “if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone. I should like to tell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It would be a relief. He would give me advice.” + 

“Would you marry him?” + 

“Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!” she cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice. “Ah, how bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel that⁠ ⁠…” she went on in a trembling voice, “that you can do nothing for him but grieve him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then there is only one thing left⁠—to go away, but where could I go?” + 

“What is wrong? What is it, Princess?” + 

But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Márya burst into tears. + 

“I don’t know what is the matter with me today. Don’t take any notice⁠—forget what I have said!” + 

Pierre’s gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble except the one he knew of⁠—that Prince Andréy’s marriage threatened to cause a rupture between father and son. + 

“Have you any news of the Rostóvs?” she asked, to change the subject. “I was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting André any day. I should like them to meet here.” + 

“And how does he now regard the matter?” asked Pierre, referring to the old prince. + 

Princess Márya shook her head. + 

“What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing is impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments. I wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have known them a long time,” said Princess Márya. “Tell me honestly the whole truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?⁠—The real truth, because you know Andréy is risking so much doing this against his father’s will that I should like to know.⁠ ⁠…” + 

An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and repeated requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on the princess’ part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that he should disapprove of Andréy’s choice; but in reply he said what he felt rather than what he thought. + 

“I don’t know how to answer your question,” he said, blushing without knowing why. “I really don’t know what sort of girl she is; I can’t analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I don’t know. That is all one can say about her.” + 

Princess Márya sighed, and the expression on her face said: “Yes, that’s what I expected and feared.” + 

“Is she clever?” she asked. + 

Pierre considered. + 

“I think not,” he said, “and yet⁠—yes. She does not deign to be clever.⁠ ⁠… Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all.” + 

Princess Márya again shook her head disapprovingly. + 

“Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do.” + 

“I hear they are expected very soon,” said Pierre. + 

Princess Márya told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future sister-in-law as soon as the Rostóvs arrived and to try to accustom the old prince to her. + 

V + 

Borís had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so with the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between the two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Márya. Though Princess Márya despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he, without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they had last met on the old prince’s name day, she had answered at random all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what he was saying. + 

Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a manner peculiar to herself. + 

She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not merely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She was confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated company that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation. A man who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day to the house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of compromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day and treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance. + 

That winter the Karágins’ house was the most agreeable and hospitable in Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight and staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion. But in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and told everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love, or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only “yonder.” She adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered much in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing herself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from passing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid his tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused himself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts rimés, which were in vogue at the Karágins’. Only a few of these young men, among them Borís, entered more deeply into Julie’s melancholy, and with these she had prolonged conversations in private on the vanity of all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums filled with mournful sketches, maxims, and verses. + 

To Borís, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship as she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him her album. Borís sketched two trees in the album and wrote: “Rustic trees, your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me.” + 

On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote: + 

La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille. + 

Ah! contre les douleurs il n’y a pas d’autre asile. + 

Julie said this was charming. + 

“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy,” she said to Borís, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a book. “It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, showing the possibility of consolation.” + 

In reply Borís wrote these lines: + 

Aliment de poison d’une âme trop sensible, + 

Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible, + 

Tendre mélancholie, ah, viens me consoler, + 

Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite, + 

Et mêle une douceur secrète + 

A ces pleurs que je sens couler. + 

For Borís, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Borís read Poor Liza aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings Julie and Borís looked on one another as the only souls who understood one another in a world of indifferent people. + 

Anna Mikháylovna, who often visited the Karágins, while playing cards with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie’s dowry (she was to have two estates in Pénza and the Nizhegórod forests). Anna Mikháylovna regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the wealthy Julie with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will. + 

“You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie,” she said to the daughter. “Borís says his soul finds repose at your house. He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” said she to the mother. “Ah, my dear, I can’t tell you how fond I have grown of Julie latterly,” she said to her son. “But who could help loving her? She is an angelic being! Ah, Borís, Borís!”⁠—she paused. “And how I pity her mother,” she went on; “today she showed me her accounts and letters from Pénza (they have enormous estates there), and she, poor thing, has no one to help her, and they do cheat her so!” + 

Borís smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He laughed blandly at her naive diplomacy but listened to what she had to say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Pénza and Nizhegórod estates. + 

Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still restrained Borís. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole days at the Karágins’, and every day on thinking the matter over told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie’s presence, looking at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist eyes, and her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from melancholy to an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Borís could not utter the decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded himself as the possessor of those Pénza and Nizhegórod estates and had apportioned the use of the income from them. Julie saw Borís’ indecision, and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was repulsive to him, but her feminine self-deception immediately supplied her with consolation, and she told herself that he was only shy from love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn to irritability, and not long before Borís’ departure she formed a definite plan of action. Just as Borís’ leave of absence was expiring, Anatole Kurágin made his appearance in Moscow, and of course in the Karágins’ drawing room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning her melancholy, became cheerful and very attentive to Kurágin. + 

“My dear,” said Anna Mikháylovna to her son, “I know from a reliable source that Prince Basile has sent his son to Moscow to get him married to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for her. What do you think of it, my dear?” + 

The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all the revenue from the Pénza estates which he had already mentally apportioned and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and especially into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Borís. He drove to the Karágins’ with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met him in a gay, careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed yesterday’s ball, and asked when he was leaving. Though Borís had come intentionally to speak of his love and therefore meant to be tender, he began speaking irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how easily women can turn from sadness to joy, and how their moods depend solely on who happens to be paying court to them. Julie was offended and replied that it was true that a woman needs variety, and the same thing over and over again would weary anyone. + 

“Then I should advise you⁠ ⁠…” Borís began, wishing to sting her; but at that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might have to leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have vainly wasted his efforts⁠—which was a thing he never allowed to happen. + 

He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said: + 

“I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary⁠ ⁠…” + 

He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. “I can always arrange so as not to see her often,” thought Borís. “The affair has been begun and must be finished!” He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said: + 

“You know my feelings for you!” + 

There was no need to say more: Julie’s face shone with triumph and self-satisfaction; but she forced Borís to say all that is said on such occasions⁠—that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more than her. She knew that for the Pénza estates and Nizhegórod forests she could demand this, and she received what she demanded. + 

The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding. + 

VI + 

At the end of January Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv went to Moscow with Natásha and Sónya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andréy was expected in Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkónski while he was in Moscow could not be missed. The Rostóvs’ Moscow house had not been heated that winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess was not with them, the count decided to stay with Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them. + 

Late one evening the Rostóvs’ four sleighs drove into Márya Dmítrievna’s courtyard in the old Konyúsheny street. Márya Dmítrievna lived alone. She had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the service. + 

She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly, loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach to others for any weakness, passion, or temptation⁠—the possibility of which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out: on holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on affairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after dressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there were always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal at which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played a game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read to her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town. + 

She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostóvs arrived and the pulley of the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostóvs and their servants. Márya Dmítrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her nose and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with a stern, grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was angry with the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she not at the same time been giving careful instructions to the servants for the accommodation of the visitors and their belongings. + 

“The count’s things? Bring them here,” she said, pointing to the portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. “The young ladies’? There to the left. Now what are you dawdling for?” she cried to the maids. “Get the samovar ready!⁠ ⁠… You’ve grown plumper and prettier,” she remarked, drawing Natásha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by the hood. “Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things, quick!” she shouted to the count who was going to kiss her hand. “You’re half frozen, I’m sure! Bring some rum for tea!⁠ ⁠… Bonjour, Sonyúshka dear!” she added, turning to Sónya and indicating by this French greeting her slightly contemptuous though affectionate attitude toward her. + 

When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and tidied themselves up after their journey, Márya Dmítrievna kissed them all in due order. + 

“I’m heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was high time,” she said, giving Natásha a significant look. “The old man is here and his son’s expected any day. You’ll have to make his acquaintance. But we’ll speak of that later on,” she added, glancing at Sónya with a look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her presence. “Now listen,” she said to the count. “What do you want tomorrow? Whom will you send for? Shinshín?” she crooked one of her fingers. “The sniveling Anna Mikháylovna? That’s two. She’s here with her son. The son is getting married! Then Bezúkhov, eh? He is here too, with his wife. He ran away from her and she came galloping after him. He dined with me on Wednesday. As for them”⁠—and she pointed to the girls⁠—“tomorrow I’ll take them first to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God, and then we’ll drive to the Super-Rogue’s. I suppose you’ll have everything new. Don’t judge by me: sleeves nowadays are this size! The other day young Princess Irína Vasílevna came to see me; she was an awful sight⁠—looked as if she had put two barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now without some new fashion.⁠ ⁠… And what have you to do yourself?” she asked the count sternly. + 

“One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you will be so kind, I’ll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a day, and leave my lassies with you.” + 

“All right. All right. They’ll be safe with me, as safe as in Chancery! I’ll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and pet them a bit,” said Márya Dmítrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite, Natásha, on the cheek with her large hand. + 

Next morning Márya Dmítrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so afraid of Márya Dmítrievna that she always let her have costumes at a loss merely to get rid of her. Márya Dmítrievna ordered almost the whole trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room except Natásha, and then called her pet to her armchair. + 

“Well, now we’ll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed. You’ve hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I’ve known him since he was so high.” She held her hand a couple of feet from the ground. Natásha blushed happily. “I like him and all his family. Now listen! You know that old Prince Nikoláy much dislikes his son’s marrying. The old fellow’s crotchety! Of course Prince Andréy is not a child and can shift without him, but it’s not nice to enter a family against a father’s will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly. You’re a clever girl and you’ll know how to manage. Be kind, and use your wits. Then all will be well.” + 

Natásha remained silent, from shyness Márya Dmítrievna supposed, but really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love of Prince Andréy, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andréy, he loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She wanted nothing more. + 

“You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Máshenka, your future sister-in-law. ‘Husbands’ sisters bring up blisters,’ but this one wouldn’t hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two together. Tomorrow you’ll go with your father to see her. Be very nice and affectionate to her: you’re younger than she. When he comes, he’ll find you already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I right or not? Won’t that be best?” + 

“Yes, it will,” Natásha answered reluctantly. + 

VII + 

Next day, by Márya Dmítrievna’s advice, Count Ilyá Andréevich took Natásha to call on Prince Nikoláy Andréevich. The count did not set out cheerfully on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered the last interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the enrollment, when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to listen to an angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of men. Natásha, on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in the highest spirits. “They can’t help liking me,” she thought. “Everybody always has liked me, and I am so willing to do anything they wish, so ready to be fond of him⁠—for being his father⁠—and of her⁠—for being his sister⁠—that there is no reason for them not to like me.⁠ ⁠…” + 

They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvízhenka and entered the vestibule. + 

“Well, the Lord have mercy on us!” said the count, half in jest, half in earnest; but Natásha noticed that her father was flurried on entering the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince and princess were at home. + 

When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced to the Rostóvs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with special politeness and showed them to the princess’ room. The princess, looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and at ease. From the first glance Princess Márya did not like Natásha. She thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and vain. She did not at all realize that before having seen her future sister-in-law she was prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her beauty, youth, and happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother’s love for her. Apart from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Márya was agitated just then because on the Rostóvs’ being announced, the old prince had shouted that he did not wish to see them, that Princess Márya might do so if she chose, but they were not to be admitted to him. She had decided to receive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment indulge in some freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostóvs’ visit. + 

“There, my dear princess, I’ve brought you my songstress,” said the count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince might appear. “I am so glad you should get to know one another⁠ ⁠… very sorry the prince is still ailing,” and after a few more commonplace remarks he rose. “If you’ll allow me to leave my Natásha in your hands for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I’ll drive round to see Anna Semënovna, it’s quite near in the Dogs’ Square, and then I’ll come back for her.” + 

The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention this to his daughter, but Natásha noticed her father’s nervousness and anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him to stay longer at Anna Semënovna’s, and he departed. + 

Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Márya⁠—who wished to have a tête-à-tête with Natásha⁠—Mademoiselle Bourienne remained in the room and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and theaters. Natásha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in the anteroom, by her father’s nervousness, and by the unnatural manner of the princess who⁠—she thought⁠—was making a favor of receiving her, and so everything displeased her. She did not like Princess Márya, whom she thought very plain, affected, and dry. Natásha suddenly shrank into herself and involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated Princess Márya still more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Márya looked frightened. + 

The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white nightcap, came in. + 

“Ah, madam!” he began. “Madam, Countess⁠ ⁠… Countess Rostóva, if I am not mistaken⁠ ⁠… I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me⁠ ⁠… I did not know, madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with a visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you to excuse me⁠ ⁠… God is my witness, I didn’t know⁠—” he repeated, stressing the word “God” so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that Princess Márya stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her father or at Natásha. + 

Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do. Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably. + 

“I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not know,” muttered the old man, and after looking Natásha over from head to foot he went out. + 

Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this apparition and began speaking about the prince’s indisposition. Natásha and Princess Márya looked at one another in silence, and the longer they did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their antipathy to one another. + 

When the count returned, Natásha was impolitely pleased and hastened to get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andréy. “I couldn’t begin talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,” thought Natásha. The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Márya. She knew what she ought to have said to Natásha, but she had been unable to say it because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When the count was already leaving the room, Princess Márya went up hurriedly to Natásha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh: + 

“Wait, I must⁠ ⁠…” + 

Natásha glanced at her ironically without knowing why. + 

“Dear Natáli,” said Princess Márya, “I want you to know that I am glad my brother has found happiness.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natásha noticed this and guessed its reason. + 

“I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now,” she said with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking her. + 

“What have I said and what have I done?” thought she, as soon as she was out of the room. + 

They waited a long time for Natásha to come to dinner that day. She sat in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sónya stood beside her, kissing her hair. + 

“Natásha, what is it about?” she asked. “What do they matter to you? It will all pass, Natásha.” + 

“But if you only knew how offensive it was⁠ ⁠… as if I⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Don’t talk about it, Natásha. It wasn’t your fault so why should you mind? Kiss me,” said Sónya. + 

Natásha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her wet face against her. + 

“I can’t tell you, I don’t know. No one’s to blame,” said Natásha⁠—“It’s my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn’t he come?⁠ ⁠…” + 

She came in to dinner with red eyes. Márya Dmítrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostóvs, pretended not to notice how upset Natásha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and the other guests. + 

VIII + 

That evening the Rostóvs went to the Opera, for which Márya Dmítrievna had taken a box. + 

Natásha did not want to go, but could not refuse Márya Dmítrievna’s kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness. + 

“O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes⁠—how I see those eyes!” thought Natásha. “And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, manly and yet childlike.⁠ ⁠… No, I had better not think of him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can’t bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!” and she turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. “And how can Sónya love Nikólenka so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?” thought she, looking at Sónya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand. “No, she’s altogether different. I can’t!” + 

Natásha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of carriages, the Rostóvs’ carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels squeaking over the snow. Natásha and Sónya, holding up their dresses, jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and, passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers, they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes. Through the closed doors the music was already audible. + 

“Nathalie, your hair!⁠ ⁠…” whispered Sónya. + 

An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy at Natásha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being played. Natásha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sónya and sat down, scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not experienced for a long time⁠—that of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare arms and neck⁠—suddenly affected her both agreeably and disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and emotions associated with that feeling. + 

The two remarkably pretty girls, Natásha and Sónya, with Count Ilyá Andréevich who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natásha’s engagement to Prince Andréy, and knew that the Rostóvs had lived in the country ever since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancée who was making one of the best matches in Russia. + 

Natásha’s looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music, crumpling her program. “Look, there’s Alénina,” said Sónya, “with her mother, isn’t it?” + 

“Dear me, Mikháil Kirílovich has grown still stouter!” remarked the count. + 

“Look at our Anna Mikháylovna⁠—what a headdress she has on!” + 

“The Karágins, Julie⁠—and Borís with them. One can see at once that they’re engaged.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Drubetskóy has proposed?” + 

“Oh yes, I heard it today,” said Shinshín, coming into the Rostóvs’ box. + 

Natásha looked in the direction in which her father’s eyes were turned and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her face and a string of pearls round her thick red neck⁠—which Natásha knew was covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning over with an ear to Julie’s mouth, was Borís’ handsome smoothly brushed head. He looked at the Rostóvs from under his brows and said something, smiling, to his betrothed. + 

“They are talking about us, about me and him!” thought Natásha. “And he no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn’t trouble themselves! If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of them.” + 

Behind them sat Anna Mikháylovna wearing a green headdress and with a happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natásha knew so well and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all that had been so humiliating in her morning’s visit. + 

“What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh, better not think of it⁠—not till he comes back!” she told herself, and began looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in the stalls. In the front, in the very center, leaning back against the orchestra rail, stood Dólokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair brushed up into a huge shock. He stood in full view of the audience, well aware that he was attracting everyone’s attention, yet as much at ease as though he were in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow’s most brilliant young men, whom he evidently dominated. + 

The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sónya and pointed to her former adorer. + 

“Do you recognize him?” said he. “And where has he sprung from?” he asked, turning to Shinshín. “Didn’t he vanish somewhere?” + 

“He did,” replied Shinshín. “He was in the Caucasus and ran away from there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling prince in Persia, where he killed the Shah’s brother. Now all the Moscow ladies are mad about him! It’s ‘Dolochoff the Persian’ that does it! We never hear a word but Dólokhov is mentioned. They swear by him, they offer him to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet. Dólokhov and Anatole Kurágin have turned all our ladies’ heads.” + 

A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress and took a long time settling into her place. + 

Natásha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls. While Natásha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady looked round and, meeting the count’s eyes, nodded to him and smiled. She was the Countess Bezúkhova, Pierre’s wife, and the count, who knew everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her. + 

“Have you been here long, Countess?” he inquired. “I’ll call, I’ll call to kiss your hand. I’m here on business and have brought my girls with me. They say Semënova acts marvelously. Count Pyotr Kirílovich never used to forget us. Is he here?” + 

“Yes, he meant to look in,” answered Elèn, and glanced attentively at Natásha. + 

Count Ilyá Andréevich resumed his seat. + 

“Handsome, isn’t she?” he whispered to Natásha. + 

“Wonderful!” answered Natásha. “She’s a woman one could easily fall in love with.” + 

Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls, and the curtain rose. + 

As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with eager curiosity to the stage. Natásha too began to look at it. + 

IX + 

The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song the girl in white went up to the prompter’s box and a man with tight silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger, went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about. + 

First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage⁠—who represented lovers⁠—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing. + 

After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this seemed grotesque and amazing to Natásha. She could not follow the opera nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natásha seemed feigned. “I suppose it has to be like this!” she thought. She kept looking round in turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at the seminude women in the boxes, especially at Elèn in the next box, who⁠—apparently quite unclothed⁠—sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not taking her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded the whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natásha little by little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she was, nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and singing the aria the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to Elèn and tickle her. + 

At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostóvs’ box creaked, and the steps of a belated arrival were heard. “There’s Kurágin!” whispered Shinshín. Countess Bezúkhova turned smiling to the newcomer, and Natásha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kurágin whom she had seen and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant’s uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with a restrained swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been so good-looking and had his handsome face not worn such an expression of good-humored complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was proceeding, he walked deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword and spurs slightly jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high. Having looked at Natásha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a question, with a motion toward Natásha. + 

“Mais charmante!” said he, evidently referring to Natásha, who did not exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down beside Dólokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way that Dólokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily, smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen. + 

“How like the brother is to the sister,” remarked the count. “And how handsome they both are!” + 

Shinshín, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue of Kurágin’s in Moscow, and Natásha tried to overhear it just because he had said she was “charmante.” + 

The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going out and coming in. + 

Borís came to the Rostóvs’ box, received their congratulations very simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absentminded smile conveyed to Natásha and Sónya his fiancée’s invitation to her wedding, and went away. Natásha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Borís with whom she had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in, everything seemed simple and natural. + 

The scantily clad Elèn smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natásha gave Borís a similar smile. + 

Elèn’s box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her. + 

During the whole of that entr’acte Kurágin stood with Dólokhov in front of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostóvs’ box. Natásha knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even turned so that he should see her profile in what she thought was its most becoming aspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre appeared in the stalls. The Rostóvs had not seen him since their arrival. His face looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natásha last saw him. He passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole went up to him and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating the Rostóvs’ box. On seeing Natásha Pierre grew animated and, hastily passing between the rows, came toward their box. When he got there he leaned on his elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While conversing with Pierre, Natásha heard a man’s voice in Countess Bezúkhova’s box and something told her it was Kurágin. She turned and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with such an enraptured caressing look that it seemed strange to be so near him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be acquainted with him. + 

In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once, but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience. + 

During this act every time Natásha looked toward the stalls she saw Anatole Kurágin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and it did not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it. + 

When the second act was over Countess Bezúkhova rose, turned to the Rostóvs’ box⁠—her whole bosom completely exposed⁠—beckoned the old count with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had entered her box began talking to him with an amiable smile. + 

“Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters,” said she. “The whole town is singing their praises and I don’t even know them!” + 

Natásha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure. + 

“I want to become a Moscovite too, now,” said Elèn. “How is it you’re not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?” + 

Countess Bezúkhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating woman. She could say what she did not think⁠—especially what was flattering⁠—quite simply and naturally. + 

“Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am not staying here long this time⁠—nor are you⁠—I will try to amuse them. I have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get to know you,” said she to Natásha with her stereotyped and lovely smile. “I had heard about you from my page, Drubetskóy. Have you heard he is getting married? And also from my husband’s friend Bolkónski, Prince Andréy Bolkónski,” she went on with special emphasis, implying that she knew of his relation to Natásha. To get better acquainted she asked that one of the young ladies should come into her box for the rest of the performance, and Natásha moved over to it. + 

The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the stalls everyone clapped and shouted “bravo!” Then one of the men went into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes, and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm came on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away, and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began shouting: “Duport! Duport! Duport!” Natásha no longer thought this strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully. + 

“Isn’t Duport delightful?” Elèn asked her. + 

“Oh, yes,” replied Natásha. + 

X + 

During the entr’acte a whiff of cold air came into Elèn’s box, the door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush against anyone. + 

“Let me introduce my brother to you,” said Elèn, her eyes shifting uneasily from Natásha to Anatole. + 

Natásha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he had long wished to have this happiness⁠—ever since the Narýshkins’ ball in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing her. Kurágin was much more sensible and simple with women than among men. He talked boldly and naturally, and Natásha was strangely and agreeably struck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this man about whom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his smile was most naive, cheerful, and good-natured. + 

Kurágin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a previous performance Semënova had fallen down on the stage. + 

“And do you know, Countess,” he said, suddenly addressing her as an old, familiar acquaintance, “we are getting up a costume tournament; you ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the Karágins’! Please come! No! Really, eh?” said he. + 

While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face, her neck, and her bare arms. Natásha knew for certain that he was enraptured by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel constrained and oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye so that he should look into hers rather than this. But looking into his eyes she was frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of modesty she had always felt between herself and other men. She did not know how it was that within five minutes she had come to feel herself terribly near to this man. When she turned away she feared he might seize her from behind by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They spoke of most ordinary things, yet she felt that they were closer to one another than she had ever been to any man. Natásha kept turning to Elèn and to her father, as if asking what it all meant, but Elèn was engaged in conversation with a general and did not answer her look, and her father’s eyes said nothing but what they always said: “Having a good time? Well, I’m glad of it!” + 

During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole’s prominent eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natásha, to break the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her. + 

“At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant ce sont les jolies femmes, isn’t that so? But now I like it very much indeed,” he said, looking at her significantly. “You’ll come to the costume tournament, Countess? Do come!” and putting out his hand to her bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, “You will be the prettiest there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!” + 

Natásha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that he was there, behind, so close behind her. + 

“How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?” she asked herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the good-natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just as he was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with horror that no barrier lay between him and her. + 

The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natásha went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her betrothed, of Princess Márya, or of life in the country did not once recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past. + 

In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natásha saw. She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kurágin whom she could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was putting Natásha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes, smiling tenderly. + 

Only after she had reached home was Natásha able clearly to think over what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andréy she was horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room. + 

“O God! I am lost!” she said to herself. “How could I let him?” She sat for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to realize what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand what had happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare-legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Elèn with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried “bravo!”⁠—there in the presence of that Elèn it had all seemed clear and simple; but now, alone by herself, it was incomprehensible. “What is it? What was that terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing of conscience I am feeling now?” she thought. + 

Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natásha have told all she was feeling. She knew that Sónya with her severe and simple views would either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such a confession. So Natásha tried to solve what was torturing her by herself. + 

“Am I spoiled for Andréy’s love or not?” she asked herself, and with soothing irony replied: “What a fool I am to ask that! What did happen to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn’t lead him on at all. Nobody will know and I shall never see him again,” she told herself. “So it is plain that nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent of, and Andréy can love me still. But why ‘still?’ O God, why isn’t he here?” Natásha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct told her that though all this was true, and though nothing had happened, yet the former purity of her love for Prince Andréy had perished. And again in imagination she went over her whole conversation with Kurágin, and again saw the face, gestures, and tender smile of that bold handsome man when he pressed her arm. + 

XI + 

Anatole Kurágin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his creditors demanded from his father. + 

His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to the commander in chief⁠—a post his father had procured for him⁠—and would at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him Princess Márya and Julie Karágina. + 

Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre’s house. Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after a while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave him money under the guise of loans. + 

As Shinshín had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that he slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French actresses⁠—with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to be on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danílov’s or other Moscow revelers’, drank whole nights through, outvying everyone else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society. There was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted with a few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried girls, especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain. There was a special reason for this, as he had got married two years before⁠—a fact known only to his most intimate friends. At that time while with his regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had forced him to marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his wife and, for a payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, had arranged to be free to pass himself off as a bachelor. + 

Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place in society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and evidently would not repay. + 

He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there was nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high. + 

Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence similar to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.” + 

Dólokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and his Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kurágin and made use of him for his own ends. + 

Anatole was sincerely fond of Dólokhov for his cleverness and audacity. Dólokhov, who needed Anatole Kurágin’s name, position, and connections as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made use of him and amused himself at his expense without letting the other feel it. Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very process of dominating another’s will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a necessity to Dólokhov. + 

Natásha had made a strong impression on Kurágin. At supper after the opera he described to Dólokhov with the air of a connoisseur the attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable of considering what might come of such lovemaking, as he never had any notion of the outcome of any of his actions. + 

“She’s first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us,” replied Dólokhov. + 

“I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner,” said Anatole. “Eh?” + 

“You’d better wait till she’s married.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once,” pursued Anatole. + 

“You have been caught once already by a ‘little girl,’ ” said Dólokhov who knew of Kurágin’s marriage. “Take care!” + 

“Well, that can’t happen twice! Eh?” said Anatole, with a good-humored laugh. + 

XII + 

The day after the opera the Rostóvs went nowhere and nobody came to see them. Márya Dmítrievna talked to the count about something which they concealed from Natásha. Natásha guessed they were talking about the old prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her. She was expecting Prince Andréy any moment and twice that day sent a manservant to the Vozdvízhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had not arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow. To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant recollection of her interview with Princess Márya and the old prince, and a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She continually fancied that either he would never come or that something would happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by herself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess Márya, of the theater, and of Kurágin mingled with her thoughts. The question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she had not already broken faith with Prince Andréy, and again she found herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying feeling. To the family Natásha seemed livelier than usual, but she was far less tranquil and happy than before. + 

On Sunday morning Márya Dmítrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her parish church⁠—the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of victims of the plague. + 

“I don’t like those fashionable churches,” she said, evidently priding herself on her independence of thought. “God is the same everywhere. We have an excellent priest, he conducts the service decently and with dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is there in giving concerts in the choir? I don’t like it, it’s just self-indulgence!” + 

Márya Dmítrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the holiday so noticeable as in Márya Dmítrievna’s broad, stern face, which on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity. + 

After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room where the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant announced that the carriage was ready, and Márya Dmítrievna rose with a stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and announced that she was going to see Prince Nikoláy Andréevich Bolkónski to have an explanation with him about Natásha. + 

After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on the Rostóvs, and Natásha, very glad of this diversion, having shut herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of her father’s voice and another’s⁠—a woman’s⁠—that made her flush. It was Elèn. Natásha had not time to take off the bodice before the door opened and Countess Bezúkhova, dressed in a purple velvet gown with a high collar, came into the room beaming with good-humored amiable smiles. + 

“Oh, my enchantress!” she cried to the blushing Natásha. “Charming! No, this is really beyond anything, my dear count,” said she to Count Ilyá Andréevich who had followed her in. “How can you live in Moscow and go nowhere? No, I won’t let you off! Mademoiselle George will recite at my house tonight and there’ll be some people, and if you don’t bring your lovely girls⁠—who are prettier than Mademoiselle George⁠—I won’t know you! My husband is away in Tver or I would send him to fetch you. You must come. You positively must! Between eight and nine.” + 

She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the looking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She did not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising Natásha’s beauty. She looked at Natásha’s dresses and praised them, as well as a new dress of her own made of “metallic gauze,” which she had received from Paris, and advised Natásha to have one like it. + 

“But anything suits you, my charmer!” she remarked. + 

A smile of pleasure never left Natásha’s face. She felt happy and as if she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezúkhova who had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was now so kind to her. Natásha brightened up and felt almost in love with this woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Elèn for her part was sincerely delighted with Natásha and wished to give her a good time. Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natásha together, and she was calling on the Rostóvs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her brother and Natásha together amused her. + 

Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natásha for drawing Borís away, she did not think of that now, and in her own way heartily wished Natásha well. As she was leaving the Rostóvs she called her protégée aside. + 

“My brother dined with me yesterday⁠—we nearly died of laughter⁠—he ate nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite madly, in love with you, my dear.” + 

Natásha blushed scarlet when she heard this. + 

“How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!” said Elèn. “You must certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a reason to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your fiancé would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to death.” + 

“So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre⁠—that good Pierre⁠—have talked and laughed about this. So it’s all right.” And again, under Elèn’s influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed simple and natural. “And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?” thought Natásha, gazing at Elèn with wide-open, wondering eyes. + 

Márya Dmítrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince’s. She was still too agitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In answer to the count’s inquiries she replied that things were all right and that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess Bezúkhova’s visit and the invitation for that evening, Márya Dmítrievna remarked: + 

“I don’t care to have anything to do with Bezúkhova and don’t advise you to; however, if you’ve promised⁠—go. It will divert your thoughts,” she added, addressing Natásha. + 

XIII + 

Count Ilyá Andréevich took the girls to Countess Bezúkhova’s. There were a good many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natásha. Count Ilyá Andréevich was displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely of men and women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle George was standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young men. There were several Frenchmen present, among them Métivier who from the time Elèn reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The count decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight and to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George’s performance was over. + 

Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostóvs. Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natásha and followed her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had had at the opera⁠—gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at the absence of a moral barrier between them. + 

Elèn welcomed Natásha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for Natásha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her. + 

Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible. + 

Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered, lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse sounds, rolling her eyes. + 

“Adorable! divine! delicious!” was heard from every side. + 

Natásha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself again completely borne away into this strange senseless world⁠—so remote from her old world⁠—a world in which it was impossible to know what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole, and conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of expectancy. + 

After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm. + 

“How beautiful she is!” Natásha remarked to her father who had also risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress. + 

“I don’t think so when I look at you!” said Anatole, following Natásha. He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. “You are enchanting⁠ ⁠… from the moment I saw you I have never ceased⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Come, come, Natásha!” said the count, as he turned back for his daughter. “How beautiful she is!” Natásha without saying anything stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring eyes. + 

After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess Bezúkhova asked her visitors into the ballroom. + 

The count wished to go home, but Elèn entreated him not to spoil her improvised ball, and the Rostóvs stayed on. Anatole asked Natásha for a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the écossaise, which she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natásha lifted her frightened eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she had to say. She lowered her eyes. + 

“Don’t say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another,” she said rapidly.⁠ ⁠… She glanced at him. + 

Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said. + 

“Don’t speak to me of that! What can I do?” said he. “I tell you I am madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are enchanting?⁠ ⁠… It’s our turn to begin.” + 

Natásha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly anything that went on that evening. They danced the écossaise and the Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain. Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let her go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Elèn had followed her and spoken laughingly of her brother’s love, and that she again met Anatole in the little sitting room. Elèn had disappeared leaving them alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender voice: + 

“I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see you? I love you madly. Can I never⁠ ⁠… ?” and, blocking her path, he brought his face close to hers. + 

His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw nothing but them. + 

“Natáli?” he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being painfully pressed. “Natáli?” + 

“I don’t understand. I have nothing to say,” her eyes replied. + 

Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt herself released, and Elèn’s footsteps and the rustle of her dress were heard in the room. Natásha looked round at her, and then, red and trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved toward the door. + 

“One word, just one, for God’s sake!” cried Anatole. + 

She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what had happened and to which she could find no answer. + 

“Nathalie, just a word, only one!” he kept repeating, evidently not knowing what to say and he repeated it till Elèn came up to them. + 

Elèn returned with Natásha to the drawing room. The Rostóvs went away without staying for supper. + 

After reaching home Natásha did not sleep all night. She was tormented by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andréy. She loved Prince Andréy⁠—she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. “Else how could all this have happened?” thought she. “If, after that, I could return his smile when saying goodbye, if I was able to let it come to that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to do if I love him and the other one too?” she asked herself, unable to find an answer to these terrible questions. + 

XIV + 

Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Márya Dmítrievna appeared, and they were called to breakfast. Natásha kept looking uneasily at everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept every glance directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual. + 

After breakfast, which was her best time, Márya Dmítrievna sat down in her armchair and called Natásha and the count to her. + 

“Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my advice,” she began. “Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince Bolkónski. Well, I had a talk with him.⁠ ⁠… He took it into his head to begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had to say!” + 

“Well, and he?” asked the count. + 

“He? He’s crazy⁠ ⁠… he did not want to listen. But what’s the use of talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out,” said Márya Dmítrievna. “My advice to you is finish your business and go back home to Otrádnoe⁠ ⁠… and wait there.” + 

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Natásha. + 

“Yes, go back,” said Márya Dmítrievna, “and wait there. If your betrothed comes here now⁠—there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but alone with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to you.” + 

Count Ilyá Andréevich approved of this suggestion, appreciating its reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding, against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otrádnoe. + 

“That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took her,” said the old count. + 

“No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he won’t⁠—that’s his affair,” said Márya Dmítrievna, looking for something in her reticule. “Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is nothing to wait for; and what is not ready I’ll send after you. Though I don’t like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God’s blessing!” + 

Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to Natásha. It was a letter from Princess Márya. + 

“She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She’s afraid you might think that she does not like you.” + 

“But she doesn’t like me,” said Natásha. + 

“Don’t talk nonsense!” cried Márya Dmítrievna. + 

“I shan’t believe anyone, I know she doesn’t like me,” replied Natásha boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and angry resolution that caused Márya Dmítrievna to look at her more intently and to frown. + 

“Don’t answer like that, my good girl!” she said. “What I say is true! Write an answer!” + 

Natásha did not reply and went to her own room to read Princess Márya’s letter. + 

Princess Márya wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that had occurred between them. Whatever her father’s feelings might be, she begged Natásha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice everything. + 

“Do not think, however,” she wrote, “that my father is ill-disposed toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son happy.” Princess Márya went on to ask Natásha to fix a time when she could see her again. + 

After reading the letter Natásha sat down at the writing table to answer it. “Dear Princess,” she wrote in French quickly and mechanically, and then paused. What more could she write after all that had happened the evening before? “Yes, yes! All that has happened, and now all is changed,” she thought as she sat with the letter she had begun before her. “Must I break off with him? Must I really? That’s awful⁠ ⁠…” and to escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Sónya and began sorting patterns with her. + 

After dinner Natásha went to her room and again took up Princess Márya’s letter. “Can it be that it is all over?” she thought. “Can it be that all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went before?” She recalled her love for Prince Andréy in all its former strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kurágin. She vividly pictured herself as Prince Andréy’s wife, and the scenes of happiness with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday’s interview with Anatole. + 

“Why could that not be as well?” she sometimes asked herself in complete bewilderment. “Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to choose, and I can’t be happy without either of them. Only,” she thought, “to tell Prince Andréy what has happened or to hide it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andréy’s love, in which I have lived so long?” + 

“Please, Miss!” whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious air. “A man told me to give you this⁠—” and she handed Natásha a letter. + 

“Only, for Christ’s sake⁠ ⁠…” the girl went on, as Natásha, without thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it was a letter from him⁠—from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or else how could that have happened which had happened? And how could she have a love letter from him in her hand? + 

With trembling hands Natásha held that passionate love letter which Dólokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling. + 

“Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or to die. There is no other way for me,” the letter began. Then he went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him⁠—for this there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her⁠—but that if she loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and carry her off to the ends of the earth. + 

“Yes, yes! I love him!” thought Natásha, reading the letter for the twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of it. + 

That evening Márya Dmítrievna was going to the Akhárovs’ and proposed to take the girls with her. Natásha, pleading a headache, remained at home. + 

XV + 

On returning late in the evening Sónya went to Natásha’s room, and to her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the table, beside her lay Anatole’s letter. Sónya picked it up and read it. + 

As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natásha, trying to find in her face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself from choking, Sónya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat down in an armchair and burst into tears. + 

“How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have left off loving Prince Andréy? And how could she let Kurágin go to such lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that’s plain! What will Nicolas, dear noble Nicolas, do when he hears of it? So this is the meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before yesterday, yesterday, and today,” thought Sónya. “But it can’t be that she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a thing!” + 

Sónya wiped away her tears and went up to Natásha, again scanning her face. + 

“Natásha!” she said, just audibly. + 

Natásha awoke and saw Sónya. + 

“Ah, you’re back?” + 

And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sónya’s look of embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion. + 

“Sónya, you’ve read that letter?” she demanded. + 

“Yes,” answered Sónya softly. + 

Natásha smiled rapturously. + 

“No, Sónya, I can’t any longer!” she said. “I can’t hide it from you any longer. You know, we love one another! Sónya, darling, he writes⁠ ⁠… Sónya⁠ ⁠…” + 

Sónya stared open-eyed at Natásha, unable to believe her ears. + 

“And Bolkónski?” she asked. + 

“Ah, Sónya, if you only knew how happy I am!” cried Natásha. “You don’t know what love is.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But, Natásha, can that be all over?” + 

Natásha looked at Sónya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp the question. + 

“Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andréy?” said Sónya. + 

“Oh, you don’t understand anything! Don’t talk nonsense, just listen!” said Natásha, with momentary vexation. + 

“But I can’t believe it,” insisted Sónya. “I don’t understand. How is it you have loved a man for a whole year and suddenly⁠ ⁠… Why, you have only seen him three times! Natásha, I don’t believe you, you’re joking! In three days to forget everything and so⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Three days?” said Natásha. “It seems to me I’ve loved him a hundred years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You can’t understand it.⁠ ⁠… Sónya, wait a bit, sit here,” and Natásha embraced and kissed her. + 

“I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too, but it’s only now that I feel such love. It’s not the same as before. As soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall do. You don’t understand that. What can I do? What can I do, Sónya?” cried Natásha with a happy yet frightened expression. + 

“But think what you are doing,” cried Sónya. “I can’t leave it like this. This secret correspondence⁠ ⁠… How could you let him go so far?” she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal. + 

“I told you that I have no will,” Natásha replied. “Why can’t you understand? I love him!” + 

“Then I won’t let it come to that⁠ ⁠… I shall tell!” cried Sónya, bursting into tears. + 

“What do you mean? For God’s sake⁠ ⁠… If you tell, you are my enemy!” declared Natásha. “You want me to be miserable, you want us to be separated.⁠ ⁠…” + 

When she saw Natásha’s fright, Sónya shed tears of shame and pity for her friend. + 

“But what has happened between you?” she asked. “What has he said to you? Why doesn’t he come to the house?” + 

Natásha did not answer her questions. + 

“For God’s sake, Sónya, don’t tell anyone, don’t torture me,” Natásha entreated. “Remember no one ought to interfere in such matters! I have confided in you.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But why this secrecy? Why doesn’t he come to the house?” asked Sónya. “Why doesn’t he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince Andréy gave you complete freedom⁠—if it is really so; but I don’t believe it! Natásha, have you considered what these secret reasons can be?” + 

Natásha looked at Sónya with astonishment. Evidently this question presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how to answer it. + 

“I don’t know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!” + 

Sónya sighed and shook her head incredulously. + 

“If there were reasons⁠ ⁠…” she began. + 

But Natásha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm. + 

“Sónya, one can’t doubt him! One can’t, one can’t! Don’t you understand?” she cried. + 

“Does he love you?” + 

“Does he love me?” Natásha repeated with a smile of pity at her friend’s lack of comprehension. “Why, you have read his letter and you have seen him.” + 

“But if he is dishonorable?” + 

“He! dishonorable? If you only knew!” exclaimed Natásha. + 

“If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or cease seeing you; and if you won’t do this, I will. I will write to him, and I will tell Papa!” said Sónya resolutely. + 

“But I can’t live without him!” cried Natásha. + 

“Natásha, I don’t understand you. And what are you saying! Think of your father and of Nicolas.” + 

“I don’t want anyone, I don’t love anyone but him. How dare you say he is dishonorable? Don’t you know that I love him?” screamed Natásha. “Go away, Sónya! I don’t want to quarrel with you, but go, for God’s sake go! You see how I am suffering!” Natásha cried angrily, in a voice of despair and repressed irritation. Sónya burst into sobs and ran from the room. + 

Natásha went to the table and without a moment’s reflection wrote that answer to Princess Márya which she had been unable to write all the morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their misunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the magnanimity of Prince Andréy who when he went abroad had given her her freedom, she begged Princess Márya to forget everything and forgive her if she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his wife. At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natásha. + 

On Friday the Rostóvs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow. + 

On the day the count left, Sónya and Natásha were invited to a big dinner party at the Karágins’, and Márya Dmítrievna took them there. At that party Natásha again met Anatole, and Sónya noticed that she spoke to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through dinner she was more agitated than ever. When they got home Natásha was the first to begin the explanation Sónya expected. + 

“There, Sónya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,” Natásha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be praised. “We have had an explanation today.” + 

“Well, what happened? What did he say? Natásha, how glad I am you’re not angry with me! Tell me everything⁠—the whole truth. What did he say?” + 

Natásha became thoughtful. + 

“Oh, Sónya, if you knew him as I do! He said⁠ ⁠… He asked me what I had promised Bolkónski. He was glad I was free to refuse him.” + 

Sónya sighed sorrowfully. + 

“But you haven’t refused Bolkónski?” said she. + 

“Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkónski. Why do you think so badly of me?” + 

“I don’t think anything, only I don’t understand this⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Wait a bit, Sónya, you’ll understand everything. You’ll see what a man he is! Now don’t think badly of me or of him. I don’t think badly of anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?” + 

Sónya did not succumb to the tender tone Natásha used toward her. The more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natásha’s face became, the more serious and stern grew Sónya’s. + 

“Natásha,” said she, “you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven’t spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don’t trust him, Natásha. Why this secrecy?” + 

“Again, again!” interrupted Natásha. + 

“Natásha, I am afraid for you!” + 

“Afraid of what?” + 

“I am afraid you’re going to your ruin,” said Sónya resolutely, and was herself horrified at what she had said. + 

Anger again showed in Natásha’s face. + 

“And I’ll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It’s not your business! It won’t be you, but I, who’ll suffer. Leave me alone, leave me alone! I hate you!” + 

“Natásha!” moaned Sónya, aghast. + 

“I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy forever!” And Natásha ran out of the room. + 

Natásha did not speak to Sónya again and avoided her. With the same expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house, taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them. + 

Hard as it was for Sónya, she watched her friend and did not let her out of her sight. + 

The day before the count was to return, Sónya noticed that Natásha sat by the drawing room window all the morning as if expecting something and that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sónya took to be Anatole. + 

Sónya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that at dinner and all that evening Natásha was in a strange and unnatural state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not finish, and laughed at everything. + 

After tea Sónya noticed a housemaid at Natásha’s door timidly waiting to let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door learned that another letter had been delivered. + 

Then suddenly it became clear to Sónya that Natásha had some dreadful plan for that evening. Sónya knocked at her door. Natásha did not let her in. + 

“She will run away with him!” thought Sónya. “She is capable of anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her face today. She cried as she said goodbye to Uncle,” Sónya remembered. “Yes, that’s it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?” thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natásha had some terrible intention. “The count is away. What am I to do? Write to Kurágin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him to reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andréy asked me to in case of some misfortune?⁠ ⁠… But perhaps she really has already refused Bolkónski⁠—she sent a letter to Princess Márya yesterday. And Uncle is away.⁠ ⁠…” To tell Márya Dmítrievna who had such faith in Natásha seemed to Sónya terrible. “Well, anyway,” thought Sónya as she stood in the dark passage, “now or never I must prove that I remember the family’s goodness to me and that I love Nicolas. Yes! If I don’t sleep for three nights I’ll not leave this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the family be disgraced,” thought she. + 

XVI + 

Anatole had lately moved to Dólokhov’s. The plan for Natalie Rostóva’s abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dólokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sónya, after listening at Natásha’s door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution. Natásha had promised to come out to Kurágin at the back porch at ten that evening. Kurágin was to put her into a troyka he would have ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of Kámenka, where an unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over them. At Kámenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to the Warsaw high road, and from there they would hasten abroad with post horses. + 

Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with Dólokhov’s help. + 

Two witnesses for the mock marriage⁠—Khvóstikov, a retired petty official whom Dólokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and Makárin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded affection for Kurágin⁠—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov’s front room. + 

In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dólokhov in a traveling cloak and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his things. Dólokhov was counting the money and noting something down. + 

“Well,” he said, “Khvóstikov must have two thousand.” + 

“Give it to him, then,” said Anatole. + 

“Makárka” (their name for Makárin) “will go through fire and water for you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled,” said Dólokhov, showing him the memorandum. “Is that right?” + 

“Yes, of course,” returned Anatole, evidently not listening to Dólokhov and looking straight before him with a smile that did not leave his face. + 

Dólokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an ironic smile: + 

“Do you know? You’d really better drop it all. There’s still time!” + 

“Fool,” retorted Anatole. “Don’t talk nonsense! If you only knew⁠ ⁠… it’s the devil knows what!” + 

“No, really, give it up!” said Dólokhov. “I am speaking seriously. It’s no joke, this plot you’ve hatched.” + 

“What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?” said Anatole, making a grimace. “Really it’s no time for your stupid jokes,” and he left the room. + 

Dólokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had gone out. + 

“You wait a bit,” he called after him. “I’m not joking, I’m talking sense. Come here, come here!” + 

Anatole returned and looked at Dólokhov, trying to give him his attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily. + 

“Now listen to me. I’m telling you this for the last time. Why should I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you? Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did it all.” + 

“Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?” And Anatole sighed and embraced Dólokhov. + 

“I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a dangerous business, and if you think about it⁠—a stupid business. Well, you’ll carry her off⁠—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will come out that you’re already married. Why, they’ll have you in the criminal court.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” Anatole ejaculated and again made a grimace. “Didn’t I explain to you? What?” And Anatole, with the partiality dull-witted people have for any conclusion they have reached by their own reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to Dólokhov a hundred times. “Didn’t I explain to you that I have come to this conclusion: if this marriage is invalid,” he went on, crooking one finger, “then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn’t that so? And don’t talk to me, don’t, don’t.” + 

“Seriously, you’d better drop it! You’ll only get yourself into a mess!” + 

“Go to the devil!” cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the room, but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of Dólokhov with his feet turned under him. “It’s the very devil! What? Feel how it beats!” He took Dólokhov’s hand and put it on his heart. “What a foot, my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!” he added in French. “What?” + 

Dólokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes looked at him⁠—evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him. + 

“Well and when the money’s gone, what then?” + 

“What then? Eh?” repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought of the future. “What then?⁠ ⁠… Then, I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… But why talk nonsense!” He glanced at his watch. “It’s time!” + 

Anatole went into the back room. + 

“Now then! Nearly ready? You’re dawdling!” he shouted to the servants. + 

Dólokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into the room where Khvóstikov and Makárin were sitting. + 

Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself. + 

“Come and eat something. Have a drink!” Dólokhov shouted to him from the other room. + 

“I don’t want to,” answered Anatole continuing to smile. + 

“Come! Balagá is here.” + 

Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balagá was a famous troyka driver who had known Dólokhov and Anatole some six years and had given them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole’s regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again the next night. More than once he had enabled Dólokhov to escape when pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies and “ladykins” as he called the cocottes. More than once in their service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets of Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by “my gentlemen” as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in their service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once they had made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and he knew more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have sent an ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balagá into their orgies and made him drink and dance at the gypsies’, and more than one thousand rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their service he risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in their service had lost more horses than the money he had from them would buy. But he liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour, liked upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at full gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild, tipsy shouts behind him: “Get on! Get on!” when it was impossible to go any faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who, more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way. “Real gentlemen!” he considered them. + 

Anatole and Dólokhov liked Balagá too for his masterly driving and because he liked the things they liked. With others Balagá bargained, charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours’ drive, and rarely drove himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with “his gentlemen” he always drove himself and never demanded anything for his work. Only a couple of times a year⁠—when he knew from their valets that they had money in hand⁠—he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always made him sit down. + 

“Do help me out, Fëdor Iványch, sir,” or “your excellency,” he would say. “I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to go to the fair.” + 

And Anatole and Dólokhov, when they had money, would give him a thousand or a couple of thousand rubles. + 

Balagá was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about twenty-seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silklined cloth coat over a sheepskin. + 

On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front corner of the room, and went up to Dólokhov, holding out a small, black hand. + 

“Fëdor Iványch!” he said, bowing. + 

“How d’you do, friend? Well, here he is!” + 

“Good day, your excellency!” he said, again holding out his hand to Anatole who had just come in. + 

“I say, Balagá,” said Anatole, putting his hands on the man’s shoulders, “do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service.⁠ ⁠… What horses have you come with? Eh?” + 

“As your messenger ordered, your special beasts,” replied Balagá. + 

“Well, listen, Balagá! Drive all three to death but get me there in three hours. Eh?” + 

“When they are dead, what shall I drive?” said Balagá with a wink. + 

“Mind, I’ll smash your face in! Don’t make jokes!” cried Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes. + 

“Why joke?” said the driver, laughing. “As if I’d grudge my gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we’ll go!” + 

“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.” + 

“Yes, sit down!” said Dólokhov. + 

“I’ll stand, Fëdor Iványch.” + 

“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, and filled a large glass of Madeira for him. + 

The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it for manners’ sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk handkerchief he took out of his cap. + 

“And when are we to start, your excellency?” + 

“Well⁠ ⁠…” Anatole looked at his watch. “We’ll start at once. Mind, Balagá! You’ll get there in time? Eh?” + 

“That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn’t we be there in time?” replied Balagá. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?” + 

“Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” said Anatole, smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makárin who gazed rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it, Makárka, it took one’s breath away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?” + 

“Those were horses!” Balagá continued the tale. “That time I’d harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went on, turning to Dólokhov. “Will you believe it, Fëdor Iványch, those animals flew forty miles? I couldn’t hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins⁠—‘Catch hold yourself, your excellency!’ says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and sprawled there. It wasn’t a case of urging them on, there was no holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in three hours! Only the near one died of it.” + 

XVII + 

Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror, and standing before Dólokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it, he lifted a glass of wine. + 

“Well, goodbye, Fédya. Thank you for everything and farewell!” said Anatole. “Well, comrades and friends⁠ ⁠…” he considered for a moment “… of my youth, farewell!” he said, turning to Makárin and the others. + 

Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed one leg. + 

“All take glasses; you too, Balagá. Well, comrades and friends of my youth, we’ve had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time⁠—now farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!⁠ ⁠…” he cried, and emptying his glass flung it on the floor. + 

“To your health!” said Balagá who also emptied his glass, and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. + 

Makárin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes. + 

“Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!” + 

“Let’s go. Let’s go!” cried Anatole. + 

Balagá was about to leave the room. + 

“No, stop!” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we have first to sit down. That’s the way.” + 

They shut the door and all sat down. + 

“Now, quick march, lads!” said Anatole, rising. + 

Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all went out into the vestibule. + 

“And where’s the fur cloak?” asked Dólokhov. “Hey, Ignátka! Go to Matrëna Matrévna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what elopements are like,” continued Dólokhov with a wink. “Why, she’ll rush out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay at all there’ll be tears and ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ and she’s frozen in a minute and must go back⁠—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first thing and carry her to the sleigh.” + 

The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined cloak. + 

“Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrëshka, the sable!” he shouted so that his voice rang far through the rooms. + 

A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable mantle on her arm. + 

“Here, I don’t grudge it⁠—take it!” she said, evidently afraid of her master and yet regretful of her cloak. + 

Dólokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrësha, and wrapped her up in it. + 

“That’s the way,” said Dólokhov, “and then so!” and he turned the collar up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. “And then so, do you see?” and he pushed Anatole’s head forward to meet the gap left by the collar, through which Matrësha’s brilliant smile was seen. + 

“Well, goodbye, Matrësha,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, my revels here are over. Remember me to Stëshka. There, goodbye! Goodbye, Matrësha, wish me luck!” + 

“Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!” said Matrësha in her gypsy accent. + 

Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were holding the horses. Balagá took his seat in the front one and holding his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dólokhov got in with him. Makárin, Khvóstikov, and a valet seated themselves in the other sleigh. + 

“Well, are you ready?” asked Balagá. + 

“Go!” he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore down the Nikítski Boulevard. + 

“Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!⁠ ⁠… Tproo!⁠ ⁠…” The shouting of Balagá and of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be heard. On the Arbát Square the troyka caught against a carriage; something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the Arbát Street. + 

After taking a turn along the Podnovínski Boulevard, Balagá began to rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyúsheny Street. + 

The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole and Dólokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate Dólokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out. + 

“Come into the courtyard or you’ll be seen; she’ll come out directly,” said she. + 

Dólokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch. + 

He was met by Gavrílo, Márya Dmítrievna’s gigantic footman. + 

“Come to the mistress, please,” said the footman in his deep bass, intercepting any retreat. + 

“To what Mistress? Who are you?” asked Anatole in a breathless whisper. + 

“Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in.” + 

“Kurágin! Come back!” shouted Dólokhov. “Betrayed! Back!” + 

Dólokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last desperate effort Dólokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back with him to the troyka. + 

XVIII + 

Márya Dmítrievna, having found Sónya weeping in the corridor, made her confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natásha she read it and went into Natásha’s room with it in her hand. + 

“You shameless good-for-nothing!” said she. “I won’t hear a word.” + 

Pushing back Natásha who looked at her with astonished but tearless eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors. + 

When Gavrílo came to inform her that the men who had come had run away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward midnight she went to Natásha’s room fingering the key in her pocket. Sónya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. “Márya Dmítrievna, for God’s sake let me in to her!” she pleaded, but Márya Dmítrievna unlocked the door and went in without giving her an answer.⁠ ⁠… “Disgusting, abominable⁠ ⁠… In my house⁠ ⁠… horrid girl, hussy! I’m only sorry for her father!” thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. “Hard as it may be, I’ll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the count.” She entered the room with resolute steps. Natásha lying on the sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in just the same position in which Márya Dmítrievna had left her. + 

“A nice girl! Very nice!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “Arranging meetings with lovers in my house! It’s no use pretending: you listen when I speak to you!” And Márya Dmítrievna touched her arm. “Listen when I speak! You’ve disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I’d treat you differently, but I’m sorry for your father, so I will conceal it.” + 

Natásha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Márya Dmítrievna glanced round at Sónya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natásha. + 

“It’s lucky for him that he escaped me; but I’ll find him!” she said in her rough voice. “Do you hear what I am saying or not?” she added. + 

She put her large hand under Natásha’s face and turned it toward her. Both Márya Dmítrievna and Sónya were amazed when they saw how Natásha looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her cheeks sunken. + 

“Let me be!⁠ ⁠… What is it to me?⁠ ⁠… I shall die!” she muttered, wrenching herself from Márya Dmítrievna’s hands with a vicious effort and sinking down again into her former position. + 

“Natálya!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “I wish for your good. Lie still, stay like that then, I won’t touch you. But listen. I won’t tell you how guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?” + 

Again Natásha’s body shook with sobs. + 

“Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?” + 

“I have no betrothed: I have refused him!” cried Natásha. + 

“That’s all the same,” continued Márya Dmítrievna. “If they hear of this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him⁠ ⁠… if he challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?” + 

“Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked you to?” shouted Natásha, raising herself on the sofa and looking malignantly at Márya Dmítrievna. + 

“But what did you want?” cried Márya Dmítrievna, growing angry again. “Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house? Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?⁠ ⁠… Well, if he had carried you off⁠ ⁠… do you think they wouldn’t have found him? Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he’s a scoundrel, a wretch⁠—that’s a fact!” + 

“He is better than any of you!” exclaimed Natásha getting up. “If you hadn’t interfered⁠ ⁠… Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sónya, why?⁠ ⁠… Go away!” + 

And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Márya Dmítrievna was to speak again but Natásha cried out: + 

“Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!” and she threw herself back on the sofa. + 

Márya Dmítrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody would know anything about it if only Natásha herself would undertake to forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened. Natásha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold and had a shivering fit. Márya Dmítrievna put a pillow under her head, covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower water, but Natásha did not respond to her. + 

“Well, let her sleep,” said Márya Dmítrievna as she went out of the room supposing Natásha to be asleep. + 

But Natásha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and did not speak to Sónya who got up and went to her several times. + 

Next day Count Ilyá Andréevich returned from his estate near Moscow in time for lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Márya Dmítrievna met him and told him that Natásha had been very unwell the day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was better now. Natásha had not left her room that morning. With compressed and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and that he would come or would write to her. + 

When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound of a man’s footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent expression. She did not even get up to greet him. “What is the matter with you, my angel? Are you ill?” asked the count. + 

After a moment’s silence Natásha answered: “Yes, ill.” + 

In reply to the count’s anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him that nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Márya Dmítrievna confirmed Natásha’s assurances that nothing had happened. From the pretense of illness, from his daughter’s distress, and by the embarrassed faces of Sónya and Márya Dmítrievna, the count saw clearly that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition delayed their return to the country. + 

XIX + 

From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostóvs came to Moscow the effect Natásha had on him made him hasten to carry out his intention. He went to Tver to see Osip Alexéevich’s widow, who had long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased husband’s. + 

When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Márya Dmítrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great importance relating to Andréy Bolkónski and his betrothed. Pierre had been avoiding Natásha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her was stronger than a married man’s should be for his friend’s fiancée. Yet some fate constantly threw them together. + 

“What can have happened? And what can they want with me?” thought he as he dressed to go to Márya Dmítrievna’s. “If only Prince Andréy would hurry up and come and marry her!” thought he on his way to the house. + 

On the Tverskóy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him. + 

“Pierre! Been back long?” someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In a sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makárin dashed past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat, tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled with powdery snow. + 

“Yes, indeed, that’s a true sage,” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn’t I give to be like him!” he thought enviously. + 

In Márya Dmítrievna’s anteroom the footman who helped him off with his fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom. + 

When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natásha sitting at the window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him, frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity. + 

“What has happened?” asked Pierre, entering Márya Dmítrievna’s room. + 

“Fine doings!” answered Dmítrievna. “For fifty-eight years have I lived in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!” + 

And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him, Márya Dmítrievna informed him that Natásha had refused Prince Andréy without her parents’ knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole Kurágin into whose society Pierre’s wife had thrown her and with whom Natásha had tried to elope during her father’s absence, in order to be married secretly. + 

Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andréy’s deeply loved affianced wife⁠—the same Natásha Rostóva who used to be so charming⁠—should give up Bolkónski for that fool Anatole who was already secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive and could not imagine. + 

He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natásha, whom he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness, folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. “They are all alike!” he said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andréy to the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with disgust of that Natásha who had just passed him in the ballroom with such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natásha’s soul was overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity and severity. + 

“But how get married?” said Pierre, in answer to Márya Dmítrievna. “He could not marry⁠—he is married!” + 

“Things get worse from hour to hour!” ejaculated Márya Dmítrievna. “A nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she’s expecting him⁠—expecting him since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won’t go on expecting him.” + 

After hearing the details of Anatole’s marriage from Pierre, and giving vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Márya Dmítrievna told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or Bolkónski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair (which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel, and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre⁠—only now realizing the danger to the old count, Nikoláy, and Prince Andréy⁠—promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly explained her wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room. + 

“Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,” she said. “And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And stay to dinner if you care to!” she called after Pierre. + 

Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning Natásha had told him that she had rejected Bolkónski. + 

“Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!” he said to Pierre. “What troubles one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having come here.⁠ ⁠… I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken off her engagement without consulting anybody? It’s true this engagement never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but still, with his father’s disapproval they wouldn’t have been happy, and Natásha won’t lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and to take such a step without father’s or mother’s consent! And now she’s ill, and God knows what! It’s hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in their mother’s absence.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the subject, but the count returned to his troubles. + 

Sónya entered the room with an agitated face. + 

“Natásha is not quite well; she’s in her room and would like to see you. Márya Dmítrievna is with her and she too asks you to come.” + 

“Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkónski’s, no doubt she wants to send him a message,” said the count. “Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all was!” + 

And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the room. + 

When Márya Dmítrievna told Natásha that Anatole was married, Natásha did not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre himself. Sónya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to Natásha’s room. + 

Natásha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Márya Dmítrievna, and her eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did not exist for her. + 

“He knows all about it,” said Márya Dmítrievna pointing to Pierre and addressing Natásha. “Let him tell you whether I have told the truth.” + 

Natásha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen. + 

“Natálya Ilyníchna,” Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, “whether it is true or not should make no difference to you, because⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Then it is not true that he’s married!” + 

“Yes, it is true.” + 

“Has he been married long?” she asked. “On your honor?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre gave his word of honor. + 

“Is he still here?” she asked, quickly. + 

“Yes, I have just seen him.” + 

She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that they should leave her alone. + 

XX + 

Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once. He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kurágin, at the thought of whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies’, nor at Komoneno’s. Pierre drove to the Club. In the Club all was going on as usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about in groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince Mikháil Zakhárych was in the library, but Pável Timoféevich had not yet arrived. One of Pierre’s acquaintances, while they were talking about the weather, asked if he had heard of Kurágin’s abduction of Rostóva which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and said it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostóvs’. He asked everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home. + 

Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dólokhov, consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to him essential to see Natásha. In the evening he drove to his sister’s to discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince Anatole was with the countess. The countess’ drawing room was full of guests. + 

Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his return⁠—at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever⁠—entered the drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him. + 

“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess going up to her husband. “You don’t know what a plight our Anatole⁠ ⁠…” + 

She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband’s head, in his glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his duel with Dólokhov. + 

“Where you are, there is vice and evil!” said Pierre to his wife. “Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you,” he added in French. + 

Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself and was leading him from the room. + 

“If you allow yourself in my drawing room⁠ ⁠…” whispered Elèn, but Pierre did not reply and went out of the room. + 

Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed anxiety. + 

Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole without looking at him. + 

“You promised Countess Rostóva to marry her and were about to elope with her, is that so?” + 

“Mon cher,” answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French), “I don’t consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that tone.” + 

Pierre’s face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side to side till Anatole’s face showed a sufficient degree of terror. + 

“When I tell you that I must talk to you!⁠ ⁠…” repeated Pierre. + 

“Come now, this is stupid. What?” said Anatole, fingering a button of his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth. + 

“You’re a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don’t know what deprives me from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!” said Pierre, expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French. + 

He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put it back in its place. + 

“Did you promise to marry her?” + 

“I⁠ ⁠… I didn’t think of it. I never promised, because⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre interrupted him. + 

“Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?” he said, moving toward Anatole. + 

Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out his pocketbook. + 

Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa. + 

“I shan’t be violent, don’t be afraid!” said Pierre in answer to a frightened gesture of Anatole’s. “First, the letters,” said he, as if repeating a lesson to himself. “Secondly,” he continued after a short pause, again rising and again pacing the room, “tomorrow you must get out of Moscow.” + 

“But how can I?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Thirdly,” Pierre continued without listening to him, “you must never breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostóva. I know I can’t prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of conscience⁠ ⁠…” Pierre paced the room several times in silence. + 

Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips. + 

“After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such a thing as other people’s happiness and peace, and that you are ruining a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women like my wife⁠—with them you are within your rights, for they know what you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience of debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her⁠ ⁠… to deceive, to kidnap.⁠ ⁠… Don’t you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man or a child?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a questioning look. + 

“I don’t know about that, eh?” said Anatole, growing more confident as Pierre mastered his wrath. “I don’t know that and don’t want to,” he said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw, “but you have used such words to me⁠—‘mean’ and so on⁠—which as a man of honor I can’t allow anyone to use.” + 

Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he wanted. + 

“Though it was tête-à-tête,” Anatole continued, “still I can’t⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Is it satisfaction you want?” said Pierre ironically. + 

“You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as you wish, eh?” + 

“I take them back, I take them back!” said Pierre, “and I ask you to forgive me.” Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. “And if you require money for your journey⁠ ⁠…” + 

Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him. + 

“Oh, vile and heartless brood!” he exclaimed, and left the room. + 

Next day Anatole left for Petersburg. + 

XXI + 

Pierre drove to Márya Dmítrievna’s to tell her of the fulfillment of her wish that Kurágin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in a state of alarm and commotion. Natásha was very ill, having, as Márya Dmítrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she woke Sónya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and so the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and Sónya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natásha. + 

Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about the attempted abduction of Rostóva. He resolutely denied these rumors, assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in-law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to Pierre that it was his duty to conceal the whole affair and reestablish Natásha’s reputation. + 

He was awaiting Prince Andréy’s return with dread and went every day to the old prince’s for news of him. + 

Old Prince Bolkónski heard all the rumors current in the town from Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Márya in which Natásha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than usual and awaited his son with great impatience. + 

Some days after Anatole’s departure Pierre received a note from Prince Andréy, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him. + 

As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andréy had received from his father Natásha’s note to Princess Márya breaking off her engagement (Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Márya and given it to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natásha’s elopement, with additions. + 

Prince Andréy had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andréy in almost the same state as Natásha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room to hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince’s voice and another now and then interrupted him. Princess Márya came out to meet Pierre. She sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andréy was, evidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre saw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the way her brother had taken the news of Natásha’s faithlessness. + 

“He says he expected it,” she remarked. “I know his pride will not let him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better, than I expected. Evidently it had to be.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But is it possible that all is really ended?” asked Pierre. + 

Princess Márya looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince Andréy, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing his father and Prince Meshchérski, warmly disputing and vigorously gesticulating. The conversation was about Speránski⁠—the news of whose sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow. + 

“Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him a month ago,” Prince Andréy was saying, “and by those who were unable to understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on him all the blame of other men’s mistakes is very easy, but I maintain that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by him, by him alone.” + 

He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately assumed a vindictive expression. + 

“Posterity will do him justice,” he concluded, and at once turned to Pierre. + 

“Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?” he said with animation, but the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. “Yes, I am well,” he said in answer to Pierre’s question, and smiled. + 

To Pierre that smile said plainly: “I am well, but my health is now of no use to anyone.” + 

After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son’s tutor, Prince Andréy again joined warmly in the conversation about Speránski which was still going on between the two old men. + 

“If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon, they would have been made public,” he said with warmth and haste. “I do not, and never did, like Speránski personally, but I like justice!” + 

Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate. When Prince Meshchérski had left, Prince Andréy took Pierre’s arm and asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince Andréy went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed. + 

“Forgive me for troubling you.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre saw that Prince Andréy was going to speak of Natásha, and his broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince Andréy, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued: + 

“I have received a refusal from Countess Rostóva and have heard reports of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that kind. Is that true?” + 

“Both true and untrue,” Pierre began; but Prince Andréy interrupted him. + 

“Here are her letters and her portrait,” said he. + 

He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre. + 

“Give this to the countess⁠ ⁠… if you see her.” + 

“She is very ill,” said Pierre. + 

“Then she is here still?” said Prince Andréy. “And Prince Kurágin?” he added quickly. + 

“He left long ago. She has been at death’s door.” + 

“I much regret her illness,” said Prince Andréy; and he smiled like his father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly. + 

“So Monsieur Kurágin has not honored Countess Rostóva with his hand?” said Prince Andréy, and he snorted several times. + 

“He could not marry, for he was married already,” said Pierre. + 

Prince Andréy laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father. + 

“And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?” he said. + 

“He has gone to Peters⁠ ⁠… But I don’t know,” said Pierre. + 

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Prince Andréy. “Tell Countess Rostóva that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is good.” + 

Pierre took the packet. Prince Andréy, as if trying to remember whether he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say anything, looked fixedly at him. + 

“I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?” asked Pierre, “about⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes,” returned Prince Andréy hastily. “I said that a fallen woman should be forgiven, but I didn’t say I could forgive her. I can’t.” + 

“But can this be compared⁠ ⁠… ?” said Pierre. + 

Prince Andréy interrupted him and cried sharply: “Yes, ask her hand again, be magnanimous, and so on?⁠ ⁠… Yes, that would be very noble, but I am unable to follow in that gentleman’s footsteps. If you wish to be my friend never speak to me of that⁠ ⁠… of all that! Well, goodbye. So you’ll give her the packet?” + 

Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Márya. + 

The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Márya was the same as always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the Rostóvs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention the name of her who could give up Prince Andréy for anyone else. + 

At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming evident. Prince Andréy talked incessantly, arguing now with his father, now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation, the cause of which Pierre so well understood. + 

XXII + 

That same evening Pierre went to the Rostóvs’ to fulfill the commission entrusted to him. Natásha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre, after giving the letters to Sónya, went to Márya Dmítrievna who was interested to know how Prince Andréy had taken the news. Ten minutes later Sónya came to Márya Dmítrievna. + 

“Natásha insists on seeing Count Pyotr Kirílovich,” said she. + 

“But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been tidied up.” + 

“No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room,” said Sónya. + 

Márya Dmítrievna only shrugged her shoulders. + 

“When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don’t tell her everything!” said she to Pierre. “One hasn’t the heart to scold her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.” + 

Natásha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up. + 

Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual; but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different expression of face. + 

“Pyotr Kirílych,” she began rapidly, “Prince Bolkónski was your friend⁠—is your friend,” she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that everything that had once been must now be different.) “He told me once to apply to you⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach. + 

“He is here now: tell him⁠ ⁠… to for⁠ ⁠… forgive me!” She stopped and breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears. + 

“Yes⁠ ⁠… I will tell him,” answered Pierre; “but⁠ ⁠…” + 

He did not know what to say. + 

Natásha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she had meant. + 

“No, I know all is over,” she said hurriedly. “No, that can never be. I’m only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She trembled all over and sat down on a chair. + 

A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre’s heart. + 

“I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more,” said Pierre. “But⁠ ⁠… I should like to know one thing.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Know what?” Natásha’s eyes asked. + 

“I should like to know, did you love⁠ ⁠…” Pierre did not know how to refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him⁠—“did you love that bad man?” + 

“Don’t call him bad!” said Natásha. “But I don’t know, don’t know at all.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and hoped they would not be noticed. + 

“We won’t speak of it any more, my dear,” said Pierre, and his gentle, cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natásha. + 

“We won’t speak of it, my dear⁠—I’ll tell him everything; but one thing I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or simply to open your heart to someone⁠—not now, but when your mind is clearer⁠—think of me!” He took her hand and kissed it. “I shall be happy if it’s in my power⁠ ⁠…” + 

Pierre grew confused. + 

“Don’t speak to me like that. I am not worth it!” exclaimed Natásha and turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand. + 

He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was amazed at his own words. + 

“Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you,” said he to her. + 

“Before me? No! All is over for me,” she replied with shame and self-abasement. + 

“All over?” he repeated. “If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment ask on my knees for your hand and your love!” + 

For the first time for many days Natásha wept tears of gratitude and tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room. + 

Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh. + 

“Where to now, your excellency?” asked the coachman. + 

“Where to?” Pierre asked himself. “Where can I go now? Surely not to the Club or to pay calls?” All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her tears. + 

“Home!” said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the air with joy. + 

It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. At the entrance to the Arbát Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechístenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 1812⁠—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly⁠—like an arrow piercing the earth⁠—to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life. + 