by Leo Tolstoy
'Listen, my little countess! What a saute we're going to have, my dear - woodcocks in Madeira! I've just tried it. Good job I gave a thousand roubles to get Taras.27 Worth every penny!'
He sat down by his wife, jauntily splaying his elbows on his knees, and ruffling his grey hair. 'What is your command, little countess?'
'It's this, my dear . . . What's this stain on you here?' she said, pointing to his waistcoat. 'Oh, it must be the saute,' she added, with a smile. 'It's this, my dear - I need some money.' Her face took on a gloomy aspect.
'Oh, my little countess!' And the count rummaged for his pocketbook.
'I need rather a lot, Count - five hundred roubles.' She took out her cambric handkerchief and rubbed her husband's waistcoat with it.
'It won't take me a minute. Hey, you there!' he shouted, as men do when they know for certain that someone will come running. 'Get Mitenka for me!'
Mitenka, the young man of good birth who had been brought up in the count's house and now ran all his business affairs, stepped softly into the room.
'There you are, my dear boy,' said the count to the respectful young man as he approached. 'Go and get me,' - he thought a moment - 'let's say, seven hundred roubles. Yes. And none of your torn and dirty notes like last time. Get me some nice ones now, for the countess.'
'Yes, Mitenka, do make sure they're nice and clean, please,' said the countess with a gloomy sigh.
'Your Excellency, when do you want them delivered?' said Mitenka. 'Sir, you must realize . . . But don't worry, sir,' he added, noticing that the count was beginning to breathe rapidly and deeply - always a sign of approaching anger. 'I was forgetting . . . Do you require them immediately?'
'Yes, yes, I do. Just get them and give them to the countess.'
'That Mitenka, he's worth his weight in gold,' smiled the count, when the young man had gone out. 'Never says it can't be done. I can't abide that sort of thing. Anything's possible.'
'Oh, my dear count, money, money, money - how much trouble it causes in this world!' said the countess. 'But I do need it very much.'
'My sweet little countess, everybody knows you're a shocking spendthrift,' said the count, who then kissed his wife's hand and went back to his own room.
When Anna Mikhaylovna returned from the Bezukhovs the countess had the money ready under a handkerchief on her little table, all in crisp new notes. Anna Mikhaylovna could see something was worrying her.
'Well, how did you get on, my dear?' asked the countess.
'Oh, he's in a dreadful state! Unrecognizable. He's so ill, so ill . . . I was only there for a minute, and I hardly said a thing.'
'Annette, for heaven's sake, please don't refuse,' the countess blurted out with a blush which looked rather odd on her ageing, thin, aristocratic face as she produced the money from under the cloth. Immediately understanding, Anna Mikhaylovna leant forward, ready to embrace when the moment came.
'This is for Boris, from me, to get him kitted out . . .'
Anna Mikhaylovna's arms were round her. She was weeping, and the countess wept too. They wept for their friendship, their kind-heartedness and the unfortunate need for lifelong friends to soil their hands with anything as sordid as money, and they wept also for their lost youth . . . But the tears of both women were sweet . . .
CHAPTER 15
Countess Rostov was sitting in the drawing-room with her daughters and a large number of guests. The count had taken the gentlemen into his study to show them his special collection of Turkish pipes. Now and then he would venture forth to inquire whether or not 'she' had arrived. They were waiting for Marya Dmitriyevna Akhrosimov, known in society as 'the dreaded dragon' and celebrated not for wealth or rank, but for her sharp wit and plain speaking. She hobnobbed with royalty, and was known throughout Moscow and Petersburg; in both cities people may have marvelled at her, laughed at her coarse behaviour behind her back and told many a story about her, but she was feared and respected by every last one of them.
In the count's smoke-filled room there was talk of the war, which had just been declared in a manifesto, and of recruitment. As yet, no one had read the manifesto, but everybody knew it had been issued. The count was sitting on a pouffe with a guest smoking and talking on either hand. He himself was neither smoking nor talking, but, as he turned his head from side to side, he watched those who were with obvious enjoyment, following the argument between his two neighbours that he had steered them into.
One of them was a civilian with a thin, wrinkled, sallow, clean-shaven face, getting on in years but still dressed like the most fashionable young man. He sat with his feet up on the pouffe, making himself at home, and with an amber mouthpiece thrust deeply into the side of his mouth, he sucked up the smoke intermittently, screwing up his eyes. This was Shinshin, an old bachelor cousin of the countess, famed in the drawing-rooms of Moscow for his acid tongue. He seemed to be patronizing his companion, a fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked guards officer, impeccably washed, groomed and buttoned, who held his pipe in the middle of his mouth, sucked up a little smoke and let it coil out through his pink lips. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semyonovsky regiment, which he was about to join with Boris, the person Natasha had teasingly identified as Vera's intended. The count sat between them, all ears. His favourite occupation, apart from playing boston,28 a game he really loved, was listening to conversations, especially when he could get a good argument going between two talkative guests.
'So, my dear chap, mon tres honorable Alphonse Karlych,' said Shinshin with a sarcastic smile, indulging his own speciality, which was to combine the raciest Russian with the most elegant French, 'you're expecting to get one income from the state, and another from your company, are you?'
'No, sir, I only want to show that cavalry service brings few advantages when you compare it with the infantry. Take my own situation, for instance, Pyotr Nikolaich.' As a talker Berg was always precise, calm and polite. He had only one topic of conversation - himself. He always maintained an aloof silence when any subject was broached that did not directly concern him. And he could keep quiet like this for hours on end, without the slightest embarrassment to himself or anyone else. But the moment a conversation touched him personally, he would launch forth expansively and with obvious pleasure.
'Take my situation, Pyotr Nikolaich. If I were in the cavalry, I would get two hundred roubles every four months at the most, even at the rank of lieutenant, whereas now I get two hundred and thirty,' he explained with a gleeful, friendly smile, looking at Shinshin and the count as though his personal success would obviously and always be the one thing everyone else would wish to advance. 'And another thing, Pyotr Nikolaich - by transferring to the guards, I shall stand out,' Berg persisted, 'and there are many more vacancies in the foot guards. And just imagine how much better off I'll be on two hundred and thirty roubles. I'll be able to save and send something home to my father.' He released a smoke-ring.
'There is a balance in all things. A German knows how to skin a flint, as the Russian proverb says,' said Shinshin, switching his pipe to the other side of his mouth and winking at the count.
The count roared with laughter. Other guests, seeing that Shinshin was in charge of the conversation, came over to listen. Oblivious to any ridicule or indifference, Berg rambled on about his transfer to the guards and how he was now one step ahead of his old army colleagues, how easily a company commander could get killed in wartime, and he would be next in line and might easily become a commander, and how popular he was with everyone in the regiment, and how pleased his father was with him . . . Berg was revelling in all of this, and it never seemed to occur to him that other people might have their own interests too. But everything he said was so pleasant, he was so old beyond his years and his youthful egoism seemed so open and ingenuous that his listeners were all disarmed.
'Well, my dear chap, infantry or cavalry, you'll always get on. That's my prediction,' said Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder, and taking his feet down from the pouffe. Berg beamed wi
th pleasure. The count and all his guests then trooped out into the drawing-room.
It was that time just before a formal dinner when the assembled guests do not get involved in lengthy conversations, because they are expecting a summons to hors d'oeuvres in the dining-room, while at the same time they feel they ought to keep moving about and saying something, to show that they are not over-anxious to get to the table. Host and hostess keep glancing at the doors and occasionally at one another. The visitors try to guess from these glances who or what may be holding things up - some important relative late in arriving, or some dish not yet ready?
Pierre had arrived just in time for dinner, and was sprawling awkwardly in mid-drawing-room in the first chair he had come across, thus blocking everyone's way. The countess tried to get him talking, but he stared round naively through his spectacles as though he were looking for someone, and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was an embarrassment, and only he was unaware of it. Most of the guests, knowing the bear story, looked curiously at this great big, stout, inoffensive person, at a loss to think how such a bumbling, unassuming young man could ever have played such a prank on a policeman.
'When did you arrive, just recently?' the countess asked him.
'Yes, madame.'
'I don't suppose you've seen my husband.'
'No, madame.' He smiled - just the wrong thing to do.
'I believe you were in Paris until recently? Very interesting, I imagine.'
'Yes.'
The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna, who saw that she was being asked to take the young man under her wing, so she sat down next to him and began talking about his father. Again he responded in monosyllables. The other guests were busy chatting amongst themselves. 'The Razumovskys . . . It was so charming . . . You're too kind . . . Countess Apraksin . . .' - the conversation came from all sides. The countess got up and went into the reception hall. 'Marya Dmitriyevna?' she could be heard asking from there.
'The very same,' a rough woman's voice was heard to reply, and Marya Dmitriyevna walked into the room. All the girls and even the ladies, except the very old ones, got to their feet. Marya Dmitriyevna paused in the doorway and drew herself up to her full height. A plump woman of fifty or so, she held her head high with all its grey curls, contemplated the guests and then carefully arranged the wide sleeves of her gown as though rolling them up for action. Marya Dmitriyevna always used Russian.
'Greetings to the name-day lady and her children,' she boomed in her deep voice that drowned all other sounds. 'Now, you old sinner,' she went on, turning to the count who was kissing her hand, 'I imagine you're tired of Moscow - nowhere to run the dogs? Well, sir, there's not much you can do. These fledglings will soon be grown up . . .' She pointed to the girls. 'Like it or not, you'll have to find husbands for them.'
'Now, my little Cossack,29 what about you?' she said - Marya Dmitryevna always called Natasha a Cossack - stroking Natasha's arm, as the girl came forward to kiss her hand cheerfully and without a trace of shyness. 'I know you're a little pest, but I like you all the same.'
From her huge reticule she extracted some teardrop amber earrings and gave them to Natasha, who grinned at her, flushed with pleasure on the day of her party. Then she turned away abruptly and directed her attention to Pierre.
'Hey you, my friend! Come over here!' she said, lowering and refining her voice with some affectation. 'Come over here, sir!' And, ominously, she rolled her sleeves up even higher.
Pierre approached, looking at her ingenuously over his spectacles.
'Come a bit nearer, sir! I was the only one who told your father the truth when he was in high favour, and it's my Christian duty to do the same for you.' She paused. An expectant hush fell on the room: what would happen next? Surely this was only a prelude. 'A fine young man, and no mistake. A truly fine young man! . . . His father's on his deathbed, and he's off enjoying himself, getting a policeman to ride on a bear! Shame on you, sir, real shame! You should have gone to the war.'
She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly contain his laughter.
'Well, shall we sit down? I think dinner must be ready,' said Marya Dmitriyevna. The count led the way with her, followed by the countess alongside a colonel of the hussars, a man worth cultivating, since Nikolay was due to travel with him to join his regiment; then came Anna Mikhaylovna with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera, and a smiling Julie Karagin walked in with Nikolay. After them came a string of other couples, stretching all round the hall, and right at the end the children were tagged on with their tutors and governesses, trooping in one by one. The waiters stirred themselves, chairs scraped, the band struck up in the gallery and the guests took their places. The music provided by the household band soon gave way to the clatter of knives and forks, the buzz of conversation, and the gentle tread of waiters. The countess presided over the lady guests at one end of the table, with Marya Dmitryevna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on her left. At the other end sat the count and all the male guests, with the colonel of hussars on his left and Shinshin on his right. Midway down the huge table sat the grown-up youngsters, Vera beside Berg, Pierre beside Boris. Opposite them were the younger children with their tutors and governesses. The count peeped over the glittering glassware, the decanters and fruit-dishes, looking at his wife with her tall cap and its blue ribbons, and generously poured out wine for his neighbours, not forgetting himself. The countess, too, while attending properly to her duties as hostess, cast meaningful glances over the pineapples at her spouse, whose face and bald head, she noticed, stood out with a brighter than normal redness against his grey hair. A steady babble of chatter flowed from the ladies' end, but at the other end of the table the men's voices grew louder and louder, especially that of the colonel of hussars as he reddened so much with all his eating and drinking that the count held him up as an example to the others. Berg was telling Vera with a tender smile that love was not an earthly emotion but a heavenly one. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre the names of the guests at table, all the time exchanging glances with Natasha sitting opposite. Saying very little, Pierre looked round at all the new faces and ate a great deal. Faced with the choice of two soups he went for the turtle, and then straight on to the fish-pasties and the game, without missing a single dish, or any of the wines offered by the butler, who would solemnly thrust a bottle wrapped in a napkin over his neighbour's shoulder, murmuring, 'Dry Madeira', 'Hungarian', or 'Rhine wine'. Pierre would simply lift up a goblet chosen at random from the four crystal glasses engraved with the count's monogram that were set at each place, and he drank with great pleasure, surveying the guests with mounting benevolence. Natasha, sitting opposite, gazed at Boris as girls of thirteen gaze at a boy they have just kissed for the first time, and with whom they are in love. Sometimes this same gaze found its way to Pierre, and the look on that excited little girl's amused face made him feel like laughing too, though he couldn't have said why.
Nikolay was sitting well away from Sonya, next to Julie Karagin, and he was talking to her with the same spontaneous smile. Sonya too wore a facade of a smile, but she was visibly tormented with jealousy, her face alternating between deathly pallor and bright crimson as she strained every nerve to catch what Nikolay and Julie were saying to each other. The governess kept looking round uneasily, as though preparing to defend the children against any possible offence. The German tutor was trying to memorize all the various courses, desserts, and wines, in order to write a detailed description of them to his people back home in Germany, and he was most annoyed when the butler with the bottle in the napkin missed him out. The German scowled, making out that he hadn't wanted that particular wine, but what really annoyed him was the general failure to understand that he had wanted the wine not because he was thirsty or greedy, but out of blameless curiosity.
CHAPTER 16
At the men's end of the table the conversation was becoming more and more animated. The colonel told them that war had bee
n declared through a manifesto issued in Petersburg and that he had seen with his own eyes a copy sent by courier to the commander-in-chief.
'But why the devil should we fight Bonaparte?' said Shinshin. 'He's already brought Austria down a peg or two. I'm afraid it could be our turn next.'
The colonel was a stout, tall and florid-faced German, evidently a keen officer and good Russian patriot. He resented Shinshin's words.
'Ze reason vy, my goot sir,' he said, in his German accent, 'eez just zat ze Emperor knows zis too. In ze proclamation he says zat he cannot stend beck and vatch ze danger treatening Russia, and zat ze security of ze empire, its dignity, and ze sacredness of its alliances . . .' He emphasized the word 'alliances', as if this was what really mattered. And with his typically impeccable memory for bureaucratic detail, he was able to quote verbatim from the Introduction to the proclamation:
'. . . and the desire, constituting the sole and immutable aim of the Sovereign, to establish peace in Europe on a firm foundation, has determined him this day to dispatch a section of the army abroad, and to renew every effort towards the achievement of that purpose.'
'Zis is ze reason vy, my dear sir.' He finished his little homily by tossing off a glass of wine and looking to the count for encouragement.
'Do you know the saying, "Stay, Jerome, do not roam, there is work to do at home"?' said Shinshin, smiling through his frown. 'That suits us down to the ground. Look at Suvorov,30 even he was chopped into little pieces, and where will you find any Suvorovs today? I ask you,' he said, going in and out of Russian and French as he spoke.
'Ve must fight to ze last trop of our ploot,' said the colonel, thumping the table, 'and die for our Emperor, and zen all vill be vell. And sink about sings as leedle as possible,' he concluded, turning again to the count, and drawing out the word 'po-ossible'. 'Zat ees how ve old zoldiers see it, and zat ees all zere ees to see. You are a younk man and a younk zoldier - how do you see it?' he added, addressing Nikolay, who had abandoned his conversation with Julie once the subject of war had cropped up, and was now all eyes and all ears on the colonel.