War and Peace
the governor’s party.
When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,
Nicholas arrived at the governor’s rather late, but with the phrase
“better late than never” on his lips.
It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew
that Catherine Petróvna would play valses and the écossaise on the
clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as
to a ball.
Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this
difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the
arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that
went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an
“in for a penny, in for a pound—who cares?” spirit, and the inevitable
small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,
now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.
The society gathered together at the governor’s was the best in
Vorónezh.
There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas’ Moscow
acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the
cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured
and well-bred Count Rostóv. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an
officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that
prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian
was, as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him
that everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him
cordially though with dignity and restraint.
As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him
a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words “better late
than never” and heard them repeated several times by others, people
clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once
that he had entered into his proper position in the province—that of
a universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so
after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the
landowner’s snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and
here too at the governor’s party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)
an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,
impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him
and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this
fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these
was the governor’s wife herself, who welcomed Rostóv as a near relative
and called him “Nicholas.”
Catherine Petróvna did actually play valses and the écossaise, and
dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial
society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even
surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he
danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would
even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in
bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by
something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular
thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.
All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and
pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.
With the naïve conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men’s
wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady’s side and
treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,
without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady
would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that
conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the
latter’s good-natured naïveté was so boundless that sometimes even he
involuntarily yielded to Nicholas’ good humor. Toward the end of the
evening, however, as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the
husband’s became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there
were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife’s
share increased the husband’s diminished.
CHAPTER V
Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely
over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a
smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his
legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and
admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in
their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he
wished to run away with a certain lady here in Vorónezh.
“Which lady?”
“A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes” (Nicholas looked at his
partner) “are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure” (he glanced
at her shoulders) “like Diana’s....”
The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking
about.
“Ah, Nikíta Iványch!” cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing
Nikíta Iványch to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention
to elope with a blonde lady.
The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor’s good-natured
wife came up with a look of disapproval.
“Anna Ignátyevna wants to see you, Nicholas,” said she, pronouncing the
name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignátyevna was a very
important person. “Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?”
“Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?”
“Anna Ignátyevna Malvíntseva. She has heard from her niece how you
rescued her.... Can you guess?”
“I rescued such a lot of them!” said Nicholas.
“Her niece, Princess Bolkónskaya. She is here in Vorónezh with her aunt.
Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?”
“Not a bit! Please don’t, Aunt!”
“Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!”
The governor’s wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with
a blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most
important personages of the town. This was Malvíntseva, Princess Mary’s
aunt on her mother’s side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in
Vorónezh. When Rostóv approached her she was standing settling up for
the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued
to upbraid the general who had won from her.
“Very pleased, mon cher,” she then said, holding out her hand to
Nicholas. “Pray come and see me.”
After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom
Malvíntseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas
knew of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the
important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to
come to see her.
Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention
of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear,
which he himself did not understand.
When he had parted from Malvíntseva Nicholas wished to return to the
dancing, but the governor’s little wife placed her plump hand on his
sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to
her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew
so as not to be in her way.
“Do you know, dear boy,” began the governor’s wife with a serious
expression on her kind little face, “that really would be the match for
you: would you like me to arrange it?”
“Whom do you mean, Aunt?” asked Nicholas.
“I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petróvna
speaks of Lily, but I say, no—the princess! Do you want me to do it? I
am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is,
really! And she is not at all so plain, either.”
“Not at all,” replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. “As befits
a soldier, Aunt, I don’t force myself on anyone or refuse anything,” he
said before he had time to consider what he was saying.
“Well then, remember, this is not a joke!”
“Of course not!”
“Yes, yes,” the governor’s wife said as if talking to herself. “But,
my dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the
blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really....”
“Oh no, we are good friends with him,” said Nicholas in the simplicity
of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to
himself might not be pleasant to someone else.
“But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor’s wife!” thought
Nicholas suddenly at supper. “She will really begin to arrange a
match... and Sónya...?” And on taking leave of the governor’s wife,
when she again smilingly said to him, “Well then, remember!” he drew her
aside.
“But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt...”
“What is it, my dear? Come, let’s sit down here,” said she.
Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate
thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or
his friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards
recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which
had very important results for him, it seemed to him—as it seems to
everyone in such cases—that it was merely some silly whim that seized
him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events,
had immense consequences for him and for all his family.
“You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the
very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me.”
“Oh yes, I understand,” said the governor’s wife.
“But Princess Bolkónskaya—that’s another matter. I will tell you the
truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and
then, after I met her under such circumstances—so strangely, the idea
often occurred to me: ‘This is fate.’ Especially if you remember that
Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her
before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long
as my sister Natásha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of
the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen
that I should meet her just when Natásha’s engagement had been broken
off... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone
and never will, only to you.”
The governor’s wife pressed his elbow gratefully.
“You know Sónya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and
will do so.... So you see there can be no question about—” said Nicholas
incoherently and blushing.
“My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sónya has nothing and
you yourself say your Papa’s affairs are in a very bad way. And what
about your mother? It would kill her, that’s one thing. And what sort of
life would it be for Sónya—if she’s a girl with a heart? Your mother
in despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sónya ought to
understand that.”
Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.
“All the same, Aunt, it is impossible,” he rejoined with a sigh, after
a short pause. “Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is
now in mourning. How can one think of it!”
“But you don’t suppose I’m going to get you married at once? There is
always a right way of doing things,” replied the governor’s wife.
“What a matchmaker you are, Aunt...” said Nicholas, kissing her plump
little hand.
CHAPTER VI
On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostóv, Princess Mary had
found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew
giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvíntseva at Vorónezh.
That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her
father’s illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with
Rostóv was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her
brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to