“Well, Peter Kirilych, let’s go and have a smoke,” he said.
Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha’s unwontedly brilliant eyes, continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced him to this condition.
“No, I think I’ll go home.”
“Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us. . . . You don’t often come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine,” said the count good-naturedly, pointing to Natasha, “only brightens up when you’re here.”
“Yes, I had forgotten . . . I really must go home . . . business . . .” said Pierre hurriedly.
“Well, then, au revoir!” said the count, and went out of the room.
“Why are you going? Why are you upset?” asked Natasha, and she looked challengingly into Pierre’s eyes.
“Because I love you!” was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it, and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.
“Because it is better for me to come less often . . . because . . . No, simply I have business. . . .”
“Why? No, tell me!” Natasha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.
They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently kissed her hand and went out.
Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostovs’ any more.
- It was so customary for the Russian aristocracy of those days to speak French that many of them could neither write nor speak Russian correctly, though the mass of the people spoke nothing but Russian.—A.M.
- Petya is the diminutive of Petr, which is the Russian equivalent of Pierre, or Peter.—A.M.
- Pétya goes to the Krémlin to see the Emperor. He gets crushed. He secures a biscuit thrown by the Emperor after dinner
AFTER THE definite refusal he had received, Petya went to his room and there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea, silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to notice anything.
Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostovs’ domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That morning Petya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and collar to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass, gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to avoid notice. Petya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostov, in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to . . . While dressing, Petya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the gentleman-in-waiting.
It was on the very fact of being so young that Petya counted for success in reaching the Emperor—he even thought how surprised everyone would be at his youthfulness—and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man. But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Kremlin, the less he remembered to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached the Kremlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he was so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in, rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some time in the gateway, Petya tried to move forward in front of the others without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at him:
“What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don’t you see we’re all standing still? Then why push?”
“Anybody can shove,” said the footman, and also began working his elbows to such effect that he pushed Petya into a very filthy corner of the gateway.
Petya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man’s.
He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs’, and Petya thought of asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd, carrying Petya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin Square which was already full of people. There were people not only in the square, but everywhere—on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Petya found himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous voices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin.
For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared, and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Petya was being pressed so that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” Petya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see nothing except the people about him.
All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A tradesman’s wife standing beside Petya sobbed, and the tears ran down her cheeks.
“Father! Angel! Dear one!” she kept repeating, wiping away her tears with her fingers.
“Hurrah!” was heard on all sides.
For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush forward.
Quite beside himself, Petya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting “hurrah!” as if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed forward and everybody shouted “hurrah!”
“So this is what the Emperor is!” thought Petya. “No, I can’t petition him myself—that would be too bold.” But in spite of this he continued to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back—the police in front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of the Assumption—and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of his head and wearing a shabby blue cassock—probably a church clerk and chanter—was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off the pressure of the crowd with the other.
“You’ve crushed the young gentleman!” said the clerk. “What are you up to? Gently! . . . They’ve crushed him, crushed him!”
The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread out again more evenly, and the clerk led Petya—pale and breathless—to the Tsar-cannon.1 Several people were sorry for Petya, and suddenly a crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might be) who had crushed him.
“One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing people! Poor dear, he’s as white as a sheet!”—various voices were heard saying.
Petya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who would be returning that way. Petya no longer thought of presenting his petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!
While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption—it was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor’s arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvas, gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Petya was particularly fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman’s wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk who had rescued Petya was talking to a functionary about the priests who were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used the word “plenary” (of the service), a word Petya did not understand. Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking nuts.
