War And Peace

A door from the inner rooms opened, and one of the princesses, the count’s niece, entered with a cold and sorrowful face. Her elongated body was strikingly wrong for her short legs.

Prince Vasily turned to her. ‘Well, how is he?’

‘Still the same. What do you expect with all this noise?’ said the princess, inspecting Anna Mikhaylovna, who was not known to her.

‘Oh, I didn’t recognize you, my dear,’ said Anna Mikhaylovna, beaming at her, and she strolled over to the count’s niece. ‘I’ve just arrived, and I am at your service to help with the nursing of my uncle

. I know what you must have gone through,’ she added sympathetically, rolling her eyes.

The princess made no reply, didn’t even smile, but walked straight off. Anna Mikhaylovna removed her gloves, and, having won this ground, she ensconced herself in an armchair and invited Prince Vasily to sit down beside her.

‘Boris!’ she said to her son, and she smiled at him. ‘I’m going in to see my uncle, the count. You must go and see Pierre, my dear – oh, and don’t forget to give him the Rostovs’ invitation. They want him to come to dinner. I don’t suppose he’ll go?’ she said to the prince.

‘On the contrary,’ said the prince, visibly disconcerted. ‘I’d be very pleased if you would take that young man off my hands . . . He won’t go out anywhere. The count hasn’t once asked for him.’

He shrugged. A footman conducted the young man down one staircase and up another to Pierre’s apartment.

CHAPTER 13

Pierre had not managed to decide on a career in Petersburg, and had indeed been banished to Moscow for disorderly conduct. The story told about him at Count Rostov’s had been true; he had helped to tie the police officer to the bear. He had arrived in Moscow a few days before and was staying, as always, in his father’s house. Though he had assumed the story would already be known in Moscow, and the ladies surrounding his father, all of them against him, would take advantage of his visit to make trouble for him with the count, on the day of his arrival he went over to his father’s part of the house. He walked into the drawing-room, the princesses’ favourite domain, and greeted the ladies, two of whom were doing embroidery, while one read aloud from a book. The eldest, a neat and prim maiden-lady with a long waist – the one who had come out to see Anna Mikhaylovna – was doing the reading. Both of the younger girls were rosy-cheeked and pretty; the only difference between them was that one had a little mole just above her lip which made her look lovelier still. They were both working at their embroidery frames. Pierre was received like a corpse or a plague-victim. The eldest princess stopped reading and stared at him in silence, with a look of alarm. The younger one without the mole assumed precisely the same attitude. The youngest, the one with the mole, who had a delightful sense of humour, bent over her frame to hide her smile, evidently anticipating a very amusing scene. Scarcely able to suppress her laughter, she pulled the wool down and bent over as though the pattern needed sorting out.

‘Good morning, cousin,’ said Pierre. ‘Don’t you recognize me?’

‘Oh yes, I do, only too well.’

‘How is the count? Can I see him?’ Pierre asked, awkwardly as always but without any embarrassment.

‘The count is suffering both physically and mentally, and you seem to have done your best to add to his mental suffering.’

‘Please can I see him?’ repeated Pierre.

‘Well . . . if you want to kill him, kill him outright, then you can. Olga, do go and see if Uncle’s beef-tea is ready. It will soon be time for it,’ she added, to demonstrate for Pierre’s benefit that they were busy people, busy tending to his father, whereas he seemed to be busy upsetting him.

Olga went out. Pierre stood there for a moment looking at the sisters, then he bowed and said, ‘I shall go to my room, then. When I can see him, please tell me.’ He went out and behind him he clearly heard the sister with the mole laughing softly.

The next day Prince Vasily had arrived and taken up residence in the count’s house. He sent for Pierre and said to him, ‘My dear fellow, if you behave here as you did in Petersburg you’ll come to a bad end. That’s all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill. You must not go to see him.’

Since then Pierre had not been disturbed by any of them, and he had spent the whole day alone up in his room.

When Boris walked in to see him, Pierre was stalking around his room, stopping now and then at the corners to make menacing gestures at the wall, as though stabbing some invisible enemy with a sword, then he would glower over his spectacles and stride up and down again, mumbling, shrugging and gesticulating.