by Leo Tolstoy
'What could anybody say or think that would bring any consolation?' said Pierre. 'Nothing. Why did he have to die, a fine young boy like him, so full of life?'
'Yes. It would be hard to live without faith nowadays . . .' said Princess Marya.
'You're quite right. Only too true,' Pierre put in hurriedly.
'Why is that true?' Natasha asked, looking closely into Pierre's eyes.
'Why is it true?' said Princess Marya. 'Well, you only have to think about what is in store for us . . .'
Natasha wasn't listening to Princess Marya; she gave Pierre another quizzical look.
'And also because,' Pierre went on, 'only someone who believes there is a God guiding our lives could stand a loss like hers, and . . . yours,' said Pierre.
Natasha opened her mouth as if to speak, but she stopped short.
Pierre turned away hurriedly and asked Princess Marya about the last days of his friend's life. By now Pierre's embarrassment had almost disappeared, but he felt that all his former freedom had disappeared with it. He felt that now there was a judge listening to his every word and every action, someone whose judgement mattered more than the judgement of everybody else in the world. Here he was talking, and with every word he spoke he was conscious of the impression he was making on Natasha. He didn't go out of his way to say things that might please her, but whatever he said, he was judging himself from her point of view.
With the reluctance that is normal in a situation like this Princess Marya started telling Pierre about the state she had found her brother in. But Pierre's questions, his excitement, his eager eyes and his face trembling with emotion gradually induced her to go into details that, for her own sake, she had so far been scared to bring back to mind.
'Yes, yes. I can see that . . .' said Pierre, leaning well forward over Princess Marya, and drinking in her every word. 'Yes, yes. So he did find peace? He did soften? He always strove with all his soul for one thing - to be a good man so he wouldn't have to be afraid of dying. His faults - if he had any - came from outside himself. Anyway, he did soften, didn't he?' he said.
'It was a great joy that he met up with you again,' he said to Natasha, turning suddenly towards her, and looking into her brimming eyes.
Natasha's face quivered. She frowned, and looked down for a moment. There was a second's hesitation: should she speak or not?
'Yes, it was,' she said in a low, deep voice. 'It really was a great joy for me.' She paused. 'And he . . . he . . . he told me he was longing for me to come to him the moment I went in . . .' Natasha's voice broke. She flushed, clasped her hands tightly on her knees and then suddenly, controlling herself with an obvious effort, she looked up and started speaking very quickly.
'We knew nothing about it when we were leaving Moscow. I didn't dare ask about him. And suddenly Sonya told me he was with us. I couldn't think. I had no idea what state he was in. I just had to see him and be with him,' she said, all breathless and trembling. And brooking no interruption she went through the story she had never told before, every detail of what she had suffered in the three weeks of their journey and the time spent in Yaroslavl.
Pierre listened to her open-mouthed, and his brimming eyes never left her. As he listened, he wasn't thinking about Prince Andrey, or death, or what she was saying. He was just listening to her voice and feeling sorry for what she was going through as she told her story.
The princess sat by Natasha's side frowning in an effort to hold back her tears. This was the first time she had heard the story of her brother's last days and the love between him and Natasha.
To speak of that agonizing and joyous time was obviously something Natasha urgently needed to do.
On she went, mixing up trivial details with the innermost secrets of her heart, and it seemed as if she would never finish. Several times she said the same thing twice.
Dessalles' voice was heard at the door asking whether little Nikolay might come in to say goodnight.
'And that's it. That's all there is . . .' said Natasha. She got quickly to her feet just as little Nikolay came in, almost ran across to the door, bumped her head against it where it was hidden by the curtain, and with a cry of pain mixed with grief she rushed out of the room.
Pierre stared at the door she had gone out through and wondered why suddenly he felt alone in the big wide world.
Princess Marya roused him from his thoughts by drawing his attention to her nephew, who had just come in.
Little Nikolay's face - so like his father's - made such an impact on Pierre at this moment of emotional strain that when he had kissed the little boy he got to his feet, took out his handkerchief and walked over to the window. He wanted to take leave of Princess Marya, but she wouldn't let him go.
'No, Natasha and I often stay up till after two o'clock. Please stay a little longer. We'll have some supper. Go downstairs. We'll be down in a minute.'
Before Pierre went down, the princess said to him, 'It's the first time she's talked about him like this.'
CHAPTER 17
Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining-room. After a few minutes he heard footsteps and the princess and Natasha came into the room. Natasha was calm, though the rather grim and unsmiling expression was back on her face. Princess Marya, Natasha and Pierre were all experiencing the feeling of awkwardness that usually follows when people have just finished a serious and intimate conversation. There is no going back to the earlier subject, but light-hearted chitchat seems wrong, and saying nothing is unacceptable because the urge to talk is still there, and silence would seem like an affectation. They were silent as they came to the table. The footmen drew the chairs back and pushed them in again. Pierre unfolded his cold dinner napkin. Determined to break the silence, he glanced across at Natasha and at Princess Marya. The two of them had clearly come to the same decision at the same time; their eyes shone, they seemed glad to be alive and ready to acknowledge life's happiness along with its sorrow.
'Do you drink vodka, Count?' said Princess Marya, and at those words the shadows of the past were immediately dispelled.
'Tell us how you've been getting on,' said Princess Marya. 'We've heard the most fantastic stories about you.'
'Oh yes,' answered Pierre, with the gentle smile of irony that was now second nature to him. 'I keep hearing fantastic things too - things I would never have dreamt of myself. Marya Abramovna invited me over and spent the whole time telling me what had happened to me, or was supposed to have happened. Stepan Stepanovich gave me some lessons in telling my story. I've come to the conclusion it's an easy life being an interesting person. (I am now an interesting person.) People invite me over, and they do the talking.'
Natasha smiled and was about to speak.
'We did hear,' said Princess Marya, cutting in, 'that you had lost two million in Moscow. Is that right?'
'Oh, I'm three times as rich as I was,' said Pierre. Despite the change in his affairs brought about by his wife's debts and the need to rebuild, Pierre still went about claiming that his wealth had trebled.
'The one thing I did get,' he said, 'is freedom . . .' He was off on a serious subject, but then he thought better of it and stopped, feeling he was becoming too self-centred.
'And are you going to rebuild?'
'Yes. So Savelich tells me.'
'I gather you didn't hear of the countess's death while you stayed on in Moscow?' said Princess Marya, immediately flushing crimson as she realized that by asking this question just after he had talked about getting his freedom she was putting a construction on his words that was possibly not intended.
'No,' answered Pierre, evidently unembarrassed by Princess Marya's interpretation of his reference to gaining his freedom. 'I heard about it in Oryol, and you can't imagine how shocked I was. We were hardly the ideal couple,' he said quickly, glancing at Natasha; he could see from her face that she was wondering what he would have to say about his wife. 'But I was terribly shocked by her death. When two people fall out, the blame is al
ways on both sides. And your own guilt becomes unbearable when it has to do with someone who is no longer with us. And when all's said and done, to die like that . . . away from your friends and without consolation. I felt very, very sorry for her,' he concluded, pleased to see a look of glad approval on Natasha's face.
'So you are back on the marriage market,' said Princess Marya.
Pierre blushed to the roots of his hair, and for a long time he tried not to look at Natasha. When he did venture to glance across her face looked cold and severe - even, he fancied, disdainful.
'But did you really see Napoleon and talk to him?' asked Princess Marya. 'That's what everybody says.'
Pierre laughed.
'No, I never did. Everybody thinks that being taken prisoner is like staying with Napoleon. I never saw him. I never heard anything about him. I was in much lower company.'
Supper was nearly over, and Pierre, who had begun by refusing to talk about his time in captivity, found himself gradually drawn into telling them all about it.
'But you did stay on to kill Napoleon, didn't you?' Natasha asked him with a slight smile. 'That was my guess when we met you by the Sukharev tower. Do you remember?'
Pierre admitted it was true, and from that question he was led on by Princess Marya's questions, and still more by Natasha's, to go into a detailed account of his adventures.
He began by telling his story with that tone of gentle irony that he always adopted nowadays towards other people and especially towards himself, but as he got on to all the horrors and suffering he had seen he got carried away without realizing it and began to speak with the controlled emotion of a man reliving powerful impressions of the past in his imagination.
Princess Marya kept looking from Pierre to Natasha and back with a gentle smile. In everything he said she could see only Pierre and his goodness. Natasha, her head propped up on one hand, and her face changing constantly as the story progressed, never took her eyes off Pierre as she relived all his stories with him. Pierre could tell from her eyes and also from the exclamations and the brief questions coming from her that she was capturing the full meaning of all that he was saying. She was clearly understanding not only what he said, but also what he wanted to convey without being able to express it in words.
When he got to the episode of the child and of the woman he was arrested for defending Pierre described it like this: 'It was a terrible sight, children abandoned, some trapped in the fire . . . One child was dragged out right in front of me . . . and women were having things wrenched off their bodies, ear-rings torn off . . .'
Pierre flushed and hesitated. 'Then this patrol came up and they just took everybody who wasn't looting - all the men, that is - including me.'
'I'm sure there's something here you're not telling us. You must have done something . . .' said Natasha, and after a moment's pause, '. . . something good.'
Pierre went on with his story. When he got to the execution he was going to spare them the horrible details, but Natasha wouldn't let him leave anything out.
Pierre was on the point of telling them about Karatayev; he had risen from the table and was walking up and down, Natasha following his every step with her eyes.
'No,' he said, stopping short in his story, 'you can't possibly understand what I got from that illiterate man - that simple creature.'
'No, go on, tell us,' said Natasha. 'Where is he now?'
'They killed him almost in front of me.'
And Pierre began to describe the last days of their retreat, Karatayev's illness (his voice shook continually) and his death.
Pierre was describing his adventures as he had never done before, as he had never actually recalled them before. It was as if he could now see a new significance in everything he had been through. Now as he unburdened himself to Natasha he was experiencing that rare happiness provided for men by listening women - not clever women, who when they listen are either trying to memorize what they are hearing so as to broaden their minds and acquire things worth repeating, or to adapt the story to their own experience and come out with quick, clever comments nicely polished in their own little mental workshop - no, this happiness was of the kind that is provided only by real women, those with a talent for selecting and absorbing all the best things a man can show of himself. Without knowing it, Natasha was transfixed; she didn't miss a single word, a catch in the voice, a glance, a single twitch of the facial muscles, any of Pierre's gestures. She seized upon the word before it was out and took it straight to her open heart, divining the secret meanings of all Pierre's spiritual travail.
Princess Marya listened with understanding and sympathy, but she was now seeing something new that captured all her attention. She saw the possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre. And as this idea struck her now for the first time her heart was filled with gladness.
It was three o'clock in the morning. Doleful footmen wandered in and out stiffly, replacing the candles, but nobody noticed them.
Pierre got to the end of his story. Natasha was still gazing at him closely and persistently with an excited gleam in her eyes, as if she was trying to get at something extra, something perhaps left unsaid. In sheepish but happy embarrassment, Pierre glanced at her now and then, wondering what he could say to change the subject. Princess Marya said nothing. It didn't occur to any of them that it was three in the morning, and time to go to bed.
'Everybody says that adversity means suffering,' said Pierre. 'But if you asked me now, at this moment, whether I wanted to stay as I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, my God, I'd sooner be a prisoner and eat horse-meat again. We all think we only have to be knocked a little bit off course and we've lost everything, but it's only the start of something new and good. Where there is life, there is happiness. There is a huge amount yet to come. I'm saying that for your benefit,' he said, turning to Natasha.
'Yes, you're right,' she said, responding to a different idea. 'Me too. I wouldn't want to do anything but go through it all again from start to finish.'
Pierre watched her closely.
'That, and nothing more,' Natasha declared.
'No, that's not right,' cried Pierre. 'It's not my fault I'm still alive and I want to live, and the same applies to you.'
All at once Natasha let her head drop into her hands and burst into tears.
'What's wrong, Natasha?' said Princess Marya.
'Nothing, nothing.' She smiled at Pierre through her tears. 'Goodnight. It's bedtime.'
Pierre got up and took his leave.
As always, Natasha went with Princess Marya into her bedroom. They talked about what Pierre had told them. Princess Marya didn't say what she thought about Pierre, and Natasha didn't talk about him either.
'Well, goodnight, Marie,' said Natasha. 'Do you know what? I'm afraid we often avoid talking about him,' (Prince Andrey) 'as if we were scared of causing offence, so we forget him.'
Princess Marya gave a deep sigh, thus acknowledging the truth of what Natasha had said, but she didn't put her agreement into words.
'How could we forget?' she said.
'I felt so good telling him all about it today. It was painful and difficult, but it felt right . . . It really did,' said Natasha; 'I'm sure he really loved him. That's why I told him . . . It didn't matter, did it?' she asked suddenly, blushing.
'What, talking to Pierre? Oh, no! He's such a good man, isn't he?' said Princess Marya.
'Marie, do you know something?' said Natasha suddenly, with a mischievous smile on her face, the like of which Princess Marya hadn't seen for a very long time. 'He's different, sort of clean and smooth and fresh. It's as if he's just come out of the bath-house. Do you know what I mean? A moral bath-house. Am I right?'
'Yes, you are,' said Princess Marya. 'He's gained a lot.'
'That short jacket of his, and his short hair . . . It's as if he'd just come out of a bath-house . . . Sometimes Papa used to . . .'
'I can see why he' (Prince Andrey) 'l
oved him more than anybody else,' said Princess Marya.
'Yes, and he's so different from him. They do say men make better friends when they are quite different from each other. It must be true. He's not a bit like him, is he?'
'No, but he's a wonderful man.'
'Oh well, goodnight,' answered Natasha.
And the same smile of mischief lingered on her face as if it had been half-forgotten.
CHAPTER 18
It was a long time before Pierre could get to sleep that night. He paced his room, scowling as he plunged into a difficult train of thought, or shrugging his shoulders and wincing, or sometimes beaming blissfully.
He was thinking about Prince Andrey, Natasha and the love between them. At one moment he felt jealous of her past, the next moment he took himself to task, and then he forgave himself for feeling like that. It was six in the morning, and he was still pacing.
'What shall I do, then? What if it has to be? What else can I do? That's it - I've got to do it,' he said to himself. Then he undressed very quickly and got into bed, happy and all worked up, but free from doubt and hesitation.
'It might seem strange and impossible, happiness like that, but I've got to do all I can to make us man and wife,' he said to himself.
Several days before Pierre had settled on the following Friday as the day he would leave for Petersburg. When he woke it was Thursday morning, and Savelich came in for instructions about packing for the journey.
'Petersburg? Who's going to Petersburg? Who's in Petersburg?' was his instinctive reaction, though he kept it to himself. 'Oh, yes, ages ago, before all this happened, I did plan to go to Petersburg for some reason or other,' he recalled. 'What could it have been? Maybe I'll still go . . . Isn't he a good man, looking after me like this? He never forgets a thing,' he thought, looking at Savelich's old face. 'What a lovely smile!' he thought.
'So, you still don't want your freedom, Savelich?' asked Pierre.
'What would I want with freedom, your Excellency? I got on well with the old count - God rest his soul - and with you, sir, there hasn't been nothing unpleasant.'
'Yes, but what about your children?'