War And Peace

‘England is done for!’ he announced, scowling and pointing as if there was someone there. ‘Mr Pitt²⁵ has betrayed the nation and the rights of man, and is therefore condemned to . . .’ He never quite managed to pronounce sentence on Pitt – at that moment he was Napoleon, in whose heroic person he had survived a perilous crossing of the Channel and conquered London – because there before him, entering the room, he saw a handsome young officer of solid proportions. Boris halted. Pierre had last seen him as a boy of fourteen, and hadn’t the slightest recollection of him. Nevertheless he took him by the arm with his usual ready warm-heartedness, and beamed at him.

‘Do you remember who I am?’ asked Boris quietly with a pleasant smile. ‘I’ve come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he’s not very well.’

‘No, he does seem to be quite poorly. People are always bothering him,’ answered Pierre, trying to think who this young man could be.

Boris could see that Pierre didn’t recognize him, but felt it wasn’t for him to make himself known, so he looked him straight in the face, unperturbed.

‘Count Rostov wants to invite you to dinner this evening,’ he said, after rather a long silence, an awkward one for Pierre.

‘Ah, Count Rostov,’ began Pierre, delighted. ‘You must be his son Ilya. You won’t believe it, but I didn’t recognize you for a minute. Do you remember how we used to drive out to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot . . . all those years ago?’

‘You are mistaken,’ said Boris, deliberately, with a strong and slightly amused smile. ‘I’m Boris, the son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskoy. Count Rostov senior is called Ilya. His son is Nikolay. And I don’t know anybody called Madame Jacquot.’

Pierre shook his head and waved his hands as if he was being attacked by a swarm of midges or bees.

‘Oh dear, what can I be thinking about? I’ve got it all wrong. I have so many relatives in Moscow! You’re Boris . . . yes. All right then, we’ve got things straight. Tell me, what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The English are finished, you know, if Napoleon gets across the Channel. I think an invasion is very possible. I just hope that Villeneuve²⁶ doesn’t mess things up!’

Boris knew nothing at all about the Boulogne expedition, he didn’t read the newspapers and this was the first he had heard of Villeneuve. ‘Here in Moscow we are more interested in dinner parties and scandal than politics,’ he said calmly and with some amusement. ‘I don’t know anything about that. I just don’t think about it. The main thing in Moscow is the gossip,’ he went on. ‘And at the moment it’s all about you and the count.’

Pierre smiled his warm smile, evidently worried that his companion might say something he would come to regret, but Boris spoke distinctly, clearly and sharply, looking Pierre straight in the eyes. ‘There’s nothing to do in Moscow but gossip,’ he went on. ‘Everybody’s dying to know who the count will leave his fortune to, though he might well outlive the lot of us, and I sincerely hope he does.’

‘Yes, it’s awful,’ Pierre interposed, ‘absolutely awful.’ Pierre was still worried that this officer might inadvertently touch on something that could prove embarrassing.

‘And it must seem to you,’ said Boris, flushing slightly, but not changing his voice or his attitude, ‘it must seem to you that everybody’s thinking of nothing but getting something from him.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ thought Pierre.

‘I’d just like to say – to prevent any misunderstanding – that you’re very much mistaken if you include me and my mother with all those people. We’re very poor, but I – speaking for myself – even if your father is rich, I don’t consider myself a relative of his, and neither I nor my mother would ever ask him for anything, and we wouldn’t take anything from him.’

It took Pierre a little time, but at last he understood, and when he did he leapt up from the sofa, reached down and seized Boris by the arm with his usual hastiness and awkwardness, and blushing far more than Boris, began speaking with a mixture of embarrassment and irritation.

‘Well, that’s strange, isn’t it? You don’t suppose I . . . I mean, how could anyone think . . . I do know . . .’

But Boris interrupted again. ‘I’m glad I’ve put my cards on the table. Maybe you don’t like it. Please forgive me,’ he said, trying to put Pierre at his ease instead of being put at his ease by him, ‘and I hope I haven’t offended you, but I always call a spade a spade. By the way, what shall I tell the Rostovs? You will come to dinner?’ And Boris, with a great weight off his mind, having got himself out an awkward situation and put somebody else into one, became perfectly pleasant again.