“Forgive me for troubling you . . .”
Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natasha, and his broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:
“I have received a refusal from Countess Rostova and have heard reports of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that kind. Is that true?”
“Both true and untrue,” Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him.
“Here are her letters and her portrait,” said he.
He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.
“Give this to the countess . . . if you see her.”
“She is very ill,” said Pierre.
“Then she is here still?” said Prince Andrew. “And Prince Kuragin?” he added quickly.
“He left long ago. She has been at death’s door.”
“I much regret her illness,” said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.
“So Monsieur Kuragin has not honored Countess Rostova with his hand?” said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.
“He could not marry, for he was married already,” said Pierre.
Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father.
“And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?” he said.
“He has gone to Peters . . . But I don’t know,” said Pierre.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Prince Andrew. “Tell Countess Rostova that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is good.”
Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say anything, looked fixedly at him.
“I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?” asked Pierre, “about . . .”
“Yes,” returned Prince Andrew hastily. “I said that a fallen woman should be forgiven, but I didn’t say I could forgive her. I can’t.”
“But can this be compared . . . ?” said Pierre.
Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: “Yes, ask her hand again, be magnanimous, and so on? . . . Yes, that would be very noble, but I am unable to follow in that gentleman’s footsteps. If you wish to be my friend never speak to me of that . . . of all that! Well, good-by. So you’ll give her the packet?”
Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.
The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the Rostovs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.
At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father, now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation, the cause of which Pierre so well understood.
- Sperdnski’s sudden fall from power and exile to Nizhni-Novgorod occurred on March 17, 1812, o.s. The causes of this event were certainly connected with the change in Alexander’s outlook and plans, from the liberal tendency of his early years to a more reactionary attitude. The constantly increasing dangers and difficulties in foreign policy also made it convenient to sacrifice Speranski, against whom—at a time when the conservative spirit of Russia was pitting itself against the more progressive watchwords of the new France—numerous inimical rumors reached the Emperor from reactionaries and from Speranski’s numerous enemies at court, who regarded him as an upstart intervening between Alexander and his former devoted servants and advisers.
Speranski wrote several letters to Alexander defending himself, but it was not till 1816 that an ukase appeared which indirectly admitted that the accusations against him were unfounded. He was then made Governor of Penza, and three years later Governor General of Siberia. In 1821 he returned to Petersburg and entered the Council of State, but he no longer had any of his former influence with the Emperor.
In the next reign, Nicholas I, after testing his loyalty by appointing him to be one of the judges of the “Decembrist” conspirators, placed him in charge of the compilation of the Code of Laws, and Speranski succeeded in publishing forty-two volumes of The Complete Collection of Russian Laws, which formed the basis of the systematic Code of Laws of the Russian Empire compiled in 1832.—A.M. - Pierre and Natásha. He tells her of his devotion. The great comet of 1812
THAT SAME EVENING Pierre went to the Rostovs’ to fulfill the commission entrusted to him. Natasha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre, after giving the letters to Sonya, went to Marya Dmitrievna who was interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes later Sonya came to Marya Dmitrievna.
“Natasha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich,” 1 said she.
“But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been tidied up.”
“No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room,” said Sonya.
Marya Dmitrievna only shrugged her shoulders.
“When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don’t tell her everything!” said she to Pierre. “One hasn’t the heart to scold her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.”
Natasha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.
Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual; but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different expression of face.
“Peter Kirilovich,” she began rapidly, “Prince Bolkonski was your friend—is your friend,” she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that everything that had once been must now be different.) “He told me once to apply to you . . .”
Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.
“He is here now: tell him . . . to for . . . forgive me!”
She stopped and breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.
“Yes . . . I will tell him,” answered Pierre; “but . . .”
He did not know what to say.
Natasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she had meant.
“No, I know all is over,” she said hurriedly. “No, that can never be. I’m only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything. . . .”
She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.
A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre’s heart.
“I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more,” said Pierre. “But . . . I should like to know one thing. . . .”
“Know what?” Natasha’s eyes asked.
“I should like to know, did you love . . .” Pierre did not know how to refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him—“did you love that bad man?”
“Don’t call him bad!” said Natasha. “But I don’t know, don’t know at all. . . .”
She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and hoped they would not be noticed.
“We won’t speak of it any more, my dear,” said Pierre, and his gentle, cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha.
“We won’t speak of it, my dear—I’ll tell him everything; but one thing I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or simply to open your heart to someone—not now, but when your mind is clearer think of me!” He took her hand and kissed it. “I shall be happy if it’s in my power . . .”
Pierre grew confused.
“Don’t speak to me like that. I am not worth it!” exclaimed Natasha and turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.
He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was amazed at his own words.
“Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you,” said he to her.
“Before me? No! All is over for me,” she replied with shame and self-abasement.
“All over?” he repeated. “If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment ask on my knees for your hand and your love!”
For the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude and tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.
Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining
