________________________________________________
_ Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his
plans. Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own
advantage. He was merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom
getting on had become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he
never rightly accounted to himself, but which formed the whole
interest of his life, were constantly shaping themselves in his
mind, arising from the circumstances and persons he met. Of these
plans he had not merely one or two in his head but dozens, some only
beginning to form themselves, some approaching achievement, and some
in course of disintegration. He did not, for instance, say to himself:
"This man now has influence, I must gain his confidence and friendship
and through him obtain a special grant." Nor did he say to himself:
"Pierre is a rich man, I must entice him to marry my daughter and lend
me the forty thousand rubles I need." But when he came across came
across a man of position his instinct immediately told him that this
man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince Vasili
took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become
intimate with him, and finally make his request.
He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an
appointment as Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time
conferred the status of Councilor of State, and insisted on the
young man accompanying him to Petersburg and staying at his house.
With apparent absent-mindedness, yet with unhesitating assurance
that he was doing the right thing, Prince Vasili did everything to get
Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he thought out his plans
beforehand he could not have been so natural and shown such unaffected
familiarity in intercourse with everybody both above and below him
in social standing. Something always drew him toward those richer
and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in seizing the
most opportune moment for making use of people.
Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man, felt
himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset
and preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He
had to sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the
purpose of which was not clear to him, to question his chief
steward, to visit his estate near Moscow, and to receive many people
who formerly did not even wish to know of his existence but would
now have been offended and grieved had he chosen not to see them.
These different people- businessmen, relations, and acquaintances
alike- were all disposed to treat the young heir in the most
friendly and flattering manner: they were all evidently firmly
convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was always hearing such
words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With your excellent
heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were he as
clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in his
own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so
as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he
really was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly
been spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle
and affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and
hair plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after
the funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him
she was very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not
now feel she had a right to ask him for anything, except only for
permission, after the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks
longer in the house she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much.
She could not refrain from weeping at these words. Touched that this
statuesque princess could so change, Pierre took her hand and begged
her forgiveness, without knowing what for. From that day the eldest
princess quite changed toward Pierre and began knitting a striped
scarf for him.
"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with
a great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasili to him, handing
him a deed to sign for the princess' benefit.
Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to
throw this bone- a bill for thirty thousand rubles- to the poor
princess that it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the
affair of the inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after
that the princess grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became
affectionate to him, especially the youngest, the pretty one with
the mole, who often made him feel confused by her smiles and her own
confusion when meeting him.
It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it
would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he
could not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides,
he had no time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or
not. He was always busy and always felt in a state of mild and
cheerful intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some
important and general movement; that something was constantly expected
of him, that if he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many
people, but if he did this and that, all would be well; and he did
what was demanded of him, but still that happy result always
remained in the future.
More than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's
affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of
Count Bezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air
of a man oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would
not, for pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was
the son of his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth,
to the caprice of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few
days he spent in Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would
call Pierre, or go to him himself, and tell him what ought to be
done in a tone of weariness and assurance, as if he were adding
every time: "You know I am overwhelmed with business and it is
purely out of charity that I trouble myself about you, and you also
know quite well that what I propose is the only thing possible."
"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince
Vasili one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow,
speaking as if he were saying something which had long since been
agreed upon and could not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm
giving you a place in my carriage. I am very glad. All our important
business here is now settled, and I ought to have been off long ago.
Here is something I have received from the chancellor. I asked him for
you, and you have been entered in the diplomatic corps and made a
Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The diplomatic career now lies open
before you."
Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words
were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his
career, wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili
interrupted him in the special deep cooing tone, precluding the
possibility of interrupting his speech, which he used in extreme cases
when special persuasion was needed.
"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my
conscience, and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever
complained yet of being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you
could throw it up tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself
when you get to Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from
these terrible recollections." Prince Vasili sighed. "Yes, yes, my
boy. And my valet can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly
forgetting," he added. "You know, mon cher, your father and I had some
accounts to settle, so I have received what was due from the Ryazan
estate and will keep it; you won't require it. We'll go into the
accounts later."
By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasili meant several
thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the
prince had retained for himself.
In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of
gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather
the rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for
him, and acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so
numerous that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of
bewilderment, bustle, and continual expectation of some good, always
in front of him but never attained.
Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in
Petersburg. The Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been
reduced to the ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the
provinces; Prince Andrew was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity
to spend his nights as he used to like to spend them, or to open his
mind by intimate talks with a friend older than himself and whom he
respected. His whole time was taken up with dinners and balls and
was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's house in the company of the stout
princess, his wife, and his beautiful daughter Helene.
Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.
Formerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that
what he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that
remarks which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind
became foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary
Hippolyte's stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now
everything Pierre said was charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say
so, he could see that she wished to and only refrained out of regard
for his modesty.
In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna
Pavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:
"You will find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful
to see."
When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some
link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and
Helene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation
were being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased
him as an entertaining supposition.
Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the
novelty she offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a
diplomatist fresh from Berlin with the very latest details of the
Emperor Alexander's visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august
friends had pledged themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold
the cause of justice against the enemy of the human race. Anna
Pavlovna received Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently
relating to the young man's recent loss by the death of Count Bezukhov
(everyone constantly considered it a duty to assure Pierre that he was
greatly afflicted by the death of the father he had hardly known), and
her melancholy was just like the august melancholy she showed at the
mention of her most august Majesty the Empress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre
felt flattered by this. Anna Pavlovna arranged the different groups in
her drawing room with her habitual skill. The large group, in which
were Prince Vasili and the generals, had the benefit of the
diplomat. Another group was at the tea table. Pierre wished to join
the former, but Anna Pavlovna- who was in the excited condition of a
commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of new and brilliant
ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in action- seeing
Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying:
"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She
glanced at Helene and smiled at her.) "My dear Helene, be charitable
to my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten
minutes. And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count
who will not refuse to accompany you."
The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre,
looking as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.
"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately
beauty as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so
young a girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It
comes from her heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least
worldly of men would occupy a most brilliant position in society.
Don't you think so? I only wanted to know your opinion," and Anna
Pavlovna let Pierre go.
Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's
perfection of manner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her
beauty and her remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in
society.
The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed
desirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather to
show her fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if
inquiring what she was to do with these people. On leaving them,
Anna Pavlovna again touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't
say that it is dull in my house again," and she glanced at Helene.
Helene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the
possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt
coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to
see Helene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome
and the same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation,
Helene turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she
gave to everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so
little meaning for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt
was just speaking of a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to
Pierre's father, Count Bezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess
Helene asked to see the portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.
"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a
celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the
snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.
He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the
snuffbox, passing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to
make room, and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at
evening parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut
very low at front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like
marble to Pierre, was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could
not but perceive the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near
to his lips that he need only have bent his head a little to have
touched them. He was conscious of the warmth of her body, the scent of
perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she moved. He did not see
her marble beauty forming a complete whole with her dress, but all the
charm of her body only covered by her garments. And having once seen
this he could not help being aware it, just as we cannot renew an
illusion we have once seen through.
"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene seemed
to say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman
who may belong to anyone- to you too," said her glance. And at that
moment Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his
wife, and that it could not be otherwise.
He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing
at the altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know,
he did not even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he
knew not why, that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would
happen.
Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more
to see her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen
her every day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could
not, any more than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe
grass through the mist and taking it for a tree can again take it
for a tree after he has once recognized it to be a tuft of grass.
She was terribly close to him. She already had power over him, and
between them there was no longer any barrier except the barrier of his
own will.
"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pavlovna's
voice, "I see you are all right there."
And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done
anything reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him
that everyone knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.
A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna
said to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"
This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg
house done up.
"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is
good to have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince
Vasili. "I know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so
young. You need advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old
woman's privilege."
She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they
have mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing,"
she continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.
When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking
of what had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely
understood that the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her
beauty was mentioned he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good
looking," he had understood that this woman might belong to him.
"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought.
"There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites
in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with
her and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's
why he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her
father... It's bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this
(the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and
was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while
thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be
his wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all
he had thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her
not as the daughter of Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body
only veiled by its gray dress. "But no! Why did this thought never
occur to me before?" and again he told himself that it was impossible,
that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him
dishonorable, in this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks
and the words and looks of those who had seen them together. He
recalled Anna Pavlovna's words and looks when she spoke to him about
his house, recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasili and
others, and was seized by terror lest he had already, in some way,
bound himself to do something that was evidently wrong and that he
ought not to do. But at the very time he was expressing this
conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her image rose in
all its womanly beauty. _
Read next: Book Three: 1805: Chapter 2
Read previous: Book Two: 1805: Chapter 21
Table of content of War and Peace
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
