and unobservant as they seemed of them, one could feel by
the occasional glances they gave that the story about Sergey
Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a pretense,
and that the whole attention of that company was directed
toPierre and Helene. Prince Vasili mimicked the sobbing
of Sergey Kuzmich and at the same time his eyes glanced
toward his daughter, and while he laughed the expression
on his face clearly said: ‘Yes… it’s getting on, it will all be
settled today.’ Anna Pavlovna threatened him on behalf of
‘our dear Vyazmitinov,’ and in her eyes, which, for an instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation
on his future son-in-law and on his daughter’s happiness.
The old princess sighed sadly as she offered some wine to
the old lady next to her and glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: ‘Yes, there’s nothing left for
you and me but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now that the
time has come for these young ones to be thus boldly, provocatively happy.’ ‘And what nonsense all this is that I am
saying!’ thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces
of the lovers. ‘That’s happiness!’
Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests
uniting that society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy and handsome young man and woman
for one another. And this human feeling dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter. Jests
fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was
evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen
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waiting at table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked at the beautiful Helene with her radiant
face and at the red, broad, and happy though uneasy face of
Pierre. It seemed as if the very light of the candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.
Pierre felt that he the center of it all, and this both pleased
and embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed
in some occupation. He did not see, hear, or understand
anything clearly. Only now and then detached ideas and
impressions from the world of reality shot unexpectedly
through his mind.
‘So it is all finished!’ he thought. ‘And how has it all happened? How quickly! Now I know that not because of her
alone, nor of myself alone, but because of everyone, it must
inevitably come about. They are all expecting it, they are so
sure that it will happen that I cannot, I cannot, disappoint
them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it will certainly
happen!’ thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders close to his eyes.
Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what.
He felt it awkward to attract everyone’s attention and to
be considered a lucky man and, with his plain face, to be
looked on as a sort of Paris possessed of a Helen. ‘But no
doubt it always is and must be so!’ he consoled himself. ‘And
besides, what have I done to bring it about? How did it begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then there
was nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I
played cards with her and picked up her reticule and drove
out with her. How did it begin, when did it all come about?’
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And here he was sitting by her side as her betrothed, seeing,
hearing, feeling her nearness, her breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him
that it was not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and
that that was why they all looked so at him, and flattered
by this general admiration he would expand his chest, raise
his head, and rejoice at his good fortune. Suddenly he heard
a familiar voice repeating something to him a second time.
But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what
was said.
‘I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkonski,’
repeated Prince Vasili a third time. ‘How absent-minded
you are, my dear fellow.’
Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone
was smiling at him and Helene. ‘Well, what of it, if you all
know it?’ thought Pierre. ‘What of it? It’s the truth!’ and he
himself smiled his gentle childlike smile, and Helene smiled
too.
‘When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?’ repeated Prince Vasili, who pretended to want to know this in
order to settle a dispute.
‘How can one talk or think of such trifles?’ thought
Pierre.
‘Yes, from Olmutz,’ he answered, with a sigh.
After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others
into the drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some
without taking leave of Helene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important occupation, came up to her for
a moment and made haste to go away, refusing to let her see
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them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful silence as
he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre’s happiness. The
old general grumbled at his wife when she asked how his
leg was. ‘Oh, the old fool,’ he thought. ‘That Princess Helene
will be beautiful still when she’s fifty.’
‘I think I may congratulate you,’ whispered Anna Pavlovna to the old princess, kissing her soundly. ‘If I hadn’t
this headache I’d have stayed longer.’
The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her daughter’s happiness.
While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained
for a long time alone with Helene in the little drawing room
where they were sitting. He had often before, during the
last six weeks, remained alone with her, but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable, but he
could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt
ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else’s place
here beside Helene. ‘This happiness is not for you,’ some inner voice whispered to him. ‘This happiness is for those who
have not in them what there is in you.’
But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her
whether she was satisfied with the party. She replied in her
usual simple manner that this name day of hers had been
one of the pleasantest she had ever had.
Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were
sitting in the large drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to
Pierre with languid footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was
getting late. Prince Vasili gave him a look of stern inqui384
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ry, as though what Pierre had just said was so strange that
one could not take it in. But then the expression of severity
changed, and he drew Pierre’s hand downwards, made him
sit down, and smiled affectionately.
‘Well, Lelya?’ he asked, turning instantly to his daughter
and addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to parents who have petted their children
from babyhood, but which Prince Vasili had only acquired
by imitating other parents.
And he again turned to Pierre.
‘Sergey KuzmichFrom all sides-’ he said, unbuttoning
the top button of his waistcoat.
Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was
not the story about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince
Vasili just then, and Prince Vasili saw that Pierre knew this.
He suddenly muttered something and went away. It seemed
to Pierre that even the prince was disconcerted. The sight
of the discomposure of that old man of the world touched
Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed disconcerted, and her look seemed to say: ‘Well, it is your own fault.’
‘The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!’ thought
Pierre, and he again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey Kuzmich, asking what the point of the
story was as he had not heard it properly. Helene answered
with a smile that she too had missed it.
When Prince Vasili returned to the drawing room, the
princess, his wife, was talking in low tones to the elderly
lady about Pierre.
‘Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my
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dear..’
‘Marriages are made in heaven,’ replied the elderly lady.
Prince Vasili passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies,
and sat down on a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed
his eyes and seemed to be dozing. His head sank forward
and then he roused himself.
‘Aline,’ he said to his wife, ‘go and see what they are
about.’
The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing
room. Pierre and Helene still sat talking just as before.
‘Still the same,’ she said to her husband.
Prince Vasili frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks
quivered and his face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking himself, he rose, threw
back his head, and with resolute steps went past the ladies
into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant
that Pierre rose in alarm on seeing it.
‘Thank God!’ said Prince Vasili. ‘My wife has told me
everything!(He put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)‘My dear boy… Lelya… I am very
pleased.’ (His voice trembled.) ‘I loved your father… and she
will make you a good wife… God bless you!..’
He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and
kissed him with his malodorous mouth. Tears actually
moistened his cheeks.
‘Princess, come here!’ he shouted.
The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady
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was using her handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he
kissed the beautiful Helene’s hand several times. After a
while they were left alone again.
‘All this had to be and could not be otherwise,’ thought
Pierre, ‘so it is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is
good because it’s definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt.’ Pierre held the hand of his betrothed in silence,
looking at her beautiful bosom as it rose and fell.
‘Helene!’ he said aloud and paused.
‘Something special is always said in such cases,’ he
thought, but could not remember what it
