War and Peace
woman who may belong to anyone—to you too,” said her glance. And at
that moment Pierre felt that Hélène not only could, but must, be his
wife, and that it could not be otherwise.
He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the
altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not
even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,
that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.
Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see
her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every
day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more
than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the
mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has
once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.
She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any
barrier except the barrier of his own will.
“Well, I will leave you in your little corner,” came Anna
Pávlovna’s voice, “I see you are all right there.”
And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything
reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone
knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.
A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pávlovna said
to him: “I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?”
This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house
done up.
“That’s a good thing, but don’t move from Prince Vasíli’s. It
is good to have a friend like the prince,” she said, smiling at Prince
Vasíli. “I know something about that. Don’t I? And you are still so
young. You need advice. Don’t be angry with me for exercising an old
woman’s privilege.”
She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have
mentioned their age. “If you marry it will be a different thing,”
she continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Hélène nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.
When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what
had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that
the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned
he had said absent-mindedly: “Yes, she’s good looking,” he had
understood that this woman might belong to him.
“But she’s stupid. I have myself said she is stupid,” he thought.
“There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites
in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her
and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that’s why
he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasíli is her
father... It’s bad....” he reflected, but while he was thinking this
(the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was
conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking
of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his
wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all he had
thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the
daughter of Prince Vasíli, but visualized her whole body only veiled
by its gray dress. “But no! Why did this thought never occur to me
before?” and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there
would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in
this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words
and looks of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna
Pávlovna’s words and looks when she spoke to him about his house,
recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasíli and others, and was
seized by terror lest he had already, in some way, bound himself to do
something that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at
the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another
part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.
CHAPTER II
In November, 1805, Prince Vasíli had to go on a tour of inspection
in four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to
visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole
where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas
Bolkónski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that
rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,
Prince Vasíli had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had
latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasíli’s house
where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in
Hélène’s presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed
to her.
“This is all very fine, but things must be settled,” said Prince
Vasíli to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that
Pierre who was under such obligations to him (“But never mind that”)
was not behaving very well in this matter. “Youth, frivolity... well,
God be with him,” thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart,
“but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be
Lëlya’s name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does
not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair—yes, my
affair. I am her father.”
Six weeks after Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” and after the sleepless
night when he had decided that to marry Hélène would be a calamity and
that he ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision,
had not left Prince Vasíli’s and felt with terror that in people’s
eyes he was every day more and more connected with her, that it was
impossible for him to return to his former conception of her, that he
could not break away from her, and that though it would be a terrible
thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have
been able to free himself but that Prince Vasíli (who had rarely before
given receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening
party at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil
the general pleasure and disappoint everyone’s expectation. Prince
Vasíli, in the rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre’s
hand in passing and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his
wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: “Till
tomorrow,” or, “Be in to dinner or I shall not see you,” or, “I
am staying in for your sake,” and so on. And though Prince Vasíli,
when he stayed in (as he said) for Pierre’s sake, hardly exchanged a
couple of words with him, Pierre felt unable to disappoint him.
Every day he said to himself one and the same thing: “It is time I
understood her and made up my mind what she really is. Was I mistaken
before, or am I mistaken now? No, she is not stupid, she is an excellent
girl,” he sometimes said to himself “she never makes a mistake,
never says anything stupid. She says little, but what she does say is
always clear and simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed and
is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!” He had often begun
to make reflections or think aloud in her company, and she had always
answered him either by a brief but appropriate remark—showing that it
did not interest her—or by a silent look and smile which more palpably
than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in
regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.
She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him
alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general
smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was
waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that
sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror
seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during
that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to
that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: “What am I doing? I need
resolution. Can it be that I have none?”
He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter
he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really
possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel
themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered
by a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna
Pávlovna’s, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire
paralyzed his will.
On Hélène’s name day, a small party of just their own people—as
his wife said—met for supper at Prince Vasíli’s. All these friends
and relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young
girl would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.
Princess Kurágina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,
was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the
more important guests—an old general and his wife, and Anna Pávlovna
Schérer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests,
and there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Hélène,
side by side. Prince Vasíli was not having any supper: he went round
the table in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of
the guests. To each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark
except to Pierre and Hélène, whose presence he seemed not to notice.
He enlivened the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the
silver and crystal gleamed, so did the ladies’ toilets and the gold
and silver of the men’s epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved
round the table, the clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with
the animated hum of several conversations. At one end of the table, the
old chamberlain was heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her
passionately, at which she laughed; at the other could be heard the
story of the misfortunes of some Mary Víktorovna or other. At the
center of the table, Prince Vasíli attracted everybody’s attention.
With a facetious smile on his face, he was telling the ladies about last
Wednesday’s meeting of the Imperial Council, at which Sergéy Kuzmích
Vyazmítinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had
received and read the then famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander
from the army to Sergéy Kuzmích, in which the Emperor said that he was
receiving from all sides declarations of the people’s loyalty, that
the declaration from Petersburg gave him particular pleasure, and that
he was proud to be at the head of such a nation and would endeavor to be
worthy of it. This rescript began with the words: “Sergéy Kuzmích,
From all sides reports reach me,” etc.
“Well, and so he never got farther than: ‘Sergéy Kuzmích’?”
asked one of the ladies.
“Exactly, not a hair’s breadth farther,” answered Prince Vasíli,
laughing, “‘Sergéy Kuzmích... From all sides... From all sides...
Sergéy Kuzmích...’ Poor Vyazmítinov could not get any farther!
He began the rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered
‘Sergéy’ he sobbed, ‘Kuz-mí-ch,’ tears, and ‘From all
sides’ was smothered in sobs and he could get no farther. And again
his handkerchief, and again: ‘Sergéy Kuzmích, From all sides,’...
and tears, till at last somebody else was asked to read it.”
“Kuzmích... From all sides... and then tears,” someone repeated
laughing.
“Don’t be unkind,” cried Anna Pávlovna from her end of the table
holding up a threatening finger. “He is such a worthy and excellent
man, our dear Vyazmítinov....”
Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the
honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the