War and Peace (219 page)

Ever since Pierre had begun living a home life, involving increased
expenses in a large house, he had noticed to his astonishment that he was spending half what he had spent in the past, and that his circumstances, somewhat straitened latterly, especially by his first wife’s debts, were beginning to improve.

Living was much cheaper, because his life was coherent; the most expensive luxury in his former manner of life, that is, the possibility of a complete change in it at any moment, Pierre had not now, and had no desire for. He felt that his manner of life was settled now once for all till death; that to change it was not in his power, and therefore that manner of life was cheaper.

With a beaming, smiling countenance, Pierre was unpacking his purchases.

“Look!” he said, unfolding a piece of material like a shopman. Natasha was sitting opposite him with her eldest girl on her knee, and she turned her sparkling eyes from her husband to what he was showing her.

“That’s for Madame Byelov? Splendid.” She touched it to feel the goodness of the material. “It must have been a rouble a yard?”

Pierre mentioned the price.

“Very dear,” said Natasha. “Well, how pleased the children will be and
maman
too. Only you shouldn’t have bought me this,” she added, unable to suppress a smile, as she admired the gold and pearl comb, of a pattern just then coming into fashion.

“Adèle kept on at me to buy it,” said Pierre.

“When shall I wear it?” Natasha put it in her coil of hair. “It will do when I have to bring little Masha out; perhaps they will come in again then. Well, let us go in.”

And gathering up the presents, they went first into the nursery, and then in to see the countess.

The countess, as her habit was, was sitting playing patience with Madame Byelov when Pierre and Natasha went into the drawing-room with parcels under their arms.

The countess was by now over sixty. Her hair was completely grey, and she wore a cap that surrounded her whole face with a frill. Her face was wrinkled, her upper lip had sunk, and her eyes were dim.

After the deaths of her son and her husband that had followed so quickly on one another, she had felt herself a creature accidentally forgotten in this world, with no object and no interest in life. She ate and drank, slept and lay awake, but she did not live. Life gave her no impressions.
She wanted nothing from life but peace, and that peace she could find only in death. But until death came to her she had to go on living—that is, using her vital forces. There was in the highest degree noticeable in her what may be observed in very small children and in very old people. No external aim could be seen in her existence; all that could be seen was the need to exercise her various capacities and propensities. She had to eat, to sleep, to think, to talk, to weep, to work, to get angry, and so on, simply because she had a stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and spleen. All this she did, not at the promptings of any external motive, as people do in the full vigour of life, when the aim towards which they strive screens from our view that other aim of exercising their powers. She only talked because she needed to exercise her lungs and her tongue. She cried like a child, because she needed the physical relief of tears, and so on. What for people in their full vigour is a motive, with her was obviously a pretext.

Thus in the morning, especially if she had eaten anything too rich the night before, she sought an occasion for anger, and pitched on the first excuse—the deafness of Madame Byelov.

From the other end of the room she would begin to say something to her in a low voice.

“I fancy it is warmer to-day, my dear,” she would say in a whisper. And when Madame Byelov replied: “To be sure, they have come,” she would mutter angrily: “Mercy on us, how deaf and stupid she is!”

Another excuse was her snuff, which she fancied either too dry, or too moist, or badly pounded. After these outbursts of irritability, a bilious hue came into her face. And her maids knew by infallible tokens when Madame Byelov would be deaf again, and when her snuff would again be damp, and her face would again be yellow. Just as she had to exercise her spleen, she had sometimes to exercise her remaining faculties; and for thought the pretext was patience. When she wanted to cry, the subject of her tears was the late count. When she needed excitement, the subject was Nikolay and anxiety about his health. When she wanted to say something spiteful, the pretext was the Countess Marya. When she required exercise for her organs of speech—this was usually about seven o’clock, after she had had her after-dinner rest in a darkened room—then the pretext was found in repetition of anecdotes, always the same, and always to the same listeners.

The old countess’s condition was understood by all the household, though no one ever spoke of it, and every possible effort was made by
every one to satisfy her requirements. Only rarely a mournful half-smile passed between Nikolay, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Marya that betrayed their comprehension of her condition.

But those glances said something else besides. They said that she had done her work in life already, that she was not all here in what was seen in her now, that they would all be the same, and that they were glad to give way to her, to restrain themselves for the sake of this poor creature, once so dear, once as full of life as they.
Memento mori
, said those glances.

Only quite heartless and stupid people and little children failed to understand this, and held themselves aloof from her.

When Pierre and his wife came into the drawing-room, the countess happened to be in her customary condition of needing the mental exercise of a game of patience, and therefore, although from habit she uttered the words, she always repeated on the return of Pierre or her son after absence: “It was high time, high time, my dear boy; we have been expecting you a long while. Well, thank God, you are here.” And on the presents being given her, pronounced another stock phrase: “It’s not the gift that is precious, my dear.… Thank you for thinking of an old woman like me.…” It was evident that Pierre’s entrance at that moment was unwelcome, because it interrupted her in dealing her cards. She finished her game of patience, and only then gave her attention to the presents. The presents for her consisted of a card-case of fine workmanship, a bright blue Sèvres cup with a lid and a picture of shepherdesses on it, and a gold snuff-box with the count’s portrait on it, which Pierre had had executed by a miniature-painter in Petersburg. The countess had long wished to have this; but just now she had no inclination to weep, and so she looked unconcernedly at the portrait, and took more notice of the card-case.

“Thank you, my dear, you are a comfort to me,” she said, as she always did. “But best of all, you have brought yourself back. It has been beyond everything; you must really scold your wife. She is like one possessed without you. She sees nothing, thinks of nothing,” she said as usual. “Look, Anna Timofyevna,” she added, “what a card-case my son has brought us.”

Madame Byelov admired the present, and was enchanted with the dress material.

Pierre, Natasha, Nikolay, Countess Marya, and Denisov had a great deal they wanted to talk about, which was not talked of before the old countess; not because anything was concealed from her, but simply because she had dropped so out of things, that if they had begun to talk freely before her they would have had to answer so many questions put by her at random, and to repeat so many things that had been repeated to her so many times already; to tell her that this person was dead and that person was married, which she could never remember. Yet they sat as usual at tea in the drawing-room, and Pierre answered the countess’s quite superfluous questions, which were of no interest even to her, and told her that Prince Vassily was looking older, and that Countess Marya Alexeyevna sent her kind regards and remembrances, etc.

Such conversation, of no interest to any one, but inevitable, was kept up all tea-time. All the grown-up members of the family were gathered about the round tea-table with the samovar, at which Sonya presided. The children with their tutors and governesses had already had tea, and their voices could be heard in the next room. At tea every one sat in his own habitual place. Nikolay sat by the stove at a little table apart, where his tea was handed him. An old terrier bitch, with a perfectly grey face, Milka, the daughter of the first Milka, lay on a chair beside him. Denisov, with streaks of grey in his curly hair, moustaches, and whiskers, wearing his general’s coat unbuttoned, sat beside Countess Marya. Pierre was sitting between his wife and the old countess. He was telling what he knew might interest the old lady and be intelligible to her. He talked of external social events and of the persons who had once made up the circle of the old countess’s contemporaries, and had once been a real living circle of people, but were now for the most part scattered about the world, and, like her, living out their remnant of life, gleaning up the stray ears of what they had sown in life. But they, these contemporaries, seemed to the old countess to make up the only real world that was worth considering. By Pierre’s eagerness, Natasha saw that his visit had been an interesting one, that he was longing to tell them about it, but dared not speak freely before the countess. Denisov, not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre’s circumspectness, and, moreover, being dissatisfied with the course of events, took a very great interest in all that was going forward at Petersburg. He was continually trying to get Pierre to tell him about the recent scandal about the Semyonovsky
regiment, or about Araktcheev, or about the Bible Society. Pierre was sometimes led on into beginning to talk about those subjects, but Nikolay and Natasha always brought him back to the health of Prince Ivan and Countess Marya Antonovna.

“Well, what is all this idiocy, Gossner and Madame Tatarinov,” Denisov asked, “is that still going on?”

“Going on?” said Pierre. “Worse than ever. The Bible Society is now the whole government.”

“What is that,
mon cher ami
?” asked the old countess, who, having drunk her tea, was obviously seeking a pretext for ill-humour after taking food. “What are you saying about the government? I don’t understand that.”

“Why, you know,
maman
,” put in Nikolay, who knew how to translate things into his mother’s language. “Prince Alexander Nikolaevitch Golitsin had founded a society, so he has great influence they say.”

“Araktcheev and Golitsin,” said Pierre incautiously, “are practically the government now. And what a government! They see conspiracy in everything, they are afraid of everything.”

“What, Prince Alexander Nikolaevitch found fault with! He is a most estimable man. I used to meet him in old days at Marya Antonovna’s,” said the countess in an aggrieved tone. And still more aggrieved by the general silence, she went on, “Nowadays people find fault with every one. A Gospel Society, what harm is there in that?” and she got up (every one rose too), and with a severe face sailed out to her table in the adjoining divan-room.

In the midst of the mournful silence that followed, they heard the sound of children’s voices and laughter from the next room. There was evidently some joyful excitement afoot among the children.

“Finished, finished!” the gleeful shriek of little Natasha was heard above all the rest. Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Marya and Nikolay (Natasha he was looking at all the time), and he smiled happily.

“Delightful music!” he said.

“Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking,” said Countess Marya.

“Oh, I’m going to have a look at them,” said Pierre, jumping up. “You know,” he said, stopping at the door, “why it is I so particularly love that music—it is what first lets me know that all’s well. As I came today, the nearer I got to home, the greater my panic. As I came into the vestibule, I heard Andryusha in peals of laughter, and then I knew all was well …”

“I know, I know that feeling,” Nikolay chimed in. “I mustn’t come—the stockings are a surprise in store for me.”

Pierre went into the children, and the shrieks and laughter were louder than ever. “Now, Anna Makarovna,” cried Pierre’s voice, “here in the middle of the room and at the word of my command—one, two, and when I say three, you stand here. You in my arms. Now, one, two …” there was complete silence. “Three!” and an enthusiastic roar of children’s voices rose in the room. “Two, two!” cried the children.

They meant the two stockings, which, by a secret only known to her, Anna Makarovna used to knit on her needles at once. She always made a solemn ceremony of pulling one stocking out of the other in the presence of the children when the pair was finished.

Soon after this the children came in to say good-night. The children kissed every one, the tutors and governesses said good-night and went away. Dessalle alone remained with his pupil. The tutor whispered to his young charge to come downstairs.

“No, M. Dessalle, I will ask my aunt for leave to stay,” Nikolinka Bolkonsky answered, also in a whisper.

“
Ma tante
, will you let me stay?” said Nikolinka, going up to his aunt. His face was full of entreaty, excitement, and enthusiasm. Countess Marya looked at him and turned to Pierre

“When you are here, there is no tearing him away …” she said.

“I will bring him directly, M. Dessalle. Good-night,” said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned smiling to Nikolinka. “We have not seen each other at all yet. Marie, how like he is growing,” he added, turning to Countess Marya.

“Like my father?” said the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at Pierre with rapturous, shining eyes.

Pierre nodded to him, and went on with the conversation that had been interrupted by the children. Countess Marya had some canvas embroidery in her hands; Natasha sat with her eyes fixed on her husband. Nikolay and Denisov got up, asked for pipes, smoked, and took cups of tea from Sonya, still sitting with weary pertinacity at the samovar, and asked questions of Pierre. The curly-headed, delicate boy, with his shining eyes, sat unnoticed by any one in a corner. Turning the
curly head and the slender neck above his laydown collar to follow Pierre’s movements, he trembled now and then, and murmured something to himself, evidently thrilled by some new and violent emotion.