In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had
to go on a tour of inspection in four different provinces.
He had arranged this for himself so as to visit his
neglected estates at the same time and pick up his
son Anatole where his regiment was stationed, and
take him to visit Prince Nicholas Bolkonski in order
to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that
rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking
these new affairs, Prince Vasili had to settle matters
with Pierre, who, it is true, had latterly spent whole
days at home, that is, in Prince Vasili’s house
where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited,
and foolish in Helene’s presence (as a lover
should be), but had not yet proposed to her.
“This is all very fine, but
things must be settled,” said Prince Vasili
to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling
that Pierre who was under such obligations to him
("But never mind that”) was not behaving very
well in this matter. “Youth, frivolity...
well, God be with him,” thought he, relishing
his own goodness of heart, “but it must be brought
to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya’s
name day. I will invite two or three people,
and if he does not understand what he ought to do
then it will be my affair yes, my affair.
I am her father.”
Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna’s
“At Home” and after the sleepless night
when he had decided that to marry Helene would be a
calamity and that he ought to avoid her and go away,
Pierre, despite that decision, had not left Prince
Vasili’s and felt with terror that in people’s
eyes he was every day more and more connected with
her, that it was impossible for him to return to his
former conception of her, that he could not break
away from her, and that though it would be a terrible
thing he would have to unite his fate with hers.
He might perhaps have been able to free himself but
that Prince Vasili (who had rarely before given receptions)
now hardly let a day go by without having an evening
party at which Pierre had to be present unless he
wished to spoil the general pleasure and disappoint
everyone’s expectation. Prince Vasili, in
the rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre’s
hand in passing and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly
hold out his wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre
to kiss and would say: “Till tomorrow,”
or, “Be in to dinner or I shall not see you,”
or, “I am staying in for your sake,” and
so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed
in (as he said) for Pierre’s sake, hardly exchanged
a couple of words with him, Pierre felt unable to
disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one
and the same thing: “It is time I understood
her and made up my mind what she really is. Was
I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she
is not stupid, she is an excellent girl,” he
sometimes said to himself “she never makes a
mistake, never says anything stupid. She says
little, but what she does say is always clear and
simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed
and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!”
He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud
in her company, and she had always answered him either
by a brief but appropriate remark showing
that it did not interest her or by a silent
look and smile which more palpably than anything else
showed Pierre her superiority. She was right
in regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison
with that smile.
She always addressed him with a radiantly
confiding smile meant for him alone, in which there
was something more significant than in the general
smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre
knew that everyone was waiting for him to say a word
and cross a certain line, and he knew that sooner
or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible
terror seized him at the thought of that dreadful
step. A thousand times during that month and
a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer
to that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself:
“What am I doing? I need resolution.
Can it be that I have none?”
He wished to take a decision, but
felt with dismay that in this matter he lacked that
strength of will which he had known in himself and
really possessed. Pierre was one of those who
are only strong when they feel themselves quite innocent,
and since that day when he was overpowered by a feeling
of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna
Pavlovna’s, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt
of that desire paralyzed his will.
On Helene’s name day, a small
party of just their own people as his wife
said met for supper at Prince Vasili’s.
All these friends and relations had been given to
understand that the fate of the young girl would be
decided that evening. The visitors were seated
at supper. Princess Kuragina, a portly imposing
woman who had once been handsome, was sitting at the
head of the table. On either side of her sat the
more important guests an old general and
his wife, and Anna Pavlovna Scherer. At the other
end sat the younger and less important guests, and
there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre
and Helene, side by side. Prince Vasili was not
having any supper: he went round the table in
a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another,
of the guests. To each of them he made some careless
and agreeable remark except to Pierre and Helene,
whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened
the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly,
the silver and crystal gleamed, so did the ladies’
toilets and the gold and silver of the men’s
epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round
the table, the clatter of plates, knives, and glasses
mingled with the animated hum of several conversations.
At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was heard
assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately,
at which she laughed; at the other could be heard
the story of the misfortunes of some Mary Viktorovna
or other. At the center of the table, Prince Vasili
attracted everybody’s attention. With a
facetious smile on his face, he was telling the ladies
about last Wednesday’s meeting of the Imperial
Council, at which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new
military governor general of Petersburg, had received
and read the then famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander
from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the Emperor
said that he was receiving from all sides declarations
of the people’s loyalty, that the declaration
from Petersburg gave him particular pleasure, and
that he was proud to be at the head of such a nation
and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript
began with the words: “Sergey Kuzmich,
From all sides reports reach me,” etc.
“Well, and so he never got farther
than: ’Sergey Kuzmich’?” asked
one of the ladies.
“Exactly, not a hair’s
breadth farther,” answered Prince Vasili, laughing,
“’Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides...
From all sides... Sergey Kuzmich...’
Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He
began the rescript again and again, but as soon as
he uttered ‘Sergey’ he sobbed, ‘Kuz-mi-ch,’
tears, and ‘From all sides’ was smothered
in sobs and he could get no farther. And again
his handkerchief, and again: ’Sergey Kuzmich,
From all sides,’... and tears, till at last somebody
else was asked to read it.”
“Kuzmich... From all sides...
and then tears,” someone repeated laughing.
“Don’t be unkind,”
cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of the table holding
up a threatening finger. “He is such a worthy
and excellent man, our dear Vyazmitinov....”
Everybody laughed a great deal.
At the head of the table, where the honored guests
sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under
the influence of a variety of exciting sensations.
Only Pierre and Helene sat silently side by side almost
at the bottom of the table, a suppressed smile brightening
both their faces, a smile that had nothing to do with
Sergey Kuzmich a smile of bashfulness at
their own feelings. But much as all the rest
laughed, talked, and joked, much as they enjoyed their
Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided
looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant
as they seemed of them, one could feel by the occasional
glances they gave that the story about Sergey Kuzmich,
the laughter, and the food were all a pretense, and
that the whole attention of that company was directed
to Pierre and Helene. Prince Vasili
mimicked the sobbing of Sergey Kuzmich and at the
same time his eyes glanced toward his daughter, and
while he laughed the expression on his face clearly
said: “Yes... it’s getting on, it
will all be settled today.” Anna Pavlovna
threatened him on behalf of “our dear Vyazmitinov,”
and in her eyes, which, for an instant, glanced at
Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation on his
future son-in-law and on his daughter’s happiness.
The old princess sighed sadly as she offered some
wine to the old lady next to her and glanced angrily
at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: “Yes,
there’s nothing left for you and me but to sip
sweet wine, my dear, now that the time has come for
these young ones to be thus boldly, provocatively
happy.” “And what nonsense all this
is that I am saying!” thought a diplomatist,
glancing at the happy faces of the lovers. “That’s
happiness!”
Into the insignificant, trifling,
and artificial interests uniting that society had
entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy
and handsome young man and woman for one another.
And this human feeling dominated everything else and
soared above all their affected chatter. Jests
fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation
was evidently forced. Not only the guests but
even the footmen waiting at table seemed to feel this,
and they forgot their duties as they looked at the
beautiful Helene with her radiant face and at the red,
broad, and happy though uneasy face of Pierre.
It seemed as if the very light of the candles was
focused on those two happy faces alone.
Pierre felt that he was the center
of it all, and this both pleased and embarrassed him.
He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation.
He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly.
Only now and then detached ideas and impressions from
the world of reality shot unexpectedly through his
mind.
“So it is all finished!”
he thought. “And how has it all happened?
How quickly! Now I know that not because of her
alone, nor of myself alone, but because of everyone,
it must inevitably come about. They are all expecting
it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot,
I cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be?
I do not know, but it will certainly happen!”
thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders
close to his eyes.
Or he would suddenly feel ashamed
of he knew not what. He felt it awkward to attract
everyone’s attention and to be considered a lucky
man and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a
sort of Paris possessed of a Helen. “But
no doubt it always is and must be so!” he consoled
himself. “And besides, what have I done
to bring it about? How did it begin? I traveled
from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then there was
nothing. So why should I not stay at his house?
Then I played cards with her and picked up her reticule
and drove out with her. How did it begin, when
did it all come about?” And here he was sitting
by her side as her betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling
her nearness, her breathing, her movements, her beauty.
Then it would suddenly seem to him that it was not
she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that
was why they all looked so at him, and flattered by
this general admiration he would expand his chest,
raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune.
Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something
to him a second time. But Pierre was so absorbed
that he did not understand what was said.
“I am asking you when you last
heard from Bolkonski,” repeated Prince Vasili
a third time. “How absent-minded you are,
my dear fellow.”
Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed
that everyone was smiling at him and Helene.
“Well, what of it, if you all know it?”
thought Pierre. “What of it? It’s
the truth!” and he himself smiled his gentle
childlike smile, and Helene smiled too.
“When did you get the letter?
Was it from Olmutz?” repeated Prince Vasili,
who pretended to want to know this in order to settle
a dispute.
“How can one talk or think of
such trifles?” thought Pierre.
“Yes, from Olmutz,” he answered, with
a sigh.
After supper Pierre with his partner
followed the others into the drawing room. The
guests began to disperse, some without taking leave
of Helene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her
from an important occupation, came up to her for a
moment and made haste to go away, refusing to let
her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a
mournful silence as he left the drawing room.
He pictured the vanity of his diplomatic career in
comparison with Pierre’s happiness. The
old general grumbled at his wife when she asked how
his leg was. “Oh, the old fool,”
he thought. “That Princess Helene will be
beautiful still when she’s fifty.”
“I think I may congratulate
you,” whispered Anna Pavlovna to the old princess,
kissing her soundly. “If I hadn’t
this headache I’d have stayed longer.”
The old princess did not reply, she
was tormented by jealousy of her daughter’s
happiness.
While the guests were taking their
leave Pierre remained for a long time alone with Helene
in the little drawing room where they were sitting.
He had often before, during the last six weeks, remained
alone with her, but had never spoken to her of love.
Now he felt that it was inevitable, but he could not
make up his mind to take the final step. He felt
ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else’s
place here beside Helene. “This happiness
is not for you,” some inner voice whispered to
him. “This happiness is for those who have
not in them what there is in you.”
But, as he had to say something, he
began by asking her whether she was satisfied with
the party. She replied in her usual simple manner
that this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest
she had ever had.
Some of the nearest relatives had
not yet left. They were sitting in the large
drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to Pierre
with languid footsteps. Pierre rose and said
it was getting late. Prince Vasili gave him a
look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just
said was so strange that one could not take it in.
But then the expression of severity changed, and he
drew Pierre’s hand downwards, made him sit down,
and smiled affectionately.
“Well, Lelya?” he asked,
turning instantly to his daughter and addressing her
with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural
to parents who have petted their children from babyhood,
but which Prince Vasili had only acquired by imitating
other parents.
And he again turned to Pierre.
“Sergey Kuzmich From
all sides-” he said, unbuttoning the top button
of his waistcoat.
Pierre smiled, but his smile showed
that he knew it was not the story about Sergey Kuzmich
that interested Prince Vasili just then, and Prince
Vasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly
muttered something and went away. It seemed to
Pierre that even the prince was disconcerted.
The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the
world touched Pierre: he looked at Helene and
she too seemed disconcerted, and her look seemed to
say: “Well, it is your own fault.”
“The step must be taken but
I cannot, I cannot!” thought Pierre, and he
again began speaking about indifferent matters, about
Sergey Kuzmich, asking what the point of the story
was as he had not heard it properly. Helene answered
with a smile that she too had missed it.
When Prince Vasili returned to the
drawing room, the princess, his wife, was talking
in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.
“Of course, it is a very brilliant
match, but happiness, my dear...”
“Marriages are made in heaven,” replied
the elderly lady.
Prince Vasili passed by, seeming not
to hear the ladies, and sat down on a sofa in a far
corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed
to be dozing. His head sank forward and then
he roused himself.
“Aline,” he said to his
wife, “go and see what they are about.”
The princess went up to the door,
passed by it with a dignified and indifferent air,
and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre
and Helene still sat talking just as before.
“Still the same,” she said to her husband.
Prince Vasili frowned, twisting his
mouth, his cheeks quivered and his face assumed the
coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him.
Shaking himself, he rose, threw back his head, and
with resolute steps went past the ladies into the
little drawing room. With quick steps he went
joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually
triumphant that Pierre rose in alarm on seeing it.
“Thank God!” said Prince
Vasili. “My wife has told me everything!”
(He put one arm around Pierre and the other around
his daughter.) “My dear boy...
Lelya... I am very pleased.” (His voice
trembled.) “I loved your father... and she will
make you a good wife... God bless you!...”
He embraced his daughter, and then
again Pierre, and kissed him with his malodorous mouth.
Tears actually moistened his cheeks.
“Princess, come here!” he shouted.
The old princess came in and also
wept. The elderly lady was using her handkerchief
too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful
Helene’s hand several times. After a while
they were left alone again.
“All this had to be and could
not be otherwise,” thought Pierre, “so
it is useless to ask whether it is good or bad.
It is good because it’s definite and one is
rid of the old tormenting doubt.” Pierre
held the hand of his betrothed in silence, looking
at her beautiful bosom as it rose and fell.
“Helene!” he said aloud and paused.
“Something special is always
said in such cases,” he thought, but could not
remember what it was that people say. He looked
at her face. She drew nearer to him. Her
face flushed.
“Oh, take those off... those...”
she said, pointing to his spectacles.
Pierre took them off, and his eyes,
besides the strange look eyes have from which spectacles
have just been removed, had also a frightened and
inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her
hand and kiss it, but with a rapid, almost brutal
movement of her head, she intercepted his lips and
met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre,
by its altered, unpleasantly excited expression.
“It is too late now, it’s
done; besides I love her,” thought Pierre.
“Je vous aime!”
he said, remembering what has to be said at such
moments: but his words sounded so weak that he
felt ashamed of himself.
“I love you.”
Six weeks later he was married, and
settled in Count Bezukhov’s large, newly furnished
Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people said,
of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions
of money.