War and Peace
After that Anna Pávlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King
of Prussia, in order to draw Borís into the conversation.
Borís listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,
but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the
beautiful Hélène, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome
young aide-de-camp with a smile.
Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pávlovna very naturally asked
Borís to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he
found the Prussian army. Borís, speaking with deliberation, told them
in pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and
the court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his
own about the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the
general attention, and Anna Pávlovna felt that the novelty she had
served up was received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest
attention of all to Borís’ narrative was shown by Hélène. She asked
him several questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in
the state of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to
him with her usual smile.
“You absolutely must come and see me,” she said in a tone that
implied that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was
absolutely necessary.
“On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure.”
Borís promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a
conversation with her, when Anna Pávlovna called him away on the
pretext that her aunt wished to hear him.
“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pávlovna, closing her
eyes and indicating Hélène with a sorrowful gesture. “Ah, she is
such an unfortunate and charming woman! Don’t mention him before
her—please don’t! It is too painful for her!”
CHAPTER VII
When Borís and Anna Pávlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte
had the ear of the company.
Bending forward in his armchair he said: “Le Roi de Prusse!” and
having said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.
“Le Roi de Prusse?” Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing,
and then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pávlovna
waited for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more
she began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the
sword of Frederick the Great.
“It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I...” she began, but
Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: “Le Roi de Prusse...” and
again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no
more.
Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte’s friend, addressed him
firmly.
“Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?”
Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I only wished to say...” (he wanted to repeat
a joke he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that
evening to get in) “I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight
pour le Roi de Prusse!”
Borís smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical
or appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody
laughed.
“Your joke is too bad, it’s witty but unjust,” said Anna
Pávlovna, shaking her little shriveled finger at him.
“We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.
Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!” she said.
The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the
political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the
evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.
“You know N— N— received a snuffbox with the portrait last
year?” said “the man of profound intellect.” “Why shouldn’t
S— S— get the same distinction?”
“Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor’s portrait is a reward but
not a distinction,” said the diplomatist—“a gift, rather.”
“There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg.”
“It’s impossible,” replied another.
“Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter....”
When everybody rose to go, Hélène who had spoken very little all
the evening again turned to Borís, asking him in a tone of caressing
significant command to come to her on Tuesday.
“It is of great importance to me,” she said, turning with a smile
toward Anna Pávlovna, and Anna Pávlovna, with the same sad smile with
which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Hélène’s wish.
It seemed as if from some words Borís had spoken that evening about the
Prussian army, Hélène had suddenly found it necessary to see him.
She seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on
Tuesday.
But on Tuesday evening, having come to Hélène’s splendid salon,
Borís received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for
him to come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to
him, and only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly
and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: “Come to dinner
tomorrow... in the evening. You must come.... Come!”
During that stay in Petersburg, Borís became an intimate in the
countess’ house.
CHAPTER VIII
The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one
heard curses on Bonaparte, “the enemy of mankind.” Militiamen and
recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of
war came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously
interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkónski, Prince Andrew, and
Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.
In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief
then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia.
Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable
since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think
it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor
himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy
and strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces
entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe
to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the
minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in
mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went
to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his
grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet
nurse and nurse Sávishna in the late princess’ rooms and Princess
Mary spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother’s place to
her little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed
passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself
to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel—as she
called her nephew—and playing with him.
Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the
tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument
brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to
fly upwards. The angel’s upper lip was slightly raised as though
about to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and
Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel’s face reminded
them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger,
though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the
expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel’s face, Prince
Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead
wife: “Ah, why have you done this to me?”
Soon after Prince Andrew’s return the old prince made over to him a
large estate, Boguchárovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.
Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,
partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with
his father’s peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude,
Prince Andrew made use of Boguchárovo, began building and spent most of
his time there.
After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not
to continue his military service, and when the war recommenced
and everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the
recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son
seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man,
roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign,
while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and
secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.
On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.
Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father’s
absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who
had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters
for Prince Andrew.
Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the
letters to Princess Mary’s apartments, but did not find him there. He
was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.
“If you please, your excellency, Pétrusha has brought some papers,”
said one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a
child’s little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he
poured drops from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.
“What is it?” he said crossly, and, his hand shaking
unintentionally, he poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the
mixture onto the floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought
it.
There were in the room a child’s cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a
table, a child’s table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew
was sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on
the table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall
on the cot.
“My dear,” said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside
the cot where she was standing, “better wait a bit... later...”
“Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things
off—and this is what comes of it!” said Prince Andrew in an
exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.
“My dear, really... it’s better not to wake him... he’s asleep,”
said the princess in a tone of entreaty.
Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass
in hand.
“Perhaps we’d really better not wake him,” he said hesitating.
“As you please... really... I think so... but as you please,” said
Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion
had prevailed. She drew her brother’s attention to the maid who was
calling him in a whisper.
It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy
who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household
doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had
been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness
and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and
reproached and disputed with each other.
“Pétrusha has come with papers from your father,” whispered the
maid.
Prince Andrew went out.
“Devil take them!” he muttered, and after listening to the verbal
instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his
father’s letter, he returned to the nursery.
“Well?” he asked.
“Still the same. Wait, for heaven’s sake. Karl Ivánich always says
that sleep is more important than anything,” whispered Princess Mary
with a sigh.
Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot.
“Confound you and your Karl Ivánich!” He took the glass with the
drops and again went up to the cot.
“Andrew, don’t!” said Princess Mary.
But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,
and stooped glass in hand over the infant.
“But I wish it,” he said. “I beg you—give it him!”