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War and Peace
BOOK ONE: 1805
CHAPTER I
"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the
Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war,
if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by
that Antichrist--I really believe he is Antichrist--I will have
nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer
my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I
have frightened you--sit down and tell me all the news."
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna
Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna.
With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank
and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna
Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said,
suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St.
Petersburg, used only by the elite.
All her invitations without exception, written in French, and
delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
"If you have nothing better to do, Count [or Prince], and if the
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too
terrible, I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10-
Annette Scherer."
"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the
least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an
embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on
his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that
refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought,
and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of
importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to
Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented,
and shining head, and complacently seated himself on the sofa.
"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's
mind at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the
politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony
could be discerned.
"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times
like these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are
staying the whole evening, I hope?"
"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must
put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming
for me to take me there."
"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these
festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."
"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have
been put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force
of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.
"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's
dispatch? You know everything."
"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless
tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has
burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."
Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale
part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years,
overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had
become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel
like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the
expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it
did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips
expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her
charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered
it necessary, to correct.
In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna
burst out:
"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things,
but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is
betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign
recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one
thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform
the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God
will not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra
of revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person
of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the
just one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her
commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor
Alexander's loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She
wanted to find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions.
What answer did Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood
and cannot understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants
nothing for himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what
have they promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they
will not perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is
invincible, and that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I
don't believe a word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This
famous Prussian neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God
and the lofty destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"
She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.
"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent
instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of
Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a
cup of tea?"
"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am
expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart,
who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the
best French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones.
And also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has
been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"
"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me,"
he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to
him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of
his visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to
be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a
poor creature."
Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were
trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for
the baron.
Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor
anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was
pleased with.
"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her
sister," was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.
As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an
expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with
sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious
patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke
beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.
The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly
and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna
wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of a man
recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so
she said:
"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out
everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly
beautiful."
The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.
"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to
the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and
social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate
conversation--"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life
are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I
don't speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in
a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such
charming children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone,
and so you don't deserve to have them."
And she smiled her ecstatic smile.
"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack
the bump of paternity."
"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am
dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face
assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's
and you were pitied...."
The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,
awaiting a reply. He frowned.
"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a
father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.
Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That
is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way
more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his
mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and
unpleasant.
"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna
Pavlovna, looking up pensively.
"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That
is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"
He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.
"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she
asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I
don't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who
is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess
Mary Bolkonskaya."
Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and
perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of
the head that he was considering this information.
"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad
current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand
rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in
five years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what
we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"
"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is
the well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under
the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very
clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She
has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He
is an aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight."
"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pavlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-
slafe wigh an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She
is rich and of good family and that's all I want."
And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the
maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro
as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young
Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be
arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my
apprenticeship as old maid."