War and Peace
At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess’ ideas;
her thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice
when she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself
evidently did not expect.
“That would be a fine thing!” said she. “I never wanted anything
and I don’t now.”
She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.
“And this is gratitude—this is recognition for those who have
sacrificed everything for his sake!” she cried. “It’s splendid!
Fine! I don’t want anything, Prince.”
“Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters...”
replied Prince Vasíli.
But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect
nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the
blackest ingratitude—in this house...”
“Do you or do you not know where that will is?” insisted Prince
Vasíli, his cheeks twitching more than ever.
“Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and
sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has
been intriguing!”
The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She
had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.
She gave her companion an angry glance.
“There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was
all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards
forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his
last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let
him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who...”
“Who sacrificed everything for him,” chimed in the princess, who
would again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, “though
he never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh,
“I shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward,
that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one
has to be cunning and cruel.”
“Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart.”
“No, I have a wicked heart.”
“I know your heart,” repeated the prince. “I value your friendship
and wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don’t upset yourself,
and let us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it
but an hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where
it is. You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the
count. He has, no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it.
You understand that my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his
wishes; that is my only reason for being here. I came simply to help him
and you.”
“Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing—I know!” cried
the princess.
“That’s not the point, my dear.”
“It’s that protégé of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskáya,
that Anna Mikháylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the
infamous, vile woman!”
“Do not let us lose any time...”
“Ah, don’t talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and
told the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about
Sophie—I can’t repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he
would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this
vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid.”
“We’ve got to it at last—why did you not tell me about it
sooner?”
“It’s in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow,”
said the princess, ignoring his question. “Now I know! Yes; if I have
a sin, a great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!” almost shrieked
the princess, now quite changed. “And what does she come worming
herself in here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time
will come!”
CHAPTER XXII
While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the
princess’ room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for)
and Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was
driving into the court of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna,
having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that
he was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre
followed Anna Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began
to think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He
noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back
door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who
looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the
shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other
men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides.
But neither Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who
could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. “It seems
to be all right,” Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikháylovna.
She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to
Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it
was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had
to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikháylovna’s air
of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely
necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by
some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots
clattering. These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them
there.
“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna
Mikháylovna of one of them.
“Yes,” replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were
now permissible; “the door to the left, ma’am.”
“Perhaps the count did not ask for me,” said Pierre when he reached
the landing. “I’d better go to my own room.”
Anna Mikháylovna paused and waited for him to come up.
“Ah, my friend!” she said, touching his arm as she had done her
son’s when speaking to him that afternoon, “believe me I suffer no
less than you do, but be a man!”
“But really, hadn’t I better go away?” he asked, looking kindly at
her over his spectacles.
“Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.
Think that he is your father ... perhaps in the agony of death.” She
sighed. “I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to
me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.”
Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had
to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna who was
already opening a door.
This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the
princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been
in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of
these rooms. Anna Mikháylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
with a decanter on a tray as “my dear” and “my sweet,” asked
about the princess’ health and then led Pierre along a stone passage.
The first door on the left led into the princesses’ apartments. The
maid with the decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything
in the house was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious
impatience, while the princess jumped up and with a gesture of
desperation slammed the door with all her might.
This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on
Prince Vasíli’s face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre
stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna
Mikháylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as
if to say that this was no more than she had expected.
“Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,” said she in
reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.
Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what
“watching over his interests” meant, but he decided that all these
things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly
lit room adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those
sumptuous but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front
approach, but even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water
had been spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer
and by a servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They
went into the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian
windows opening into the conservatory, with its large bust and full
length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still
sitting here in almost the same positions as before, whispering to one
another. All became silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna
Mikháylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who,
hanging his head, meekly followed her.
Anna Mikháylovna’s face expressed a consciousness that the decisive
moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,
keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than
that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the
dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid
glance at all those in the room and noticing the count’s confessor
there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet
seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing
first of one and then of another priest.
“God be thanked that you are in time,” said she to one of the
priests; “all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young
man is the count’s son,” she added more softly. “What a terrible
moment!”
Having said this she went up to the doctor.
“Dear doctor,” said she, “this young man is the count’s son. Is
there any hope?”
The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his
shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna with just the same movement raised her
shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away
from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and
tenderly sad voice, she said:
“Trust in His mercy!” and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit
and wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was
watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved
toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikháylovna had
disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him
with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they
whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind
of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before
received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to
the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up
and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully
silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre
wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to
pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not
even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and
that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful
rite which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound
to accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the
aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady’s chair, placing his huge hands
symmetrically on his knees in the naïve attitude of an Egyptian statue,