‘Consider my position, Peter Nikolaevich. Were I in the
cavalry I should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the rank of lieutenant; but as
it is I receive two hundred and thirty,’ said he, looking at
Shinshin and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as if
it were obvious to him that his success must always be the
chief desire of everyone else.
‘Besides that, Peter Nikolaevich, by exchanging into the
Guards I shall be in a more prominent position,’ continued Berg, ‘and vacancies occur much more frequently in
the Foot Guards. Then just think what can be done with
two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a little
aside and to send something to my father,’ he went on, emitting a smoke ring.
‘La balance y est…* A German knows how to skin a flint,
as the proverb says,’ remarked Shinshin, moving his pipe to
the other side of his mouth and winking at the count.
*So that squares matters.
The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing
that Shinshin was talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference, continued to explain how by
105
exchanging into the Guards he had already gained a step on
his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime the
company commander might get killed and he, as senior in
the company, might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in the regiment, and how satisfied
his father was with him. Berg evidently enjoyed narrating
all this, and did not seem to suspect that others, too, might
have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily sedate, and the naivete of his youthful egotism was so obvious,
that he disarmed his hearers.
‘Well, my boy, you’ll get along wherever you gofoot or
horsethat I’ll warrant,’ said Shinshin, patting him on the
shoulder and taking his feet off the sofa.
Berg smiled joyously. The count, by his guests, went into
the drawing room.
It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests, expecting the summons to zakuska,* avoid
engaging in any long conversation but think it necessary to
move about and talk, in order to show that they are not at all
impatient for their food. The host and hostess look toward
the door, and now and then glance at one another, and the
visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they
are waiting forsome important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish that is not yet ready.
*Hors d’oeuvres.
Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting
awkwardly in the middle of the drawing room on the first
chair he had come across, blocking the way for everyone.
The countess tried to make him talk, but he went on na106
War and Peace
ively looking around through his spectacles as if in search
of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was in the way and was the only one who did not
notice the fact. Most of the guests, knowing of the affair
with the bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout, quiet
man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow could
have played such a prank on a policeman.
‘You have only lately arrived?’ the countess asked him.
‘Oui, madame,’ replied he, looking around him.
‘You have not yet seen my husband?’
‘Non, madame.’ He smiled quite inappropriately.
‘You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it’s
very interesting.’
‘Very interesting.’
The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna. The latter understood that she was being asked to
entertain this young man, and sitting down beside him she
began to speak about his father; but he answered her, as he
had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other guests
were all conversing with one another. ‘The Razumovskis…
It was charming… You are very kind… Countess Apraksina…’ was heard on all sides. The countess rose and went into
the ballroom.
‘Marya Dmitrievna?’ came her voice from there.
‘Herself,’ came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya
Dmitrievna entered the room.
All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very oldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna paused at the
door. Tall and stout, holding high her fifty-year-old head
107
with its gray curls, she stood surveying the guests, and
leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if rolling them up.
Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian.
‘Health and happiness to her whose name day we are
keeping and to her children,’ she said, in her loud, full-toned
voice which drowned all others. ‘Well, you old sinner,’ she
went on, turning to the count who was kissing her hand,
‘you’re feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay? Nowhere to hunt
with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just see
how these nestlings are growing up,’ and she pointed to the
girls. ‘You must look for husbands for them whether you
like it or not…’
Well,’ said she, ‘how’s my Cossack?’ (Marya Dmitrievna always called Natasha a Cossack) and she stroked the
child’s arm as she came up fearless and gay to kiss her hand.
‘I know she’s a scamp of a girl, but I like her.’
She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her
huge reticule and, having given them to the rosy Natasha,
who beamed with the pleasure of her saint’s-day fete, turned
away at once and addressed herself to Pierre.
‘Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit,’ said she, assuming a soft
high tone of voice. ‘Come here, my friend…’ and she ominously tucked up her sleeves still higher. Pierre approached,
looking at her in a childlike way through his spectacles.
‘Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only
one to tell your father the truth when he was in favor, and in
your case it’s my evident duty.’ She paused. All were silent,
expectant of what was to follow, for this was dearly only a
prelude.
108
War and Peace
‘A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!… His father lies on his
deathbed and he amuses himself setting a policeman astride
a bear! For shame, sir, for shame! It would be better if you
went to the war.’
She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who
could hardly keep from laughing.
‘Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?’ said Marya
Dmitrievna.
The count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, the
countess followed on the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of
importance to them because Nicholas was to go with him to
the regiment; then came Anna Mikhaylovna with Shinshin.
Berg gave his arm to Vera. The smiling Julie Karagina went
in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling
the whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors,
and governesses followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the band struck up in the gallery,
and the guests settled down in their places. Then the strains
of the count’s household band were replaced by the clatter
of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft steps
of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with
Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on
her left, the other lady visitors were farther down. At the
other end sat the count, with the hussar colonel on his left
and Shinshin and the other male visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the grownup young
people: Vera beside Berg, and Pierre beside Boris; and on
the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From
behind the crystal decanters and fruit vases the count kept
109
glancing at his wife and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled his neighbors’ glasses, not neglecting
his own. The countess in turn, without omitting her duties
as hostess, threw significant glances from behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed by
their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair.
At the ladies’ end an even chatter of voices was heard all the
time, at the men’s end the voices sounded louder and louder,
especially that of the colonel of hussars who, growing more
and more flushed, ate and drank so much that the count
held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg with tender smiles was saying to Vera that love is not an earthly but
a heavenly feeling. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre
who the guests were and exchanging glances with Natasha,
who was sitting opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined
the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of the two soups he
chose turtle with savory patties and went on to the game
without omitting a single dish or one of the wines. These
latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in
a napkin, from behind the next man’s shoulders and whispered: ‘Dry Madeira”… ‘Hungarian”… or ‘Rhine wine’ as the
case might be. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the
count’s monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre held
out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing with
ever-increasing amiability at the other guests. Natasha, who
sat opposite, was looking at Boris as girls of thirteen look
at the boy they are in love with and have just kissed for the
first time. Sometimes that same look fell on Pierre, and that
funny lively little girl’s look made him inclined to laugh
110
War and Peace
without knowing why.
Nicholas sat at some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, to whom he was again talking with the same
involuntary smile. Sonya wore a company smile but was
evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned pale, now
blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas and Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept
looking round uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight
that might be put upon the children. The German tutor was
trying to remember all the dishes, wines, and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner to his
people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the
butler with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He
frowned, trying to appear as if he did not want any of that
wine, but was mortified because no one would understand
that it was not to quench his
