to stop him.
‘The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,’ declared Monsieur
Pierre, ‘was a political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on
himself the whole responsibility of that deed.’
‘Dieu! Mon Dieu!’ muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified whisper.
‘What, Monsieur Pierre… Do you consider that assassination shows greatness of soul?’ said the little princess,
smiling and drawing her work nearer to her.
‘Oh! Oh!’ exclaimed several voices.
‘Capital!’ said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began
slapping his knee with the palm of his hand.
The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked
solemnly at his audience over his spectacles and continued.
‘I say so,’ he continued desperately, ‘because the Bourbons fled from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy,
and Napoleon alone understood the Revolution and quelled
it, and so for the general good, he could not stop short for
the sake of one man’s life.’
‘Won’t you come over to the other table?’ suggested Anna
Pavlovna.
But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.
‘No,’ cried he, becoming more and more eager, ‘Napoleon
is great because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all that was good in itequality
of citizenship and freedom of speech and of the pressand
only for that reason did he obtain power.’
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‘Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself
of it to commit murder he had restored it to the rightful
king, I should have called him a great man,’ remarked the
vicomte.
‘He could not do that. The people only gave him power
that he might rid them of the Bourbons and because they
saw that he was a great man. The Revolution was a grand
thing!’ continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and
his wish to express all that was in his mind.
‘What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?… Well,
after that… But won’t you come to this other table?’ repeated
Anna Pavlovna.
‘Rousseau’s Contrat social,’ said the vicomte with a tolerant smile.
‘I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about
ideas.’
‘Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,’ again interjected an ironical voice.
‘Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is
most important. What is important are the rights of man,
emancipation from prejudices, and equality of citizenship,
and all these ideas Napoleon has retained in full force.’
‘Liberty and equality,’ said the vicomte contemptuously,
as if at last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how
foolish his words were, ‘high-sounding words which have
long been discredited. Who does not love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality. Have
people since the Revolution become happier? On the con
33
trary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.’
Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from
Pierre to the vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess.
In the first moment of Pierre’s outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social experience, was horror-struck. But when she
saw that Pierre’s sacrilegious words had not exasperated the
vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was impossible to
stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in a
vigorous attack on the orator.
‘But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,’ said she, ‘how do you
explain the fact of a great man executing a ducor even an
ordinary man whois innocent and untried?’
‘I should like,’ said the vicomte, ‘to ask how monsieur explains the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was
a swindle, and not at all like the conduct of a great man!’
‘And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!’ said the little princess, shrugging her shoulders.
‘He’s a low fellow, say what you will,’ remarked Prince
Hippolyte.
Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them
all and smiled. His smile was unlike the half-smile of other
people. When he smiled, his grave, even rather gloomy, look
was instantaneously replaced by anothera childlike, kindly,
even rather silly look, which seemed to ask forgiveness.
The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw
clearly that this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his
words suggested. All were silent.
‘How do you expect him to answer you all at once?’ said
Prince Andrew. ‘Besides, in the actions of a statesman one
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has to distinguish between his acts as a private person, as a
general, and as an emperor. So it seems to me.’
‘Yes, yes, of course!’ Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this reinforcement.
‘One must admit,’ continued Prince Andrew, ‘that Napoleon as a man was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in
the hospital at Jaffa where he gave his hand to the plaguestricken; but… but there are other acts which it is difficult
to justify.’
Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down
the awkwardness of Pierre’s remarks, rose and made a sign
to his wife that it was time to go.
Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to
everyone to attend, and asking them all to be seated began:
‘I was told a charming Moscow story today and must
treat you to it. Excuse me, VicomteI must tell it in Russian
or the point will be lost….’ And Prince Hippolyte began to
tell his story in such Russian as a Frenchman would speak
after spending about a year in Russia. Everyone waited, so
emphatically and eagerly did he demand their attention to
his story.
‘There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very
stingy. She must have two footmen behind her carriage, and
very big ones. That was her taste. And she had a lady’s maid,
also big. She said..’
Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his
ideas with difficulty.
‘She said… Oh yes! She said, ‘Girl,’ to the maid, ‘put on a
livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while
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I make some calls.’’
Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing
long before his audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several persons, among them the
elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did however smile.
‘She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl
lost her hat and her long hair came down….’ Here he could
contain himself no longer and went on, between gasps of
laughter: ‘And the whole world knew…’
And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told it, or why it had to be told in Russian,
still Anna Pavlovna and the others appreciated Prince Hippolyte’s social tact in so agreeably ending Pierre’s unpleasant
and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote the conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last and
next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom,
and when and where.
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Chapter VI
Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soiree,
the guests began to take their leave.
Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height,
broad, with huge red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, to enter a drawing room and still less how to leave
one; that is, how to say something particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was absent-minded. When
he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the general’s
three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume, till the
general asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness
and inability to enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by his kindly, simple, and modest expression.
Anna Pavlovna turned toward him and, with a Christian
mildness that expressed forgiveness of his indiscretion,
nodded and said: ‘I hope to see you again, but I also hope
you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.’
When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but
again everybody saw his smile, which said nothing, unless
perhaps, ‘Opinions are opinions, but you see what a capital,
good-natured fellow I am.’ And everyone, including Anna
Pavlovna, felt this.
Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning
his shoulders to the footman who was helping him on with
his cloak, listened indifferently to his wife’s chatter with
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Prince Hippolyte who had also come into the hall. Prince
Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant princess, and
stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.
‘Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold,’ said the little
princess, taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. ‘It is settled,’ she
added in a low voice.
Anna Pavlovna had already managed to speak to Lise
about the match she contemplated between Anatole and the
little princess’ sister-in-law.
‘I rely on you, my dear,’ said Anna Pavlovna, also in a low
tone. ‘Write to her and let me know how her father looks at
the matter. Au revoir!’and she left the hall.
Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and,
bending his face close to her, began to whisper something.
Two footmen, the princess’ and his own, stood holding
a shawl and a cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish.
They listened to the French sentences which to them were
meaningless, with an air of understanding but not wishing
to appear to do so. The princess as usual spoke smilingly
and listened with a laugh.
‘I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,’ said
Prince Hippolyte ‘-so dull-. It has been a delightful evening,
has it not? Delightful!’
‘They say the ball will be very good,’ replied the princess,
drawing up her downy little lip. ‘All the pretty women in
society will be there.’
‘Not all, for you will not be there; not all,’ said Prince
Hippolyte smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from
the footman, whom he even pushed aside, he began wrap38
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ping it round the princess. Either from awkwardness or
intentionally (no one could have said which) after the shawl
had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long
time, as though embracing her.
Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and
glancing at her husband. Prince Andrew’s eyes were closed,
so weary and sleepy did he seem.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked his wife, looking past her.
Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in
the latest fashion reached to his very heels, and, stumbling
in it, ran out into the porch following the princess, whom a
footman was helping into the carriage.
‘Princesse, au revoir,’ cried he, stumbling with his tongue
as well as with his feet.
The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat
in the dark carriage, her husband was adjusting his
