had understood that this woman might belong to him.
‘But she’s stupid. I have myself said she is stupid,’ he
thought. ‘There is something nasty, something wrong, in
the feeling she excites in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she with him, that there
was quite a scandal and that that’s why he was sent away.
Hippolyte is her brother… Prince Vasili is her father… It’s
bad….’ he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and
was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up,
and while thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she would love him
become quite different, and how all he had thought and
heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as
the daughter of Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body
only veiled by its gray dress. ‘But no! Why did this thought
never occur to me before?’ and again he told himself that
it was impossible, that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this marriage.
He recalled her former words and looks and the words and
looks of those who had seen them together. He recalled
Anna Pavlovna’s words and looks when she spoke to him
about his house, recalled thousands of such hints from
Prince Vasili and others, and was seized by terror lest he
had already, in some way, bound himself to do something
that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at
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the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself,
in another part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.
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Chapter II
In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in four different provinces. He had arranged this
for himself so as to visit his neglected estates at the same
time and pick up his son Anatole where his regiment was
stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter
of that rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs, Prince Vasili had to settle matters
with Pierre, who, it is true, had latterly spent whole days at
home, that is, in Prince Vasili’s house where he was staying,
and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in Helene’s presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to her.
‘This is all very fine, but things must be settled,’ said
Prince Vasili to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who was under such obligations to
him (“But never mind that’) was not behaving very well
in this matter. ‘Youth, frivolity… well, God be with him,’
thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, ‘but it must
be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya’s
name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does
not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affairyes, my affair. I am her father.’
Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna’s ‘At Home’ and after the
sleepless night when he had decided that to marry Helene
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would be a calamity and that he ought to avoid her and go
away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not left Prince Vasili’s and felt with terror that in people’s eyes he was every day
more and more connected with her, that it was impossible
for him to return to his former conception of her, that he
could not break away from her, and that though it would be
a terrible thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He
might perhaps have been able to free himself but that Prince
Vasili (who had rarely before given receptions) now hardly
let a day go by without having an evening party at which
Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general pleasure and disappoint everyone’s expectation. Prince
Vasili, in the rare moments when he was at home, would
take Pierre’s hand in passing and draw it downwards, or
absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek
for Pierre to kiss and would say: ‘Till tomorrow,’ or, ‘Be in
to dinner or I shall not see you,’ or, ‘I am staying in for your
sake,’ and so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed
in (as he said) for Pierre’s sake, hardly exchanged a couple
of words with him, Pierre felt unable to disappoint him.
Every day he said to himself one and the same thing: ‘It is
time I understood her and made up my mind what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No,
she is not stupid, she is an excellent girl,’ he sometimes said
to himself ‘she never makes a mistake, never says anything
stupid. She says little, but what she does say is always clear
and simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed and
is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!’ He had
often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her com
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pany, and she had always answered him either by a brief but
appropriate remarkshowing that it did not interest heror
by a silent look and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in
regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with
that smile.
She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding
smile meant for him alone, in which there was something
more significant than in the general smile that usually
brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he
knew that sooner or later he would step across it, but an
incomprehensible terror seized him at the thought of that
dreadful step. A thousand times during that month and a
half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to that
dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: ‘What am I doing? I
need resolution. Can it be that I have none?’
He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that
in this matter he lacked that strength of will which he had
known in himself and really possessed. Pierre was one of
those who are only strong when they feel themselves quite
innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered by
a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna
Pavlovna’s, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire paralyzed his will.
On Helene’s name day, a small party of just their own
peopleas his wife saidmet for supper at Prince Vasili’s. All
these friends and relations had been given to understand
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ning. The visitors were seated at supper. Princess Kuragina,
a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,
was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat
the more important guestsan old general and his wife, and
Anna Pavlovna Scherer. At the other end sat the younger
and less important guests, and there too sat the members
of the family, and Pierre and Helene, side by side. Prince
Vasili was not having any supper: he went round the table
in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another,
of the guests. To each of them he made some careless and
agreeable remark except to Pierre and Helene, whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened the whole party.
The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal
gleamed, so did the ladies’ toilets and the gold and silver of
the men’s epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round
the table, the clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled
with the animated hum of several conversations. At one
end of the table, the old chamberlain was heard assuring
an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at which she
laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the misfortunes of some Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center
of the table, Prince Vasili attracted everybody’s attention.
With a facetious smile on his face, he was telling the ladies
about last Wednesday’s meeting of the Imperial Council, at
which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had received and read the then
famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander from the army
to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the Emperor said that he was
receiving from all sides declarations of the people’s loyalty,
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that the declaration from Petersburg gave him particular
pleasure, and that he was proud to be at the head of such a
nation and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript
began with the words: ‘Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me,’ etc.
‘Well, and so he never got farther than: ‘Sergey Kuzmich’?’ asked one of the ladies.
‘Exactly, not a hair’s breadth farther,’ answered Prince
Vasili, laughing, ‘‘Sergey Kuzmich… From all sides… From
all sides… Sergey Kuzmich…’ Poor Vyazmitinov could not
get any farther! He began the rescript again and again, but
as soon as he uttered ‘Sergey’ he sobbed, ‘Kuz-mi-ch,’ tears,
and ‘From all sides’ was smothered in sobs and he could get
no farther. And again his handkerchief, and again: ‘Sergey
Kuzmich, From all sides,’… and tears, till at last somebody
else was asked to read it.’
‘Kuzmich… From all sides… and then tears,’ someone repeated laughing.
‘Don’t be unkind,’ cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of
the table holding up a threatening finger. ‘He is such a worthy and excellent man, our dear Vyazmitinov…’
Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in
high spirits and under the influence of a variety of exciting
sensations. Only Pierre and Helene sat silently side by side
almost at the bottom of the table, a suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing to do with
Sergey Kuzmicha smile of bashfulness at their own feelings.
But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much
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as they enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however
