War And Peace

‘No, listen,’ said Pierre, regaining his composure, ‘you’re someone out of the ordinary. What you have just said was good, it was very good. Of course you don’t know me, it’s ages since we met . . . not since we were children . . . perhaps you expect me to . . . I understand, I quite understand. I wouldn’t have done it, I wouldn’t have had the strength, but it’s splendid. I’m very pleased to have met you. It’s funny,’ he added, pausing and smiling, ‘what you must have expected from me.’ He laughed. ‘But well. Let’s get to know each other better, shall we?’ He shook hands with Boris. ‘Do you know I haven’t seen the count once . . . He hasn’t sent for me . . . I’m sorry for him, man to man . . . But what can I do?’

‘Anyway, you do think Napoleon will get his army across?’ asked Boris with a smile.

Pierre saw that Boris was trying to change the subject, so he launched into an explanation of the Boulogne campaign with all its good points and bad points.

A servant came in to fetch Boris; the princess was ready to leave. Pierre promised to come to dinner to see more of Boris, and gave him a warm handshake, looking affectionately over his spectacles into Boris’s face.

When he had gone, Pierre paced the room again for some time, no longer stabbing at an unseen foe, but smiling at the memory of that pleasant, intelligent and confident young man. As so often happens with very young people, especially if they are leading a solitary existence, he felt a strange warmth towards this young man, and made up his mind to become friends with him.

Prince Vasily went to see the princess out. She was holding a handkerchief to her eyes, and her face was tearful.

‘This is dreadful, truly dreadful!’ she was saying, ‘but never mind the cost, I shall carry out my duty. I’ll come for the night. He can’t be left like this. Every minute is precious. I can’t see what his nieces are waiting for. With God’s help I shall find a way to prepare him. Goodbye, Prince, God keep you . . .’

‘Goodbye, my kind friend,’ answered Prince Vasily, turning away.

‘Oh, he’s in such a dreadful state!’ said the mother to her son, when they were back in the carriage. ‘He hardly knows anyone.’

‘I don’t understand his attitude to Pierre, Mamma.’

‘His will is going to clear that up, my dear. And our fate depends upon it too . . .’

‘But what makes you think he’ll leave us anything?’

‘Oh, my dear! He’s so rich, and we’re so poor.’

‘That doesn’t seem enough reason, Mamma.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear, how poorly he is!’ cried his mother.

CHAPTER 14

When Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to Count Kirill Bezukhov’s, Countess Rostov sat there all alone for quite some time, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang the bell.

‘What do you think you’re doing, girl?’ she said testily to the maid, who had kept her waiting a few minutes. ‘Don’t you want to remain in my service, eh? I can always find you somewhere else to work.’

The countess, grief-stricken by her friend’s demeaning poverty, was not feeling herself, and that always made her say ‘you girl!’ or ‘you there!’ to the servants.

‘I’m sorry, madam,’ said the maid.

‘Ask the count to come to me.’

The count came waddling in to see his wife, looking very shifty, as always.

‘Listen, my little countess! What a sauté we’re going to have, my dear – woodcocks in Madeira! I’ve just tried it. Good job I gave a thousand roubles to get Taras.²⁷ Worth every penny!’

He sat down by his wife, jauntily splaying his elbows on his knees, and ruffling his grey hair. ‘What is your command, little countess?’

‘It’s this, my dear . . . What’s this stain on you here?’ she said, pointing to his waistcoat. ‘Oh, it must be the sauté,’ she added, with a smile. ‘It’s this, my dear – I need some money.’ Her face took on a gloomy aspect.

‘Oh, my little countess!’ And the count rummaged for his pocketbook.

‘I need rather a lot, Count – five hundred roubles.’ She took out her cambric handkerchief and rubbed her husband’s waistcoat with it.

‘It won’t take me a minute. Hey, you there!’ he shouted, as men do when they know for certain that someone will come running. ‘Get Mitenka for me!’

Mitenka, the young man of good birth who had been brought up in the count’s house and now ran all his business affairs, stepped softly into the room.

‘There you are, my dear boy,’ said the count to the respectful young man as he approached. ‘Go and get me,’ – he thought a moment – ‘let’s say, seven hundred roubles. Yes. And none of your torn and dirty notes like last time. Get me some nice ones now, for the countess.’

‘Yes, Mitenka, do make sure they’re nice and clean, please,’ said the countess with a gloomy sigh.

‘Your Excellency, when do you want them delivered?’ said Mitenka. ‘Sir, you must realize . . . But don’t worry, sir,’ he added, noticing that the count was beginning to breathe rapidly and deeply – always a sign of approaching anger. ‘I was forgetting . . . Do you require them immediately?’

‘Yes, yes, I do. Just get them and give them to the countess.’