War and Peace
“You did not get my letter?” he asked, and not waiting for a
reply—which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to
speak—he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the
doctor who had entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post
station), and again embraced his sister.
“What a strange fate, Másha darling!” And having taken off his
cloak and felt boots, he went to the little princess’ apartment.
CHAPTER IX
The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her
head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round
her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its
downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered
and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.
Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested
on him without changing their expression. “I love you all and have
done no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!” her look
seemed to say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance
of his appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and
kissed her forehead.
“My darling!” he said—a word he had never used to her before.
“God is merciful....”
She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.
“I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!”
said her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did
not realize that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with
her sufferings or with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary
Bogdánovna advised Prince Andrew to leave the room.
The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary,
again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke
off at every moment. They waited and listened.
“Go, dear,” said Princess Mary.
Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next
to hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became
confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands
and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came
through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to
open it. Someone was holding it shut.
“You can’t come in! You can’t!” said a terrified voice from
within.
He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds
went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek—it could not be hers, she
could not scream like that—came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to
the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant.
“What have they taken a baby in there for?” thought Prince Andrew in
the first second. “A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or
is the baby born?”
Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears
choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill he began to cry,
sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves
tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out
of the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a
bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and
seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into
his wife’s room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen
her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of
the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with
its upper lip covered with tiny black hair.
“I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you
done to me?”—said her charming, pathetic, dead face.
In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed
in Mary Bogdánovna’s trembling white hands.
Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father’s
room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to
the door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise
round his son’s neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child.
Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went
up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss.
And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes.
“Ah, what have you done to me?” it still seemed to say, and Prince
Andrew felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty
of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The
old man too came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly
crossed one on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed
to say: “Ah, what have you done to me, and why?” And at the sight
the old man turned angrily away.
Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andréevich
was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while
the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy’s little red and
wrinkled soles and palms.
His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping
him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over
to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room,
faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited
the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when
the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that
the wax with the baby’s hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.
CHAPTER X
Rostóv’s share in Dólokhov’s duel with Bezúkhov was hushed up by
the efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks
as he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of
Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the
family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dólokhov
recovered, and Rostóv became very friendly with him during his
convalescence. Dólokhov lay ill at his mother’s who loved him
passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivánovna, who had grown fond of
Rostóv for his friendship to her Fédya, often talked to him about her
son.
“Yes, Count,” she would say, “he is too noble and pure-souled for
our present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like
a reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it
honorable, of Bezúkhov? And Fédya, with his noble spirit, loved him
and even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg
when they played some tricks on a policeman, didn’t they do it
together? And there! Bezúkhov got off scotfree, while Fédya had to
bear the whole burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through!
It’s true he has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that?
I think there were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out
there as he. And now—this duel! Have these people no feeling, or
honor? Knowing him to be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so
straight! It’s well God had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who
doesn’t have intrigues nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see
things he should have shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months.
And then to call him out, reckoning on Fédya not fighting because he
owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you understand
Fédya, my dear count; that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few
people do understand him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!”
Dólokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostóv in a way no
one would have expected of him.
“I know people consider me a bad man!” he said. “Let them! I
don’t care a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love,
I love so that I would give my life for them, and the others I’d
throttle if they stood in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother,
and two or three friends—you among them—and as for the rest I only
care about them in so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of
them are harmful, especially the women. Yes, dear boy,” he continued,
“I have met loving, noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met
any women—countesses or cooks—who were not venal. I have not yet met
that divine purity and devotion I look for in women. If I found such a
one I’d give my life for her! But those!...” and he made a gesture
of contempt. “And believe me, if I still value my life it is
only because I still hope to meet such a divine creature, who will
regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you don’t understand it.”
“Oh, yes, I quite understand,” answered Rostóv, who was under his
new friend’s influence.
In the autumn the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter
Denísov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the
winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the
happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought
many young men to his parents’ house. Véra was a handsome girl
of twenty; Sónya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening
flower; Natásha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly
amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
At that time in the Rostóvs’ house there prevailed an amorous
atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and very
charming girls. Every young man who came to the house—seeing those
impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own
happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful
bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of
young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the same
feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs’ household a
readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.
Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was
Dólokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha. She almost
quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad
man, and that in the duel with Bezúkhov, Pierre was right and Dólokhov
wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.
“There’s nothing for me to understand,” she cried out with
resolute self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like
your Denísov though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so
you see I do understand. I don’t know how to put it... with this one
everything is calculated, and I don’t like that. But Denísov...”
“Oh, Denísov is quite different,” replied Nicholas, implying that
even Denísov was nothing compared to Dólokhov—“you must understand
what a soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother.
What a heart!”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And
do you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?”
“What nonsense...”
“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.”
Natásha’s prediction proved true. Dólokhov, who did not usually care
for the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the
question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon
settled. He came because of Sónya. And Sónya, though she would never
have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov
appeared.
Dólokhov often dined at the Rostóvs’, never missed a performance at
which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people
which the Rostóvs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sónya
and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his
glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natásha blushed
when they saw his looks.
It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible
influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.
Rostóv noticed something new in Dólokhov’s relations with Sónya,
but he did not explain to himself what these new relations were.
“They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sónya and