fits of irritability her face would grow yellow, and her maids
knew by infallible symptoms when Belova would again be
deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess’ face yellow. Just as
she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes to
exercise her still-existing faculty of thinkingand the pretext
for that was a game of patience. When she needed to cry,
the deceased count would be the pretext. When she wanted
to be agitated, Nicholas and his health would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the pretext
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would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed
exercise, which was usually toward seven o’clock when she
had had an after-dinner rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same stories over and over
again to the same audience.
The old lady’s condition was understood by the whole
household though no one ever spoke of it, and they all
made every possible effort to satisfy her needs. Only by a
rare glance exchanged with a sad smile between Nicholas,
Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary was the common understanding of her condition expressed.
But those glances expressed something more: they said
that she had played her part in life, that what they now saw
was not her whole self, that we must all become like her, and
that they were glad to yield to her, to restrain themselves
for this once precious being formerly as full of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. ‘Memento mori,’ said
these glances.
Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the little children failed to understand this and
avoided her.
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When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the
countess was in one of her customary states in which she
needed the mental exertion of playing patience, and sothough by force of habit she greeted him with the words
she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an
absence: ‘High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting for you. Well, thank God!’ and received her
presents with another customary remark: ‘It’s not the gift
that’s precious, my dear, but that you give it to me, an old
woman…’yet it was evident that she was not pleased by
Pierre’s arrival at that moment when it diverted her attention from the unfinished game.
She finished her game of patience and only then examined
the presents. They consisted of a box for cards, of splendid
workmanship, a bright-blue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with a lid, and a gold snuffbox with
the count’s portrait on the lid which Pierre had had done by
a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long wished
for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she
glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention
chiefly to the box for cards.
‘Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up,’ said she
as she always did. ‘But best of all you have brought yourself backfor I never saw anything like it, you ought to give
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your wife a scolding! What are we to do with her? She is like
a mad woman when you are away. Doesn’t see anything,
doesn’t remember anything,’ she went on, repeating her
usual phrases. ‘Look, Anna Timofeevna,’ she added to her
companion, ‘see what a box for cards my son has brought
us!’
Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her
dress material.
Though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and
Denisov had much to talk about that they could not discuss before the old countessnot that anything was hidden
from her, but because she had dropped so far behindhand in
many things that had they begun to converse in her presence
they would have had to answer inopportune questions and
to repeat what they had already told her many times: that
so-and-so was dead and so-and-so was married, which she
would again be unable to rememberyet they sat at tea round
the samovar in the drawing room from habit, and Pierre
answered the countess’ questions as to whether Prince Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevna had sent
greetings and still thought of them, and other matters that
interested no one and to which she herself was indifferent.
Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable, continued all through teatime. All the grown-up
members of the family were assembled near the round tea
table at which Sonya presided beside the samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had had tea and their
voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat in
their accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small
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table where his tea was handed to him; Milka, the old gray
borzoi bitch (daughter of the first Milka), with a quite gray
face and large black eyes that seemed more prominent than
ever, lay on the armchair beside him; Denisov, whose curly
hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half gray, sat beside
countess Mary with his general’s tunic unbuttoned; Pierre
sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what
he knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told her of external social events and of the
people who had formed the circle of her contemporaries
and had once been a real, living, and distinct group, but
who were now for the most part scattered about the world
and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests
they had sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those
contemporaries of hers seemed to be the only serious and
real society. Natasha saw by Pierre’s animation that his visit
had been interesting and that he had much to tell them but
dare not say it before the old countess. Denisov, not being a
member of the family, did not understand Pierre’s caution
and being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about
what had happened in the Semenovsk regiment, then about
Arakcheev, and then about the Bible Society. Once or twice
Pierre was carried away and began to speak of these things,
but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him back to the
health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna.
‘Well, and all this idiocyGossner and Tatawinova?’ Denisov asked. ‘Is that weally still going on?’
‘Going on?’ Pierre exclaimed. ‘Why more than ever! The
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Bible Society is the whole government now!’
‘What is that, mon cher ami?’ asked the countess, who
had finished her tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. ‘What are you saying about the
government? I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you know, Maman,’ Nicholas interposed, knowing
how to translate things into his mother’s language, ‘Prince
Alexander Golitsyn has founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say.’
‘Arakcheev and Golitsyn,’ incautiously remarked Pierre,
‘are now the whole government! And what a government!
They see treason everywhere and are afraid of everything.’
‘Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a
most estimable man. I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna’s,’ said the countess in an offended tone; and still more
offended that they all remained silent, she went on: ‘Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and what
harm is there in that?’ and she rose (everybody else got up
too) and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in
the sitting room.
The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the
sounds of the children’s voices and laughter from the next
room. Evidently some jolly excitement was going on there.
‘Finished, finished!’ little Natasha’s gleeful yell rose
above them all.
Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (Natasha he never lost sight of) and smiled happily.
‘That’s delightful music!’ said he.
‘It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stock
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ing,’ said Countess Mary.
‘Oh, I’ll go and see,’ said Pierre, jumping up. ‘You know,’
he added, stopping at the door, ‘why I’m especially fond of
that music? It is always the first thing that tells me all is
well. When I was driving here today, the nearer I got to the
house the more anxious I grew. As I entered the anteroom I
heard Andrusha’s peals of laughter and that meant that all
was well.’
‘I know! I know that feeling,’ said Nicholas. ‘But I mustn’t
go therethose stockings are to be a surprise for me.’
Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still louder.
‘Come, Anna Makarovna,’ Pierre’s voice was heard saying, ‘come here into the middle of the room and at the word
of command, ‘One, two,’ and when I say ‘three’… You stand
here, and you in my armswell now! One, two!…’ said Pierre,
and a silence followed: ‘three!’ and a rapturously breathless cry of children’s voices filled the room. ‘Two, two!’ they
shouted.
This meant two stockings, which by a secret process
known only to herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the
same time on the same needles, and which, when they were
ready, she always triumphantly drew, one out of the other,
in the children’s presence.
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Chapter XIV
Soon after this the children came in to say good night.
They kissed everyone, the tutors and governesses made
their bows, and they went out. Only young Nicholas and
his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the boy to come
downstairs.
‘No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me
stay,’ replied Nicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper.
‘Ma tante, please let me stay,’ said he, going up to his
aunt.
His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy.
Countess Mary glanced at him and turned to Pierre.
‘When you are here he can’t tear himself away,’ she said.
‘I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles.
Good night!’ said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young Nicholas with a smile. ‘You and
I haven’t seen anything of one another yet… How like he is
growing, Mary!’ he added, addressing Countess Mary.
‘Like my father?’ asked the boy, flushing crimson and
looking up at Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.
Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat
down doing woolwork; Natasha did not take her eyes off her
husband. Nicholas and
