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AT BLEAK HILLS, the estate of Prince Nikolay Andreivitch Bolkonsky, the
arrival of young Prince Andrey and his wife was daily expected. But this
expectation did not disturb the regular routine in which life moved in the old
prince's household. Prince Nikolay Andreivitch, once a commander-in-chief, known
in the fashionable world by the nickname of “the Prussian king,” had been exiled
to his estate in the reign of Paul, and had remained at Bleak Hills ever since
with his daughter, Princess Marya, and her companion, Mademoiselle Bourienne.
Even in the new reign, though he had received permission to return to the
capital, he had never left his home in the country, saying that if any one
wanted to see him, he could travel the hundred and fifty versts from Moscow to
Bleak Hills, and, for his part, he wanted nobody and nothing. He used to
maintain that human vices all sprang from only two sources—idleness and
superstition, and that there were but two virtues—energy and intelligence. He
had himself undertaken the education of his daughter; and to develop in her
these important qualities, he continued giving her lessons in algebra and
geometry up to her twentieth year, and mapped out her whole life in
uninterrupted occupation. He was himself always occupied in writing his memoirs,
working out problems in higher mathematics, turning snuff-boxes on his lathe,
working in his garden, or looking after the erection of farm buildings which
were always being built on his estate. Since the great thing for enabling one to
get through work is regularity, he had carried regularity in his manner of life
to the highest point of exactitude. His meals were served in a fixed and
invariable manner, and not only at a certain hour, but at a certain minute. With
those about him, from his daughter to his servants, the count was sharp and
invariably exacting, and so, without being cruel, he inspired a degree of
respect and awe that the most cruel man could not readily have commanded. In
spite of the fact that he was now on the retired list, and had no influence
whatever in political circles, every high official in the province in which was
the prince's estate felt obliged to call upon him, and had, just like the
architect, the gardener, or Princess Marya, to wait till the regular hour at
which the prince always made his appearance in the lofty waiting-room. And every
one in the waiting-room felt the same veneration, and even awe, when the
immensely high door of the study opened and showed the small figure of the old
man in a powdered wig, with his little withered hands and grey, overhanging
eyebrows, that, at times when he scowled, hid the gleam in his shrewd,
youthful-looking eyes.
On the day that the young people were expected to arrive, Princess Marya went
as usual at the fixed hour in the morning into the waiting-room to say
good-morning to her father, and with dread in her heart crossed herself and
mentally repeated a prayer. Every day she went in to her father in the same way,
and every day she prayed that her interview with her father might pass off well
that day. The old man-servant, wearing powder, softly got up from his seat in
the waiting-room and whispered: “Walk in.”
Through the door came the regular sounds of the lathe. The princess kept
timidly hold of the door, which opened smoothly and easily, and stood still in
the doorway. The prince was working at his lathe, and glancing round, he went on
with what he was doing.
The immense room was filled with things obviously in constant use. The large
table, on which lay books and plans, the high bookcases with keys in the
glass-covered doors, the high table for the prince to write at, standing up,
with an open manuscript-book upon it, the carpenter's lathe, with tools ranged
about it and shavings scattered around, all suggested continual, varied, and
orderly activity. The movements of the prince's small foot in its Tatar,
silver-embroidered boot, the firm pressure of his sinewy, lean hand, showed the
strength of vigorous old age still strong-willed and wiry. After making a few
more turns, he took his foot from the pedal of the lathe, wiped the plane,
dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and going up to the table
called his daughter. He never gave the usual blessing to his children; he simply
offered her his scrubby, not yet shaved cheek, and said sternly and yet at the
same time with intense tenderness, as he looked her over: “Quite well? … All
right, then, sit down!” He took a geometry exercise-book written by his own
hand, and drew his chair up with his leg.
“For to-morrow,” he said quickly, turning to the page and marking it from one
paragraph to the next with his rough nail. The princess bent over the
exercise-book. “Stop, there's a letter for you,” the old man said suddenly,
pulling out of a pocket hanging over the table an envelope addressed in a
feminine hand, and putting it on the table.
The princess's face coloured red in patches at the sight of the letter. She
took it hurriedly and bent over it.
“From Heloise?” asked the prince, showing his still strong, yellow teeth in a
cold smile.
“Yes, from Julie,” said the princess, glancing timidly at him, and timidly
smiling.
“Two more letters I'll let pass, but the third I shall read,” said the prince
severely. “I'm afraid you write a lot of nonsense. The third I shall
read.”
“Read this one, father,” answered the princess, colouring still more and
handing him the letter.
“The third, I said the third,” the prince cried shortly; pushing away the
letter and leaning his elbow on the table, he drew up to him the book with the
figures of geometry in it.
“Now, madam,” began the old man, bending over the book close to his daughter,
and laying one arm on the back of the chair she was sitting on, so that the
princess felt herself surrounded on all sides by the peculiar acrid smell of old
age and tobacco, which she had so long associated with her father. “Come, madam,
these triangles are equal: kindly look; the angle A B C. …”
The princess glanced in a scared way at her father's eyes gleaming close
beside her. The red patches overspread her whole face, and it was evident that
she did not understand a word, and was so frightened that terror prevented her
from understanding all the subsequent explanations her father offered her,
however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher's fault or the pupil's,
every day the same scene was repeated. The princess's eyes grew dim; she could
see and hear nothing; she could feel nothing but the dry face of her stern
father near her, his breath and the smell of him, and could think of nothing but
how to escape as soon as possible from the study and to make out the problem in
freedom in her room. The old man lost his temper; with a loud, grating noise he
pushed back and drew up again the chair he was sitting on, made an effort to
control himself, not to fly into a rage, and almost every time did fly into a
rage, and scold, and sometimes flung the book away.
The princess answered a question wrong.
“Well, you are too stupid!” cried the prince, pushing away the book, and
turning sharply away. But he got up immediately, walked up and down, laid his
hand on the princess's hair, and sat down again. He drew himself up to the table
and continued his explanations. “This won't do; it won't do,” he said, when
Princess Marya, taking the exercise-book with the lesson set her, and shutting
it, was about to leave the room: “mathematics is a grand subject, madam. And to
have you like the common run of our silly misses is what I don't want at all.
Patience, and you'll get to like it.” He patted her on the cheek. “It will drive
all the nonsense out of your head.” She would have gone; he stopped her with a
gesture, and took a new, uncut book from the high table.
“Here's a book, too, your Heloise sends you some sort of Key to the Mystery.
Religious. But I don't interfere with any one's belief…. I have looked at it.
Take it. Come, run along, run along.”
He patted her on the shoulder, and himself closed the door after her.
Princess Marya went back to her own room with that dejected, scared
expression that rarely left her, and made her plain, sickly face even plainer.
She sat down at her writing-table, which was dotted with miniature portraits,
and strewn with books and manuscripts. The princess was as untidy as her father
was tidy. She put down the geometry exercise-book and impatiently opened the
letter. The letter was from the princess's dearest friend from childhood; this
friend was none other than Julie Karagin, who had been at the Rostovs' name-day
party.
Julie wrote in French:
“DEAR AND EXCELLENT FRIEND,—What a terrible and frightful thing is absence! I
say to myself that half of my existence and of my happiness is in you, that
notwithstanding the distance that separates us, our hearts are united by
invisible bonds; yet mine rebels against destiny, and in spite of the pleasures
and distractions around me, I cannot overcome a certain hidden sadness which I
feel in the bottom of my heart since our separation. Why are we not together as
we were this summer in your great study, on the blue sofa, the confidential
sofa? Why can I not, as I did three months ago, draw new moral strength from
that gentle, calm, penetrating look of yours, a look that I loved so well and
that I seem to see before me as I write to you.”
When she reached this passage, Princess Marya sighed and looked round into
the pier-glass that stood on her right. The glass reflected a feeble, ungraceful
figure and a thin face. The eyes, always melancholy, were looking just now with
a particularly hopeless expression at herself in the looking-glass. She flatters
me, thought the princess, and she turned away and went on reading. But Julie did
not flatter her friend: the princess's eyes—large, deep, and luminous (rays of
warm light seemed at times to radiate in streams from them), were really so
fine, that very often in spite of the plainness of the whole face her eyes were
more attractive than beauty. But the princess had never seen the beautiful
expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not
thinking of herself. As is the case with every one, her face assumed an
affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the
looking-glass.
She went on reading:
“All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already
abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on the march to the
frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg, and, people declare, intends to
expose his precious existence to the risks of war. God grant that the Corsican
monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may be brought low by the angel
whom the Almighty in His mercy has given us as sovereign. Without speaking of my
brothers, this war has deprived me of one of my heart's dearest alliances. I
mean the young Nicholas Rostov, whose enthusiasm could not endure inaction, and
who has left the university to go and join the army. Well, dear Marie, I will
own to you that, in spite of his extreme youth, his departure for the army has
been a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you in the summer,
has so much nobility, so much real youthfulness, rarely to be met with in our
age, among our old men of twenty. Above all, he has so much openness and so much
heart. He is so pure and poetic that my acquaintance with him, though so
transient, has been one of the dearest joys known by my poor heart, which has
already had so much suffering. Some day I will tell you about our farewells and
all that we said to each other as we parted. As yet, all that is too fresh. Ah,
dear friend, you are fortunate in not knowing these joys and these pains which
are so poignant. You are fortunate, because the latter are generally stronger! I
know very well that Count Nicholas is too young ever to become more to me than a
friend, but this sweet friendship, this poetic and pure intimacy have fulfilled
a need of my heart. No more of this. The great news of the day, with which all
Moscow is taken up, is the death of old Count Bezuhov, and his inheritance.
Fancy, the three princesses have hardly got anything, Prince Vassily nothing,
and everything has been left to M. Pierre, who has been acknowledged as a
legitimate son into the bargain, so that he is Count Bezuhov and has the finest
fortune in Russia. People say that Prince Vassily behaved very badly in all
these matters and that he has gone back to Petersburg quite cast down.
“I own that I understand very little about all these details of legacies and
wills; what I know is that since the young man whom we all used to know as plain
M. Pierre has become Count Bezuhov and owner of one of the largest fortunes in
Russia, I am much amused to observe the change in the tone and the manners of
mammas burdened with marriageable daughters and of those young ladies
themselves, towards that individual— who I may say in passing has always seemed
to me a poor creature. As people have amused themselves for the last two years
in giving me husbands whom I don't know, the matrimonial gossip of Moscow
generally makes me Countess Bezuhov. But you, I am sure, feel that I have no
desire to become so. About marriage, by the by, do you know that the
universal aunt, Anna Mihalovna, has confided to me, under the seal of the
deepest secrecy, a marriage scheme for you. It is no one more or less than
Prince Vassily's son, Anatole, whom they want to settle by marrying him to some
one rich and distinguished, and the choice of his relations has fallen on you. I
don't know what view you will take of the matter, but I thought it my duty to
let you know beforehand. He is said to be very handsome and very wild; that is
all I have been able to find out about him.
“But enough of gossip. I am finishing my second sheet and mamma is sending
for me to go and dine with the Apraxins. Read the mystical book which I send
you, and which is the rage here. Though there are things in this book, difficult
for our human conceptions to attain to, it is an admirable book, and reading it
calms and elevates the soul. Farewell. My respects to your father and my
compliments to Mlle. Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.
JULIE.
“P.S.—Let me hear news of your brother and his charming little
wife.”
Princess Marya thought a minute, smiling dreamily (her face, lighted up by
her luminous eyes, was completely transformed). Suddenly getting up, she crossed
over to the table, treading heavily. She got out a sheet of paper and her hand
began rapidly moving over it. She wrote the following answer:
“DEAR AND EXCELLENT FRIEND,—Your letter of the 13th gave me great delight. So
you still love me, my poetic Julie. So, absence, which you so bitterly denounce,
has not had its usual effect upon you. You complain of absence—what might I say,
if I ventured to complain, I, deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we had
not religion to console us, life would be very sad. Why do you suppose that I
should look severe when you tell me of your affection for that young man? In
such matters I am hard upon no one but myself. I understand such feelings in
other people, and if, never having felt thern, I cannot express approval, I do
not condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian love, the love of our
neighbour, the love of our enemies, is more meritorious, sweeter and more
beautiful than those feelings that may be inspired in a poetic and loving young
girl like you, by the fine eyes of a young man.
“The news of Count Bezuhov's death reached us before your letter, and
affected my father very much. He says that the count was the last representative
but one of the great century and that it is his turn now; but that he will do
his best to have his turn come as late as possible. May God save us from that
terrible misfortune. I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a
child. He always appeared to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the
quality that I most esteem in people. As to his inheritance and Prince Vassily's
behaviour about it, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine
Saviour's word, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven is a terribly
true saying; I pity Prince Vassily, and I am yet more sorry for Pierre. So young
and burdened with this wealth, to what temptations he will be exposed! If I were
asked what I wished most in the world, it would be to be poorer than the poorest
beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the work you send me, and which is
all the rage where you are. As, however, you tell me that amid many good things
there are others to which our weak human understanding cannot attain, it seems
to me rather useless to busy oneself in reading an unintelligible book, since
for that very reason it cannot yield any profit. I have never been able to
comprehend the passion which some people have for confusing their minds by
giving themselves to the study of mystical books which only awaken their doubts,
inflaming their imagination, and giving them a disposition to exaggeration
altogether contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us read the Apostles and the
Gospel. Do not let us seek to penetrate what is mysterious in these, for how can
we dare presume, miserable sinners as we are, to enter into the terrible and
sacred secrets of Providence, while we wear this carnal husk that raises an
impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us rather confine ourselves to
studying those sublime principles which our divine Saviour has left us as guides
for our conduct here below; let us seek to conform ourselves to those and follow
them; let us persuade ourselves that the less range we give to our weak human
understanding, the more agreeable it will be to God, who rejects all knowledge
that does not come from Him; that the less we seek to dive into that which He
has pleased to hide from our knowledge the sooner will He discover it to us by
means of His divine Spirit.
“My father has not spoken to me of the suitor, but has only told me that he
has received a letter, and was expecting a visit from Prince Vassily. In regard
to a marriage-scheme concerning myself, I will tell you, my dear and excellent
friend, that to my mind marriage is a divine institution to which we must
conform. However painful it may be to me, if the Alrnighty should ever impose
upon me the duties of a wife and mother, I shall try to fulfil them as
faithfully as I can without disquieting myself by examining my feelings in
regard to him whom He may give me for a husband.
“I have received a letter from my brother, who announces his coming to Bleak
Hills with his wife. It will be a pleasure of brief duration, since he is
leaving us to take part in this unhappy war into which we have been drawn, God
knows how and why. It is not only with you, in the centre of business and
society, that people talk of nothing except war, for here also, amid those
rustic labours and that calm of nature, which townspeople generally imagine in
the country, rumours of war are heard and are felt painfully. My father talks of
nothing but marches and counter-marches, things of which I understand nothing;
and the day before yesterday, taking my usual walk in the village street, I
witnessed a heartrending scene.… It was a convoy of recruits that had been
enrolled in our district, and were being sent away to the army. You should have
seen the state of the mothers, wives and children of the men who were going, and
have heard the sobs on both sides. It seems as though humanity had forgotten the
laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and the forgiveness of offences,
and were making the greatest merit to consist in the art of killing one
another.
“Adieu, dear and good friend: may our divine Saviour and His most Holy Mother
keep you in their holy and powerful care.
MARIE.”
“Ah, you are sending off your letters, princess. I have already finished
mine. I have written to my poor mother,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne quickly in
her agreeable, juicy voice, with a roll of the r's. She came in, all
smiles, bringing into the intense, melancholy, gloomy atmosphere of the Princess
Marya an alien world of gay frivolity and self-satisfaction. “Princess, I must
warn you,” she added, dropping her voice, “the prince has had an altercation,”
she said, with a peculiar roll of the r, seeming to listen to herself
with pleasure. “An altercation with Mihail Ivanov. He is in a very ill humour,
very morose. Be prepared, you know.”
“Ah, chère amie,” answered Princess Marya, “I have begged you never to
tell me beforehand in what humour I shall find my father. I do not permit myself
to judge him and I would not have others do so.”
The princess glanced at her watch, and seeing that it was already five
minutes later than the hour fixed for her practice on the clavichord, she went
with a face of alarm into the divan-room. In accordance with the rules by which
the day was mapped out, the prince rested from twelve to two, while the young
princess practised on the clavichord.
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