War and Peace(战争与和平)5

 
 
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER XIII 　　When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the flower tubs and hid there.
　　Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her ambush, waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about to call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she. Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching- as under an invisible cap- to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking round toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.
　　"Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he, running up to her.
　　"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya.
　　"Ah, I know what it is."
　　"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"
　　"So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that, for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.
　　Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes. "What will happen now?" thought she.
　　"Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!" said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."
　　"I don't like you to talk like that."
　　"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him and kissed her.
　　"Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.
　　"Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I have something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.
　　Boris followed her, smiling.
　　"What is the something?" asked he.
　　She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown down on one of the tubs, picked it up.
　　"Kiss the doll," said she.
　　Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not reply.
　　"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went further in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!" she whispered.
　　She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and fear appeared on her flushed face.
　　"And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly, glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from excitement.
　　Boris blushed.
　　"How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still more, but he waited and did nothing.
　　Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.
　　Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs and stood, hanging her head.
　　"Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but..."
　　"You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in.
　　"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four years... then I will ask for your hand."
　　Natasha considered.
　　"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender little fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?"
　　A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.
　　"Settled!" replied Boris.
　　"Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?"
　　She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining sitting room.  LastIndexNext Leo Tolstoy 
 
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER XIV 　　After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.
　　"With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "There are not many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship."
　　Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her friend's hand.
　　"Vera," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or..."
　　The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.
　　"If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied as she rose to go to her own room.
　　But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera with guilty, happy faces.
　　It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.
　　"How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You have a room of your own," and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.
　　"In a minute, in a minute," he said, dipping his pen.
　　"You always manage to do things at the wrong time," continued Vera. "You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed of you."
　　Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the room with the inkstand in her hand.
　　"And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and Boris, or between you two? It's all nonsense!"
　　"Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?" said Natasha in defense, speaking very gently.
　　She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to everyone.
　　"Very silly," said Vera. "I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!"
　　"All have secrets of their own," answered Natasha, getting warmer. "We don't interfere with you and Berg."
　　"I should think not," said Vera, "because there can never be anything wrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are behaving with Boris."
　　"Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me," remarked Boris. "I have nothing to complain of."
　　"Don't, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome," said Natasha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the word "diplomat," which was just then much in vogue among the children, in the special sense they attached to it.) "Why does she bother me?" And she added, turning to Vera, "You'll never understand it, because you've never loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and nothing more" (this nickname, bestowed on Vera by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), "and your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much as you please," she finished quickly.
　　"I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors..."
　　"Well, now you've done what you wanted," put in Nicholas- "said unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let's go to the nursery."
　　All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.
　　"The unpleasant things were said to me," remarked Vera, "I said none to anyone."
　　"Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!" shouted laughing voices through the door.
　　The handsome Vera, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant effect on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been said to her, went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf. Looking at her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and calmer.
　　In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.
　　"Ah, my dear," said the countess, "my life is not all roses either. Don't I know that at the rate we are living our means won't last long? It's all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But don't let's talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often wonder at you, Annette- how at your age you can rush off alone in a carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people, and know how to deal with them all! It's quite astonishing. How did you get things settled? I couldn't possibly do it."
　　"Ah, my love," answered Anna Mikhaylovna, "God grant you never know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to distraction! One learns many things then," she added with a certain pride. "That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times- till I get what I want. I don't mind what they think of me."
　　"Well, and to whom did you apply about Bory?" asked the countess. "You see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is going as a cadet. There's no one to interest himself for him. To whom did you apply?"
　　"To Prince Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything, and put the matter before the Emperor," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she had endured to gain her end.
　　"Has Prince Vasili aged much?" asked the countess. "I have not seen him since we acted together at the Rumyantsovs' theatricals. I expect he has forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days," said the countess, with a smile.
　　"He is just the same as ever," replied Anna Mikhaylovna, "overflowing with amiability. His position has not turned his head at all. He said to me, 'I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I am at your command.' Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very kind relation. But, Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do anything for his happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my position is now a terrible one," continued Anna Mikhaylovna, sadly, dropping her voice. "My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress. Would you believe it, I have literally not a penny and don't know how to equip Boris." She took out her handkerchief and began to cry. "I need five hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I am in such a state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If he will not assist his godson- you know he is Bory's godfather- and allow him something for his maintenance, all my trouble will have been thrown away.... I shall not be able to equip him."
　　The countess' eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.
　　"I often think, though, perhaps it's a sin," said the princess, "that here lives Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all alone... that tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It's a burden to him, and Bory's life is only just beginning...."
　　"Surely he will leave someth
 
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER XV 　　"My dear Boris," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as Countess Rostova's carriage in which they were seated drove over the straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's house. "My dear Boris," said the mother, drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying it timidly and tenderly on her son's arm, "be affectionate and attentive to him. Count Cyril Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, your future depends on him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice to him, as you so well know how to be."
　　"If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of it..." answered her son coldly. "But I have promised and will do it for your sake."
　　Although the hall porter saw someone's carriage standing at the entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady's old cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and, hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.
　　"We may as well go back," said the son in French.
　　"My dear!" exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand on his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.
　　Boris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking off his cloak.
　　"My friend," said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the hall porter, I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich is very ill... that's why I have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him, my friend... I only need see Prince Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying here, is he not? Please announce me."
　　The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned away.
　　"Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich," he called to a footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat, who ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.
　　The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly ascended the carpeted stairs.
　　"My dear," she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a touch, "you promised me!"
　　The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.
　　They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the apartments assigned to Prince Vasili.
　　Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasili came out- wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast, as was his custom when at home- taking leave of a good-looking, dark-haired man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.
　　"Then it is certain?" said the prince.
　　"Prince, humanum est errare,* but..." replied the doctor, swallowing his r's, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French accent.
　　*To err is human.
　　"Very well, very well..."
　　Seeing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili dismissed the doctor with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of inquiry. The son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly clouded his mother's face, and he smiled slightly.
　　"Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our dear invalid?" said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look fixed on her.
　　Prince Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and perplexed. Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging the bow turned to Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a movement of the head and lips indicating very little hope for the patient.
　　"Is it possible?" exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Oh, how awful! It is terrible to think.... This is my son," she added, indicating Boris. "He wanted to thank you himself."
　　Boris bowed again politely.
　　"Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have done for us."
　　"I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna," said Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had placed under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he had done in Petersburg at Anna Scherer's reception.
　　"Try to serve well and show yourself worthy," added he, addressing Boris with severity. "I am glad.... Are you here on leave?" he went on in his usual tone of indifference.
　　"I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency," replied Boris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.
　　"Are you living with your mother?"
　　"I am living at Countess Rostova's," replied Boris, again adding, "your excellency."
　　"That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina," said Anna Mikhaylovna.
　　"I know, I know," answered Prince Vasili in his monotonous voice. "I never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too, I am told."
　　"But a very kind man, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a pathetic smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov deserved this censure, but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. "What do the doctors say?" asked the princess after a pause, her worn face again expressing deep sorrow.
　　"They give little hope," replied the prince.
　　"And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me and Boris. He is his godson," she added, her tone suggesting that this fact ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.
　　Prince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna saw that he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov's fortune, and hastened to reassure him.
　　"If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle," said she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, "I know his character: noble, upright... but you see he has no one with him except the young princesses.... They are still young...." She bent her head and continued in a whisper: "Has he performed his final duty, Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We women, Prince," and she smiled tenderly, "always know how to say these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I am used to suffering."
　　Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done at Anna Pavlovna's, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna Mikhaylovna.
　　"Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna Mikhaylovna?" said he. "Let us wait until evening. The doctors are expecting a crisis."
　　"But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a Christian..."
　　A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the count's niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasili turned to her.
　　"Well, how is he?"
　　"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise..." said the princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.
　　"Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a happy smile, ambling lightly up to the count's niece. "I have come, and am at your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you have gone through," and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.
　　The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room at Anna Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili to take a seat beside her.
　　"Boris," she said to her son with a smile, "I shall go in to see the count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile and don't forget to give him the Rostovs' invitation. They ask him to dinner. I suppose he won't go?" she continued, turning to the prince.
　　"On the contrary," replied the prince, who had plainly become depressed, "I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young man.... Here he is, and the count has not once asked for him."
　　He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Boris down one flight of stairs and up another, to Pierre's rooms.  LastIndexNext Leo Tolstoy 
  ing to Boris," said the countess. 
 
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER XVI 　　Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostov's was true. Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father's house. Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be already known in Moscow and that the ladies about his father- who were never favorably disposed toward him- would have used it to turn the count against him, he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his father's part of the house. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom were sitting at embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the eldest who was reading- the one who had met Anna Mikhaylovna. The two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they differed only in that one had a little mole on her lip which made her much prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make out the pattern.
　　"How do you do, cousin?" said Pierre. "You don't recognize me?"
　　"I recognize you only too well, too well."
　　"How is the count? Can I see him?" asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual, but unabashed.
　　"The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you have done your best to increase his mental sufferings."
　　"Can I see the count?" Pierre again asked.
　　"Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle's beef tea is ready- it is almost time," she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he, Pierre, was only busy causing him annoyance.
　　Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and said: "Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see him."
　　And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the sister with the mole.
　　Next day Prince Vasili had arrived and settled in the count's house. He sent for Pierre and said to him: "My dear fellow, if you are going to behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must not see him at all."
　　Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in his rooms upstairs.
　　When Boris appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room, stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall, as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.
　　"England is done for," said he, scowling and pointing his finger at someone unseen. "Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights of man, is sentenced to..." But before Pierre- who at that moment imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just effected the dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London- could pronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome young officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left Moscow when Boris was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the hand with a friendly smile.
　　"Do you remember me?" asked Boris quietly with a pleasant smile. "I have come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not well."
　　"Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him," answered Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.
　　Boris felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider it necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.
　　"Count Rostov asks you to come to dinner today," said he, after a considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.
　　"Ah, Count Rostov!" exclaimed Pierre joyfully. "Then you are his son, Ilya? Only fancy, I didn't know you at first. Do you remember how we went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It's such an age..."
　　"You are mistaken," said Boris deliberately, with a bold and slightly sarcastic smile. "I am Boris, son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, and his son is Nicholas. I never knew any Madame Jacquot."
　　Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.
　　"Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I've mixed everything up. One has so many relatives in Moscow! So you are Boris? Of course. Well, now we know where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve doesn't make a mess of things!
　　Boris knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve's name.
　　"We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal than with politics," said he in his quiet ironical tone. "I know nothing about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy with gossip," he continued. "Just now they are talking about you and your father."
　　Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion's sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret. But Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into Pierre's eyes.
　　"Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip," Boris went on. "Everybody is wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune, though he may perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will..."
　　"Yes, it is all very horrid," interrupted Pierre, "very horrid."
　　Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say something disconcerting to himself.
　　"And it must seem to you," said Boris flushing slightly, but not changing his tone or attitude, "it must seem to you that everyone is trying to get something out of the rich man?"
　　"So it does," thought Pierre.
　　"But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are quite mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are very poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that your father is rich, I don't regard myself as a relation of his, and neither I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him."
　　For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped up from the sofa, seized Boris under the elbow in his quick, clumsy way, and, blushing far more than Boris, began to speak with a feeling of mingled shame and vexation.
　　"Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know very well..."
　　But Boris again interrupted him.
　　"I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You must excuse me," said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put at ease by him, "but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it a rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to dinner at the Rostovs'?"
　　And Boris, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it, became quite pleasant again.
　　"No, but I say," said Pierre, calming down, "you are a wonderful fellow! What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you don't know me. We have not met for such a long time... not since we were children. You might think that I... I understand, quite understand. I could not have done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but it's splendid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's queer," he added after a pause, "that you should have suspected me!" He began to laugh. "Well, what of it! I hope we'll get better acquainted," and he pressed Boris' hand. "Do you know, I have not once been in to see the count. He has not sent for me.... I am sorry for him as a man, but what can one do?"
　　"And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?" asked Boris with a smile.
　　Pierre saw that Boris wished to change the subject, and being of the same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the Boulogne expedition.
　　A footman came in to summon Boris- the princess was going. Pierre, in order to make Boris' better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner, and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles into Boris' eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and down the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with his imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant, intelligent, and resolute young man.
　　As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up his mind that they would be friends.
　　Prince Vasili saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes and her face was tearful.
　　"It is dreadful, dreadful!" she was saying, "but cost me what it may I shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be left like this. Every moment is precious. I can't think why his nieces put it off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!... Adieu, Prince! May God support you..."
　　"Adieu, ma bonne," answered Prince Vasili turning away from her.
　　"Oh, he is in a dreadful state," said the mother to her son when they were in the carriage. "He hardly recognizes anybody."
　　"I don't understand, Mamma- what is his attitude to Pierre?" asked the son.
　　"The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it."
　　"But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?"
　　"Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!"
　　"Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma..."
　　"Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!" exclaimed the mother. LastIndexNext Leo Tolstoy 
 
 
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER XVII 　　After Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova sat for a long time all alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.
　　"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she said crossly to the maid who kept her waiting some minutes. "Don't you wish to serve me? Then I'll find you another place."
　　The countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating poverty, and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always found expression in calling her maid "my dear" and speaking to her with exaggerated politeness.
　　"I am very sorry, ma'am," answered the maid.
　　"Ask the count to come to me."
　　The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as usual.
　　"Well, little countess? What a saute of game au madere we are to have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras were not ill-spent. He is worth it!"
　　He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling his gray hair.
　　"What are your commands, little countess?"
　　"You see, my dear... What's that mess?" she said, pointing to his waistcoat. "It's, the saute, most likely," she added with a smile. "Well, you see, Count, I want some money."
　　Her face became sad.
　　"Oh, little countess!"... and the count began bustling to get out his pocketbook.
　　"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles," and taking out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's waistcoat.
　　"Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who's there?" he called out in a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush to obey the summons. "Send Dmitri to me!"
　　Dmitri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.
　　"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential young man who had entered. "Bring me..." he reflected a moment, "yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for the countess."
　　"Yes, Dmitri, clean ones, please," said the countess, sighing deeply.
　　"When would you like them, your excellency?" asked Dmitri. "Allow me to inform you... But, don't be uneasy," he added, noticing that the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of approaching anger. "I was forgetting... Do you wish it brought at once?"
　　"Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess."
　　"What a treasure that Dmitri is," added the count with a smile when the young man had departed. "There is never any 'impossible' with him. That's a thing I hate! Everything is possible."
　　"Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world," said the countess. "But I am in great need of this sum."
　　"You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift," said the count, and having kissed his wife's hand he went back to his study.
　　When Anna Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov's the money, all in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess' little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that something was agitating her.
　　"Well, my dear?" asked the countess.
　　"Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word..."
　　"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me," the countess began, with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief.
　　Anna Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.
　　"This is for Boris from me, for his outfit."
　　Anna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were kindhearted, and because they- friends from childhood- had to think about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over.... But those tears were pleasant to them both. LastIndexNext Leo Tolstoy 
 
　　"Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish. Still, I will take Boris and go to see him at once, and I shall speak to him straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it's really all the same to me when my son's fate is at stake." The princess rose. "It's now two o'clock and you dine at four. There will just be time."
　　And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of time, Anna Mikhaylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the anteroom with him.
　　"Good-by, my dear," said she to the countess who saw her to the door, and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, "Wish me good luck."
　　"Are you going to Count Cyril Vladimirovich, my dear?" said the count coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added: "If he is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the house, you know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my dear. We will see how Taras distinguishes himself today. He says Count Orlov never gave such a dinner as ours will be!" LastIndexNext Leo Tolstoy