War and Peace (12 page)

“Well, my good fellow, whether you’re in the infantry or in the cavalry, you’ll always get on all right, that I venture to predict,” said Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder, and setting his feet down off the ottoman. Berg smiled gleefully. The count and the guests after him went into the drawing-room.

It was that interval just before a dinner when the assembled guests do not care to enter on a lengthy conversation, expecting to be summoned to the dining-room; while they feel it incumbent on them to move about and not to be silent, so as to show that they are not impatient to sit down to table. The host and hostess look towards the door, and occasionally at one another. The guests try from these glances to divine whom or what they are waiting for; some important relation late in arriving, or some dish which is not ready.

Pierre arrived just at dinner-time, and awkwardly sat down in the middle of the drawing-room in the first easy-chair he came across, blocking up the way for every one. The countess tried to make him talk, but he looked naïvely round him over his spectacles as though he were looking for some one, and replied in monosyllables to all the countess’s questions. He was in the way, and was the only person unaware of it. The greater number of the guests, knowing the story of the bear, looked inquisitively at this big, stout, inoffensive-looking person, puzzled to think how such a spiritless and staid young man could have played such a prank.

“You have only lately arrived?” the countess asked him.

“
Oui, madame
.”

“You have not seen my husband?”

“
Non, madame
.” He smiled very inappropriately.

“You have lately been in Paris, I believe? I suppose it’s very interesting.”

“Very interesting.”

The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mihalovna. Anna Mihalovna saw that she was asked to undertake the young man, and sitting down by him she began talking of his father. But to her as to the countess he replied only in monosyllables. The other guests were all busily engaged together. “The Razumovskys … It was very charming … You are so kind … Countess Apraxin …” rose in murmurs on all sides. The countess got up and went into the reception hall.

“Marya Dmitryevna?” her voice was heard asking from there.

“Herself,” a rough voice was heard in reply, and immediately after, Marya Dmitryevna walked into the room. All the girls and even the ladies, except the very old ones, got up. Marya Dmitryevna, a stout woman of fifty, stopped in the doorway, and holding her head with its grey curls erect, she looked down at the guests and as though tucking up her cuffs, she deliberately arranged the wide sleeves of her gown. Marya Dmitryevna always spoke Russian.

“Health and happiness to the lady whose name-day we are keeping and to her children,” she said in her loud, rich voice that dominated all other sounds. “Well, you old sinner,” she turned to the count who was kissing her hand. “I suppose you are tired of Moscow—nowhere to go out with the dogs? Well, my good man, what’s to be done? these nestlings will grow up.…” She pointed to the girls. “Willy-nilly, you must look out for young men for them.”

“Well, my Cossack?” (Marya Dmitryevna used to call Natasha a Cossack) she said, stroking the hand of Natasha, who came up to kiss her hand gaily without shyness. “I know you’re a wicked girl, but I like you.”

She took out of her huge reticule some amber earrings with drops, and giving them to Natasha, whose beaming birthday face flushed rosy red, she turned away immediately and addressed Pierre.

“Ay, ay! come here, sir!” she said in an intentionally quiet and gentle voice. “Come here, sir …” And she tucked her sleeve up higher in an ominous manner.

Pierre went up, looking innocently at her over his spectacles.

“Come along, come along, sir! I was the only person that told your
father the truth when he was in high favour, and in your case it is a sacred duty.” She paused. Every one was mutely expectant of what was to follow, feeling that this was merely a prelude. “A pretty fellow, there’s no denying! a pretty fellow!… His father is lying on his deathbed, and he’s amusing himself, setting a police-constable astride on a bear! For shame, sir, for shame! You had better have gone to the war.”

She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep from laughing.

“Well, I suppose dinner’s ready, eh?” said Marya Dmitryevna. The count led the way with Marya Dmitryevna, then followed the countess, taken in by a colonel of hussars, a person of importance, as Nikolay was to travel in his company to join the regiment; then Anna Mihalovna with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera, Julie Karagin walked in smiling with Nikolay. They were followed by a string of other couples, stretching right across the hall, and behind all, the children with their tutors and governesses trooped in, walked singly. There was a bustle among the waiters and a creaking of chairs; the orchestra began playing, as the guests took their places. Then the strains of the count’s household band were succeeded by the clatter of knives and forks, the conversation of the guests, and the subdued tread of the waiters. The countess presided at one end of the table. On her right was Marya Dmitryevna; on her left Anna Mihalovna and the other ladies of the party. At the other end sat the count, with the colonel of hussars on his left, and on his right Shinshin and the other guests of the male sex. On one side of the large table sat the more grown-up of the young people: Vera beside Berg, Pierre beside Boris. On the other side were the children with their tutors and governesses. The count peeped from behind the crystal of the decanters and fruit-dishes at his wife and her high cap with blue ribbons, and zealously poured out wine for his neighbours, not overlooking himself. The countess, too, while mindful of her duties as hostess, cast significant glances from behind the pineapples at her husband, whose face and bald head struck her as looking particularly red against his grey hair. At the ladies’ end there was a rhythmic murmur of talk, but at the other end of the table the men’s voices grew louder and louder, especially the voice of the colonel of hussars, who, getting more and more flushed, ate and drank so much that the count held him up as a pattern to the rest. Berg with a tender smile was telling Vera that love was an emotion not of earth but of heaven. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre the names of the guests, while he exchanged glances with Natasha sitting opposite
him. Pierre said little, looked about at the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of the two soups he chose
à la tortue
, and from that course to the fish-pasties and the grouse, he did not let a single dish pass, and took every sort of wine that the butler offered him, as he mysteriously poked a bottle wrapped in a napkin over his neighbour’s shoulder, murmuring, “Dry Madeira,” or “Hungarian,” or “Rhine wine.” Pierre took a wine-glass at random out of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s crest that were set at each place, and drank with relish, staring at the guests with a countenance that became more and more amiable as the dinner went on. Natasha, who sat opposite him, gazed at Boris as girls of thirteen gaze at the boy whom they have just kissed for the first time, and with whom they are in love. This gaze sometimes strayed to Pierre, and at the look on the funny, excited little girl’s face, he felt an impulse to laugh himself without knowing why.

Nikolay was sitting a long way from Sonya, beside Julie Karagin, and again smiling the same unconscious smile, he was talking to her. Sonya wore a company smile, but she was visibly in agonies of jealousy; at one moment she turned pale, then she crimsoned, and all her energies were concentrated on listening to what Nikolay and Julie were saying. The governess looked nervously about her, as though preparing to resent any slight that might be offered to the children. The German tutor was trying to learn by heart a list of all the kinds of dishes, desserts, and wines, in order to write a detailed description of them to the folks at home in Germany, and was greatly mortified that the butler with the bottle in the napkin had passed him over. The German knitted his brows, and tried to look as though he would not have cared to take that wine, but he was mortified because no one would understand that he had not wanted the wine to quench his thirst, or through greed, but from a conscientious desire for knowledge.

At the men’s end of the table the conversation was becoming more and more lively. The colonel was asserting that the proclamation of the declaration of war had already been issued in Petersburg, and that a copy, which he had seen himself, had that day been brought by a courier to the commander-in-chief.

“And what evil spirit must make us go to war with Bonaparte?” said
Shinshin. “He has already made Austria take a back seat. I am afraid it may be our turn this time.”

The colonel was a stout, tall, and plethoric German, evidently a zealous officer and good patriot. He resented Shinshin’s words.

“The reason why, my good sir,” he said, speaking with a German accent, “is just that the emperor knows that. In his proclamation he says that he cannot behold with equanimity the danger threatening Russia, and the security of the empire, its dignity, and the sacredness of its
alliances
.” He laid a special emphasis on the word
alliances
, as though the gist of the matter lay in that word. And with the unfailing memory for official matters that was peculiar to him, he repeated the introductory words of the proclamation … “and the desire, which constitutes the Sovereign’s sole and immutable aim, to establish peace on a secure foundation, have determined him to despatch now a part of the troops abroad, and to make dispositions for carrying out this new project. That is the reason why, my dear sir,” he concluded, tossing off a glass of wine in edifying fashion, and looking towards the count for encouragement.

“Do you know the proverb, ‘Erema, Erema, you’d better stay at home and mind your spindle’?” said Shinshin, frowning and smiling. “That suits us to a hair. Why, Suvorov even was defeated hollow, and where are our Suvorovs nowadays? I just ask you that,” he said, continually shifting from Russian to French and back again.

“We ought to fight to the last drop of our blood,” said the colonel, thumping the table, “and to die for our emperor, and then all will be well. And to discuss it as little as possible,” he concluded, turning again to the count, and drawling out the word “possible.” “That’s how we old hussars look at it; that’s all we have to say. And how do you look at it, young man and young hussar?” he added, addressing Nikolay, who, catching that it was the war they were discussing, had dropped his conversation with Julie, and was all eyes and all ears, intent on the colonel.

“I perfectly agree with you,” answered Nikolay, growing hot all over, twisting his plate round, and changing the places of the glasses with a face as desperate and determined as though he were exposed to great danger at that actual moment. “I am convinced that the Russians must die or conquer,” he said. He was himself, like the rest of the party, conscious after the words were uttered that he had spoken with an enthusiasm and fervour out of keeping with the occasion, and so he was embarrassed.

“That was very fine, what you just said,” Julie sitting beside him said breathlessly. Sonya trembled all over and crimsoned to her ears, and
behind her ears, and down her neck and shoulders, while Nikolay was speaking. Pierre listened to the colonel’s remarks, and nodded his head approvingly.

“That’s capital,” said he.

“You’re a true hussar, young man,” the colonel shouted, thumping on the table again.

“What are you making such a noise about over there?” Marya Dmitryevna’s bass voice was suddenly heard asking across the table. “What are you thumping the table for?” she addressed the colonel. “Whom are you so hot against? You imagine, I suppose, that the French are before you?”

“I speak the truth,” said the hussar, smiling.

“It’s all about the war,” the count shouted across the table. “My son’s going, you see, Marya Dmitryevna, my son’s going.”

“And I’ve four sons in the army, but I don’t grieve. All’s in God’s hands; one may die in one’s bed, and in battle God may spare,” Marya Dmitryevna’s deep voice boomed back, speaking without the slightest effort from the further end of the table.

“That’s true.”

And the conversation concentrated into two groups again, one at the ladies’ end, and one at the men’s.

“You don’t dare to ask!” said her little brother to Natasha, “and you won’t ask!”

“I will ask,” answered Natasha. Her face suddenly glowed, expressing a desperate and mirthful resolution. She rose in her seat, her eyes inviting Pierre to listen, and addressed her mother.

“Mamma!” her childish contralto rang out over the table.

“What is it?” the countess asked in dismay; but seeing from her daughter’s face that it was mischief, she shook her hand at her sternly, with a threatening and forbidding movement of her head.

All conversation was hushed.

“Mamma! what pudding will there be?” Natasha’s little voice rang out still more resolutely and deliberately.

The countess tried to frown, but could not. Marya Dmitryevna shook her fat finger.

“Cossack!” she said menacingly.

Most of the guests looked at the parents, not knowing how they were to take this sally.

“I’ll give it to you,” said the countess.

“Mamma! what pudding will it be?” Natasha cried, with bold and
saucy gaiety, feeling sure that her prank would be taken in the right spirit. Sonya and fat little Petya were hiding their giggles. “You see I did ask,” Natasha whispered to her little brother and Pierre, at whom she glanced again.

“Ice-pudding, only you are not to have any,” said Marya Dmitryevna. Natasha saw there was nothing to be afraid of, and so she was not frightened at Marya Dmitryevna even.

“Marya Dmitryevna! what sort of ice-pudding? I don’t like ice cream.”

“Carrot-ices.”

“No, what sort, Marya Dmitryevna, what sort?” she almost shrieked.

“I want to know.” Marya Dmitryevna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the party followed their example. They all laughed, not at Marya Dmitryevna’s answer, but at the irrepressible boldness and smartness of the little girl, who had the pluck and the wit to tackle Marya Dmitryevna in this fashion.