by Leo Tolstoy
'What a beautiful woman!' said everyone who saw her. The viscount shrugged and looked down, as if transfixed by a mysterious force, as she arranged herself to sit before him, not sparing him that ever-dazzling smile.
'Madame, I doubt my abilities in front of such an audience,' he said, bowing with a smile.
The princess rested her round, bare arm on a little table and found it unnecessary to say anything. She smiled, and she waited. Sitting up straight throughout the viscount's story, she glanced down occasionally either at her beautiful, round arm so casually draped across the table, or at her still lovelier bosom and the diamond necklace above it that kept needing adjustment. Several times she also adjusted the folds of her gown, and whenever the narrative made a strong impact on the audience she would glance across at Anna Pavlovna in order to imitate whatever expression she could see written on the maid of honour's face before resuming her radiant smile.
The little Princess Bolkonsky had also moved away from the tea table, following Helene. 'Wait a minute, I must have my work,' she said. 'Come along, what are you thinking about?' she demanded of Prince Hippolyte. 'Please fetch my bag.'
With a smile and a word for everyone, the little princess got the whole group to rearrange itself, and then sat down and settled her skirts.
'Now I'm all right,' she insisted, and took up her work, inviting the viscount to begin. Prince Hippolyte brought her little bag, walked round behind her, moved up a chair and sat down beside her.
The 'charming' Hippolyte bore a close resemblance to his beautiful sister; it was even more remarkable that in spite of the similarity he was a very ugly man. His features were like his sister's, but whereas she glowed with joie de vivre, classical beauty and the smiling self-assurance of youth, her brother's face was just the opposite - dim with imbecility, truculent and peevish - and his body was thin and feeble. His eyes, nose and mouth - all his features seemed to twist themselves into in a vague kind of obtuse snarl, while his arms and legs were always in an awkward tangle.
'It's not a ghost story, is it?' he asked, settling down next to the princess and jerking his lorgnette up to his eyes, as if he needed this instrument before he could say anything.
'Why no, my dear fellow,' said the astonished viscount with a shrug.
'It's just that I can't abide ghost stories,' said Prince Hippolyte, his tone implying that he had blurted all this out before realizing what it meant. Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he had said was very clever or very stupid. He was dressed in a dark green frock-coat, stockings, light shoes and knee-breeches of a colour he referred to as 'the thigh of a startled nymph'.
The viscount then gave a nice rendition of a story that was doing the rounds. Apparently the Duke of Enghien had driven to Paris for a secret assignation with a young woman, Mlle George, only to run into Bonaparte, who was also enjoying the favours of the same famous actress. On meeting the duke, Napoleon had fallen into one of his fainting fits and had been completely at the duke's mercy. The duke had not taken advantage of this, but Bonaparte had later rewarded his magnanimity by having him put to death.
This was a very charming and interesting story, especially the bit when the rivals suddenly recognized each other, and it seemed to excite the ladies. 'Delightful!' said Anna Pavlovna, with an inquiring glance at the little princess. 'Delightful!' whispered the little princess, stabbing her needle into her sewing to show that the interest and charm of the story were getting in the way of her work. With a grateful smile of appreciation at this silent tribute, the viscount resumed his narrative, but Anna Pavlovna, who never took her eyes off the dreadful young man who was worrying her so much, could hear him holding forth with the abbe too forcefully and too heatedly, so she sped across into the danger zone on a rescue mission. Sure enough, Pierre had managed to get into a political conversation with the abbe about the balance of power, and the abbe, evidently taken by young man's naive passion, was expounding to him his cherished idea. Both men were listening too earnestly and talking too bluntly, and Anna Pavlovna didn't like it.
'You do it by means of the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the people,' the abbe was saying. 'If one powerful state like Russia - despite its reputation for barbarity - were to take a disinterested stand as the head of an alliance aimed at guaranteeing the balance of power in Europe, it would save the world!'
'But how are you going to get such a balance of power?' Pierre was gathering himself to say, but at that moment Anna Pavlovna came across, glowered at Pierre and asked the Italian how he was surviving the local climate. His face changed instantly and assumed the sickly sweet, patronizing air which he obviously reserved for conversations with women. 'I am so enchanted by the delightful wit and culture of the society people - especially the ladies - by whom I have had the good fortune to be received, that I have not yet had time to think about the climate,' he said. Determined not to let go of the abbe and Pierre, Anna Pavlovna steered them into the larger group, where it would be easier to keep an eye on them.
At this point in walked another guest, the young Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, husband of the little princess. He was quite short, but a very handsome young man, with sharp, clear-cut features. Everything about him, from his languid, bored expression to his slow and steady stride, stood in stark contrast to his vivacious little wife. He made it obvious that he knew everybody in the room, and was so fed up with the whole lot that just looking at them and listening to them drove him to distraction. And of all the wearisome faces it was the face of his own pretty wife that seemed to bore him most. With a snarl distorting his handsome face he turned away from her. He kissed Anna Pavlovna's hand, screwed up his eyes and scanned the whole company.
'Are you enlisting for the war, Prince?' said Anna Pavlovna.
'General Kutuzov has been kind enough to want me as an aide,' said Bolkonsky, saying 'Kutuzov', like a Frenchman, rather than 'Kutuzov'.
'And what about Lise, your wife?'
'She's going into the country.'
'Shame on you, depriving us of your charming wife!'
'Andre!' said his wife, addressing her husband in the flirtatious tone that she normally reserved for other men. 'The viscount has just told us a wonderful story about Mlle George and Bonaparte!'
Prince Andrey scowled and turned away. Pierre had been looking at this man with a joyful, affectionate gaze since the moment he walked in, and now he went over and took him by the arm. Before looking round, Prince Andrey gave a pained look of irritation as he felt the touch, but the moment he saw Pierre's smiling face he smiled back in an unusually sweet and pleasant way.
'It's you! . . . Out in society!' he said to Pierre.
'I knew you'd be here,' answered Pierre. 'I'm coming to dine with you,' he added in a low voice, so as not to interrupt the viscount, who was going on with his story. 'Is that all right?'
'Of course it isn't!' laughed Prince Andrey, but his handshake told Pierre he had no need to ask. He was about to go on, but at that moment Prince Vasily and his daughter stood up and the two young men rose to let them go by.
'Do excuse me, my dear Viscount,' said Prince Vasily to the Frenchman, gently tugging down on his sleeve to persuade him not to get up. 'This confounded reception at the Ambassador's deprives me of a pleasure and interrupts you. I'm so sorry to leave your delightful party,' he said to Anna Pavlovna.
Delicately holding on to the folds of her gown, his daughter, Princess Helene, moved off between the chairs, and the smile on her gorgeous face was more radiant than ever. Pierre watched this vision of beauty go past, his eyes brimming with rapture and something not far from terror.
'Isn't she lovely?' said Prince Andrey.
'Yes, she is,' said Pierre.
As he went past, Prince Vasily took Pierre by the arm and turned to Anna Pavlovna.
'Can you please train this bear for me?' he said. 'He's been staying with me for a month and this is the first time I've seen him out in society. There's noth
ing more important for a young man than the company of intelligent women.'
CHAPTER 4
Anna Pavlovna gave a smile and promised to look after Pierre, knowing he was related to Prince Vasily on his father's side. The elderly lady, who earlier on had been sitting by the aunt, got up hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasily in the hall. Her look of pretended interest had vanished, and her kindly, careworn face showed nothing but anxiety and alarm.
'Prince, what can you tell me about my Boris?' she asked, catching up with him in the hall. (She put a peculiar stress on the 'o' in Boris.) 'I can't stay on in Petersburg. Tell me please, what news may I take to my poor boy?'
Although Prince Vasily's reluctance to deal with the elderly lady verged on impoliteness, even impatience, she gave him a sweetly ingratiating smile, and stopped him from going by clutching at his arm. 'It will cost you very little to put in a good word with the Emperor, and he'll be transferred straight into the guards,' she implored.
'Believe me, Princess, I'll do anything I can,' answered Prince Vasily; 'but it's not easy for me to petition the Emperor. I would advise you to see Rumyantsev, through Prince Golitsyn. That would be the more sensible thing to do.'
The elderly lady, Princess Drubetskoy, came from one of Russia's best families, but she was impoverished, she had been too long out of society and by this time she had lost all her old contacts. She had come now to make representations and get her only son into the guards. For this reason alone - to see Prince Vasily - she had invited herself to Anna Pavlovna's party, turned up and sat through the viscount's story. She was shaken by the prince's words; her face with its faded beauty flashed with resentment, but only for a moment. She smiled again and tightened her grip on Prince Vasily's arm.
'Please listen, Prince,' she said. 'I've never asked you to do me a favour, and I never shall do so again. I've never reminded you how close my father was to you. But now, in God's name I beseech you, just do this for my son, and I shall always think of you as a benefactor.' Then, hurriedly, she added, 'Please don't be angry, but do promise. I've already asked Golitsyn, and he said no. Please be the nice gentleman you always used to be.' She did her best to smile, though there were tears in her eyes.
'Papa, we're going to be late,' said Princess Helene from the doorway, her exquisite head looking back over statuesque shoulders.
But influence in society is capital, which must be carefully conserved so it doesn't run out. Prince Vasily was aware of this, and, realizing that, if he were to petition for everybody who petitioned him, all too soon he would be unable to petition for himself, he rarely made use of his influence. In Princess Drubetskoy's case, however, her new appeal had given him something akin to a qualm of conscience. She had reminded him of the truth: his earliest progress in the service had been due to her father. Beyond that, he could see from her actions that she was one of those women - especially mothers - who, once they get their teeth into something, are not going to let go until they get their own way, and if they don't get their own way they are going to go on pestering every minute of every day, and they might even make a scene. This last consideration gave him pause.
'My dear Anna Mikhaylovna,' he said, as always unceremoniously and with boredom in his voice, 'it is virtually impossible for me to do what you want, but to demonstrate my affection for you, and to honour your late father's memory, I shall achieve the impossible. Your son will be transferred to the guards. Here is my hand on it. Does that satisfy you?'
'My dear Prince, you are our benefactor! I expected nothing less. I knew you were a good man.' He tried to get away. 'Wait a moment. Just one more thing. When he's in the guards . . .' She hesitated. 'You are on good terms with General Kutuzov. Please recommend Boris as one of his aides. Then I can relax, then I . . .'
Prince Vasily smiled. 'That's something I can't promise. You know how besieged Kutuzov has been since he became commander-in-chief. He told me himself that all the ladies in Moscow have got together to offer their children as aides.'
'No, you must promise. I won't take no for an answer. You are such a good, kind benefactor . . .'
'Papa,' said the beautiful Helene, exactly as before, 'we're going to be late.'
'Well, I must be off. I bid you goodbye. You see how things are.'
'Tomorrow, then, you will speak to the Emperor?'
'Yes indeed, but I can't promise anything about Kutuzov.'
'Oh, Basile, you must,' Anna Mikhaylovna called after him, smiling like a young flirt, which might have suited her in days gone by, but now ill became her scrawny face. She had obviously forgotten her age, and habit had told her to let go with all her ancient womanly wiles. But the moment he had gone her face resumed its former cold, affected expression. She went back to the group where the viscount was still holding forth, and again pretended to listen, but now that she had done what she had come to do she was only waiting for a suitable moment to go home.
'And what about this latest farce of a coronation in Milan?' said Anna Pavlovna. 'And that other farce in Genoa and Lucca with the people coming forward and presenting their petitions to Monsieur Buonaparte. Monsieur Buonaparte sits on a throne and grants nations their petitions! How very charming! Oh, it's enough to drive me mad! The whole world seems to have gone off its head.'
Prince Andrey smiled and looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face.
'This crown is God-given. Woe betide the man who touches it,' he said (Bonaparte's words when the crown was placed on his head). 'They say he looked superb as he spoke those words,' he added, and he repeated the same words in Italian: 'Dio mi la dona, guai a qui la tocca.'
'I only hope,' Anna Pavlovna went on, 'that at long last this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Really, the European sovereigns cannot continue to put up with this man. He is a threat to everything.'
'The sovereigns! I am not talking about Russia,' said the viscount, respectful but despairing . . . 'But Madame, the sovereigns! What did they do for Louis XVI, the Queen, Madame Elisabeth? Nothing,' he went on, gathering confidence. 'And believe me, they're being punished now for their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The European sovereigns! They are sending ambassadors to congratulate the usurper.'
And he gave a scornful sigh as he shifted position. Then, at these words, Prince Hippolyte, who had been studying the viscount through his lorgnette, suddenly turned right round to face the little princess, borrowed a needle from her and used it to scratch an outline of the Conde family coat-of-arms on the tabletop. He began to explain it in some detail as if this was something she had asked for. 'Staff, gules, engrailed with azure gules - the House of Conde,' he said. The princess smiled as she listened.
'If Bonaparte stays on the throne of France for another year,' said the viscount, taking up the thread of the conversation with the air of an informed person pursuing his own train of thought and ignoring everybody else, 'things will have gone too far. After all the plotting and violence, the exiles and executions, society - I mean good, French society - will have been destroyed for ever, and then . . .'
He gave a shrug, and spread his hands. Pierre was about to say something - the conversation fascinated him - but the ever-vigilant Anna Pavlovna intervened.
'Emperor Alexander,' she said with that doleful manner that she always adopted when referring to the royal family, 'has announced that he will leave it to the French people to choose their own form of government. I myself have no doubt the entire nation, once it is delivered from the usurper, will rush to embrace its lawful king,' said Anna Pavlovna, trying to be nice to a royalist emigre.
'That's doubtful,' said Prince Andrey. 'The viscount is right when he says things have gone too far. I think it will be difficult to turn the clock back.'
'From what I hear,' said Pierre, reddening as he got back into the conversation, 'almost all the aristocrats have gone over to Bonaparte.'
'That's what the Bonapartists say,' said the viscount without looking at Pierre. 'It's not easy nowadays to find out what public opinion is in France.'
'That's what Bonaparte said,' observed Prince Andrey with a grin. It was obvious that he didn't like the viscount, and he was directing his remarks at him without looking his way.
' "I have shown them the path to glory, but they wouldn't take it," ' he said after a brief pause, once more quoting Napoleon. ' "I have opened my antechambers to them, and the crowds rushed in . . ." I don't know what justification he had for saying that.'
'None at all!' retorted the viscount. 'Since the duke's murder, even his strongest supporters have ceased to regard him as a hero. There may be some people who made a hero of him,' said the viscount, turning to Anna Pavlovna, 'but since the duke's assassination there has been one more martyr in heaven, and one hero less on earth.'
Anna Pavlovna and the others had barely had time to smile in appreciation of the viscount's words when Pierre broke into the conversation again, and although Anna Pavlovna knew in advance he was going to put his foot in it, this time she couldn't stop him.
'The execution of the Duke of Enghien,' said Pierre, 'was a political necessity, and in my opinion it was a measure of Napoleon's true greatness that he didn't baulk at assuming total responsibility for it.'
'Merciful heaven!' Anna Pavlovna intoned in a horrified whisper.
'So Monsieur Pierre! You think murder is the measure of true greatness,' said the little princess, smiling and drawing in her work.
Ohs and ahs came from all sides.
'Capital!' said Prince Hippolyte, using the English word, and he began slapping his knee. The viscount merely shrugged.
Pierre looked solemnly over his spectacles at his audience.