toothless open mouth. The storm was long since over and
there was bright, joyous sunshine on Natasha’s face as she
gazed tenderly at her husband and child.
‘And have you talked everything well over with Prince
Theodore?’ she asked.
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‘Yes, capitally.’
‘You see, he holds it up.’ (She meant the baby’s head.) ‘But
how he did frighten me… You’ve seen the princess? Is it true
she’s in love with that..’
‘Yes, just fancy..’
At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in.
Pierre with the baby on his hand stooped, kissed them, and
replied to their inquiries. But in spite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby with the little
cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his attention.
‘How sweet!’ said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby. ‘Now, Nicholas,’ she added, turning to
her husband, ‘I can’t understand how it is you don’t see the
charm of these delicious marvels.’
‘I don’t and can’t,’ replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the
baby. ‘A lump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!’
‘And yet he’s such an affectionate father,’ said Countess
Mary, vindicating her husband, ‘but only after they are a
year old or so..’
‘Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly,’ said Natasha. ‘He
says his hand is just made for a baby’s seat. Just look!’
‘Only not for this…’ Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a
laugh, and shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.
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Chapter XII
As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills
several perfectly distinct worlds which merged into one
harmonious whole, though each retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. Every event, joyful
or sad, that took place in that house was important to all
these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice
or grieve over that occurrence independently of the others.
For instance, Pierre’s return was a joyful and important
event and they all felt it to be so.
The servantsthe most reliable judges of their masters because they judge not by their conversation or expressions of
feeling but by their acts and way of lifewere glad of Pierre’s
return because they knew that when he was there Count
Nicholas would cease going every day attend to the estate,
and would would be in better spirits and temper, and also
because they would all receive handsome presents for the
holidays.
The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre’s
return because no one else drew them into the social life of
the household as he did. He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his only piece) to which, as he said, all
possible dances could be danced, and they felt sure he had
brought presents for them all.
Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and
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intelligent, with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes,
was delighted because Uncle Pierre as he called him was
the object of his rapturous and passionate affection. No one
had instilled into him this love for Pierre whom he saw only
occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him up had
done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved
him, and little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him
with just a shade of contempt. Pierre, however, he adored.
He did not want to be an hussar or a Knight of St. George
like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned, wise, and
kind like Pierre. In Pierre’s presence his face always shone
with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when
Pierre spoke to him. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards, with Dessalles or by himself,
recall and reconsider the meaning of everything Pierre had
said. Pierre’s past life and his unhappiness prior to 1812 (of
which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture
from some words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity, Platon Karataev (of whom he had heard
from Pierre), his love for Natasha (of whom the lad was also
particularly fond), and especially Pierre’s friendship with
the father whom Nicholas could not rememberall this made
Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint.
From broken remarks about Natasha and his father,
from the emotion with which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent tenderness with which
Natasha spoke of him, the boy, who was only just beginning
to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had
loved Natasha and when dying had left her to his friend. But
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the father whom the boy did not remember appeared to him
a divinity who could not be pictured, and of whom he never
thought without a swelling heart and tears of sadness and
rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had arrived.
The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to
enliven and unite any company he was in.
The grown-up members of the family, not to mention
his wife, were pleased to have back a friend whose presence
made life run more smoothly and peacefully.
The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought
them, and especially that Natasha would now be herself
again.
Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds
and made haste to satisfy all their expectations.
Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men,
Pierre, with the aid of a list his wife drew up, had now bought
everything, not forgetting his motherand brother-in-law’s
commissions, nor the dress material for a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife’s nephews. In the early days of his
marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should
expect him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy, and he had been taken aback by her serious
annoyance when on his first trip he forgot everything. But
in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that Natasha
asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for
others only when he himself had offered to undertake them,
he now found an unexpected and childlike pleasure in this
purchase of presents for everyone in the house, and never
forgot anything. If he now incurred Natasha’s censure it was
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only for buying too many and too expensive things. To her
other defects (as most people thought them, but which to
Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself,
she now added stinginess.
From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on
a footing entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his
surprise that he spent only half as much as before, and that
his affairswhich had been in disorder of late, chiefly because
of his first wife’s debtshad begun to improve.
Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most
expensive luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any
moment, was no longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt
that his way of life had now been settled once for all till
death and that to change it was not in his power, and so that
way of life proved economical.
With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.
‘What do you think of this?’ said he, unrolling a piece of
stuff like a shopman.
Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest
daughter on her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from
her husband to the things he showed her.
‘That’s for Belova? Excellent!’ She felt the quality of the
material. ‘It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?’
Pierre told her the price.
‘Too dear!’ Natasha remarked. ‘How pleased the children
will be and Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me
this,’ she added, unable to suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls, of a kind then just
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coming into fashion.
‘Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it,’ returned Pierre.
‘When am I to wear it?’ and Natasha stuck it in her coil
of hair. ‘When I take little Masha into society? Perhaps they
will be fashionable again by then. Well, let’s go now.’
And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery
and then to the old countess’ rooms.
The countess was sitting with her companion Belova,
playing grand-patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha
came into the drawing room with parcels under their
arms.
The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and
wore a cap with a frill that surrounded her face. Her face
had shriveled, her upper lip had sunk in, and her eyes were
dim.
After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid
succession, she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in
this world and left without aim or object for her existence.
She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but did not live. Life
gave her no new impressions. She wanted nothing from life
but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death could give
her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is,
to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young
children and very old people was particularly evident in
her. Her life had no external aimsonly a need to exercise her
various functions and inclinations was apparent. She had to
eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, work, give vent to her anger,
and so on, merely because she had a stomach, a brain, mus
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cles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not under any
external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when
behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising
their functions remains unnoticed. She talked only because
she physically needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She
cried as a child does, because her nose had to be cleared,
and so on. What for people in their full vigor is an aim was
for her evidently merely a pretext.
Thus in the morningespecially if she had eaten anything
rich the day beforeshe felt a need of being angry and would
choose as the handiest pretext Belova’s deafness.
She would begin to say something to her in a low tone
from the other end of the room.
‘It seems a little warmer today, my dear,’ she would murmur.
And when Belova replied: ‘Oh yes, they’ve come,’ she
would mutter angrily: ‘O Lord! How stupid and deaf she
is!’
Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem
too dry or too damp or not rubbed fine enough.
