 LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE (R) First Edition Ver. 4.02 
 War and Peace                                                    Tolstoy Leo           

                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                      1869                                  
                                                                            
                                 WAR AND PEACE                              
                                                                            
                                 by Leo Tolstoy                             
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
 Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1991, World Library, Inc.       
                                                                            
BK1                                                                         
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                 BOOK ONE: 1805                             
                                                                            
BK1|CH1                                                                     
  CHAPTER I                                                                 
-                                                                           
  "Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the      
Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war,      
if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by          
that Antichrist- I really believe he is Antichrist- I will have             
nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer      
my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see         
I have frightened you- sit down and tell me all the news."                  
  It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna             
Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya           
Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man        
of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her             
reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as         
she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in         
St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.                                     
  All her invitations without exception, written in French, and             
delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:       
  "If you have nothing better to do, Count [or Prince], and if the          
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too              
terrible, I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10-      
Annette Scherer."                                                           
  "Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the         
least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing          
an embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had             
stars on his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke      
in that refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but         
thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a           
man of importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went        
up to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald,           
scented, and shining head, and complacently seated himself on the           
sofa.                                                                       
                                                      {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  "First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's        
mind at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the               
politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even             
irony could be discerned.                                                   
  "Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times        
like these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are            
staying the whole evening, I hope?"                                         
  "And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I          
must put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is          
coming for me to take me there."                                            
  "I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these            
festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."                          
  "If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would            
have been put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by         
force of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.             
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  "Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's         
dispatch? You know everything."                                             
  "What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold,                
listless tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that               
Buonaparte has burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to          
burn ours."                                                                 
  Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a           
stale part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty        
years, overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an                
enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she      
did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to               
disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile        
which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played             
round her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual                
consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor         
could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.                             
  In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna         
burst out:                                                                  
  "Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand             
things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war.           
She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious            
sovereign recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is      
the one thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to      
perform the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble          
that God will not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and             
crush the hydra of revolution, which has become more terrible than          
ever in the person of this murderer and villain! We alone must              
avenge the blood of the just one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely           
on?... England with her commercial spirit will not and cannot               
understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness of soul. She has               
refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and still seeks, some        
secret motive in our actions. What answer did Novosiltsev get? None.        
The English have not understood and cannot understand the                   
self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for himself, but only      
desires the good of mankind. And what have they promised? Nothing! And      
what little they have promised they will not perform! Prussia has           
always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and that all Europe          
is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word that Hardenburg      
says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian neutrality is just a         
trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty destiny of our adored          
monarch. He will save Europe!"                                              
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.                      
  "I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been            
sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the          
King of Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you         
give me a cup of tea?"                                                      
  "In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am            
expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart,        
who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of           
the best French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good        
ones. And also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He        
has been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"                           
  "I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me,"      
he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred          
to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive        
of his visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke        
to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts        
is a poor creature."                                                        
  Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others          
were trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it        
for the baron.                                                              
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 20}
  Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she         
nor anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or        
was pleased with.                                                           
  "Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her           
sister," was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.                      
  As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an        
expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with        
sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious         
patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron             
Funke beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.      
  The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the               
womanly and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna           
Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of      
a man recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him,      
so she said:                                                                
  "Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came         
out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly          
beautiful."                                                                 
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 25}
  The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.                    
  "I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer        
to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that                 
political and social topics were ended and the time had come for            
intimate conversation- "I often think how unfairly sometimes the            
joys of life are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid      
children? I don't speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like             
him," she added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her         
eyebrows. "Two such charming children. And really you appreciate            
them less than anyone, and so you don't deserve to have them."              
  And she smiled her ecstatic smile.                                        
  "I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I            
lack the bump of paternity."                                                
  "Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I        
am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her          
face assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her           
Majesty's and you were pitied...."                                          
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 30}
  The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,         
awaiting a reply. He frowned.                                               
  "What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all         
a father could for their education, and they have both turned out           
fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active         
one. That is the only difference between them." He said this smiling        
in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles         
round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse         
and unpleasant.                                                             
  "And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a          
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna         
Pavlovna, looking up pensively.                                             
  "I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my          
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That      
is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"                         
  He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a         
gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.                                           
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 35}
  "Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?"           
she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and            
though I don't feel that weakness in myself as yet,I know a little          
person who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of            
yours, Princess Mary Bolkonskaya."                                          
  Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory         
and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a              
movement of the head that he was considering this information.              
  "Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad         
current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand         
rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in          
five years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what      
we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"         
  "Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He          
is the well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army          
under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is      
very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very                
unhappy. She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise           
Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here          
tonight."                                                                   
  "Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna             
Pavlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange          
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-           
slafe wigh an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She      
is rich and of good family and that's all I want."                          
                                                     {BK1|CH1 ^paragraph 40}
  And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised        
the maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and        
fro as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.           
  "Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise,          
young Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can        
be arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my         
apprenticeship as old maid."                                                
                                                                            
BK1|CH2                                                                     
  CHAPTER II                                                                
-                                                                           
  Anna Pavlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest           
Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age      
and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.        
Prince Vasili's daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her            
father to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and         
her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess                    
Bolkonskaya, known as la femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg,* was      
also there. She had been married during the previous winter, and being      
pregnant did not go to any large gatherings, but only to small              
receptions. Prince Vasili's son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart,        
whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio and many others had also come.           
-                                                                           
  *The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.                                
-                                                                           
  To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, "You have not yet seen my         
aunt," or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or      
her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who      
had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to        
arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna      
Pavlovna mentioned each one's name and then left them.                      
                                                      {BK1|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom        
not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of        
them cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful      
and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of          
them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health      
of Her Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each                
visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left           
the old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious        
duty and did not return to her the whole evening.                           
  The young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a                 
gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a        
delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her              
teeth, but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming      
when she occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always      
the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect- the shortness      
of her upper lip and her half-open mouth- seemed to be her own special      
and peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of            
this pretty young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life        
and health, and carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull            
dispirited young ones who looked at her, after being in her company         
and talking to her a little while, felt as if they too were                 
becoming, like her, full of life and health. All who talked to her,         
and at each word saw her bright smile and the constant gleam of her         
white teeth, thought that they were in a specially amiable mood that        
day.                                                                        
  The little princess went round the table with quick, short,               
swaying steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her          
dress sat down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was         
doing was a pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought      
my work," said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all         
present. "Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick          
on me," she added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to        
be quite a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed."           
And she spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed,        
dainty gray dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.       
  "Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone          
else," replied Anna Pavlovna.                                               
  "You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in      
French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going      
to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she          
added, addressing Prince Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she      
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.                      
                                                     {BK1|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  "What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince            
Vasili to Anna Pavlovna.                                                    
  One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with        
close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable      
at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout        
young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known           
grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man      
had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had         
only just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this         
was his first appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with         
the nod she accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room.           
But in spite of this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and           
fear, as at the sight of something too large and unsuited to the            
place, came over her face when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was          
certainly rather bigger than the other men in the room, her anxiety         
could only have reference to the clever though shy, but observant           
and natural, expression which distinguished him from everyone else          
in that drawing room.                                                       
  "It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor        
invalid," said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her         
aunt as she conducted him to her.                                           
  Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look           
round as if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to      
the little princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate                 
acquaintance.                                                               
  Anna Pavlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the      
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health.         
Anna Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know           
the Abbe Morio? He is a most interesting man."                              
                                                     {BK1|CH2 ^paragraph 15}
  "Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very      
interesting but hardly feasible."                                           
  "You think so?" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something and      
get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now                 
committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady           
before she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak      
to another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big          
feet spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the         
abbe's plan chimerical.                                                     
  "We will talk of it later," said Anna Pavlovna with a smile.              
  And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave,      
she resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch,        
ready to help at any point where the conversation might happen to           
flag. As the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands          
to work, goes round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or          
there one that creaks or makes more noise than it should, and               
hastens to check the machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna            
Pavlovna moved about her drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a      
too-noisy group, and by a word or slight rearrangement kept the             
conversational machine in steady, proper, and regular motion. But amid      
these cares her anxiety about Pierre was evident. She kept an               
anxious watch on him when he approached the group round Mortemart to        
listen to what was being said there, and again when he passed to            
another group whose center was the abbe.                                    
  Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna               
Pavlovna's was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all        
the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like         
a child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of             
missing any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the            
self-confident and refined expression on the faces of those present he      
was always expecting to hear something very profound. At last he            
came up to Morio. Here the conversation seemed interesting and he           
stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young         
people are fond of doing.                                                   
                                                                            
BK1|CH3                                                                     
  CHAPTER III                                                               
-                                                                           
  Anna Pavlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed          
steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,      
beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face      
was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company        
had settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed           
round the abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the             
beautiful Princess Helene, Prince Vasili's daughter, and the little         
Princess Bolkonskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump         
for her age. The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna          
Pavlovna.                                                                   
  The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and           
polished manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out      
of politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in      
which he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up          
as a treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d'hotel serves up as a         
specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen          
it in the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served          
up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, as peculiarly        
choice morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing      
the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc              
d'Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were          
particular reasons for Buonaparte's hatred of him.                          
  "Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte," said Anna Pavlovna,          
with a pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in           
the sound of that sentence: "Contez nous cela, Vicomte."                    
  The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness      
to comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone      
to listen to his tale.                                                      
  "The vicomte knew the duc personally," whispered Anna Pavlovna to of      
the guests. "The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur," said she to             
another. "How evidently he belongs to the best society," said she to a      
third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest         
and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef      
on a hot dish.                                                              
                                                      {BK1|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.            
  "Come over here, Helene, dear," said Anna Pavlovna to the                 
beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of        
another group.                                                              
  The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with         
which she had first entered the room- the smile of a perfectly              
beautiful woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed            
with moss and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and        
sparkling diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her,        
not looking at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously             
allowing each the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and            
shapely shoulders, back, and bosom- which in the fashion of those days      
were very much exposed- and she seemed to bring the glamour of a            
ballroom with her as she moved toward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so          
lovely that not only did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on         
the contrary she even appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too        
victorious beauty. She seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish        
its effect.                                                                 
  "How lovely!" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted           
his shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something              
extraordinary when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also      
with her unchanging smile.                                                  
  "Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience," said he,            
smilingly inclining his head.                                               
                                                     {BK1|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and              
considered a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the      
story was being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful         
round arm, altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her        
still more beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond               
necklace. From time to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and        
whenever the story produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna, at      
once adopted just the expression she saw on the maid of honor's             
face, and again relapsed into her radiant smile.                            
  The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Helene.      
  "Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you thinking      
of?" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. "Fetch me my workbag."       
  There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking         
merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in         
her seat.                                                                   
  "Now I am all right," she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she      
took up her work.                                                           
                                                     {BK1|CH3 ^paragraph 15}
  Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle           
and moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.                 
  Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary                 
resemblance to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that          
in spite of this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features          
were like his sister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by      
a joyous, self-satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation,        
and by the wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the          
contrary was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of              
sullen self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes,         
nose, and mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace,         
and his arms and legs always fell into unnatural positions.                 
  "It's not going to be a ghost story?" said he, sitting down beside        
the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this        
instrument he could not begin to speak.                                     
  "Why no, my dear fellow," said the astonished narrator, shrugging         
his shoulders.                                                              
  "Because I hate ghost stories," said Prince Hippolyte in a tone           
which showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he      
had uttered them.                                                           
                                                     {BK1|CH3 ^paragraph 20}
  He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be          
sure whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was             
dressed in a dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of           
cuisse de nymphe effrayee, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.      
  The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then           
current, to the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to          
Paris to visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon          
Bonaparte, who also enjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in         
his presence Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits        
to which he was subject, and was thus at the duc's mercy. The latter        
spared him, and this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by           
death.                                                                      
  The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point        
where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies            
looked agitated.                                                            
  "Charming!" said Anna Pavlovna with an inquiring glance at the            
little princess.                                                            
  "Charming!" whispered the little princess, sticking the needle            
into her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of         
the story prevented her from going on with it.                              
                                                     {BK1|CH3 ^paragraph 25}
  The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully         
prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pavlovna, who had kept a           
watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he           
was talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbe, so she hurried to      
the rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe        
about the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by         
the young man's simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet             
theory. Both were talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally,      
which was why Anna Pavlovna disapproved.                                    
  "The means are... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of        
the people," the abbe was saying. "It is only necessary for one             
powerful nation like Russia- barbaric as she is said to be- to place        
herself disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its           
object the maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would      
save the world!"                                                            
  "But how are you to get that balance?" Pierre was beginning.              
  At that moment Anna Pavlovna came up and, looking severely at             
Pierre, asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The                 
Italian's face instantly changed and assumed an offensively                 
affected, sugary expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing      
with women.                                                                 
  "I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the        
society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have           
had the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think      
of the climate," said he.                                                   
                                                     {BK1|CH3 ^paragraph 30}
  Not letting the abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, the more           
conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the          
larger circle.                                                              
                                                                            
BK1|CH4                                                                     
  CHAPTER IV                                                                
-                                                                           
  Just them another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew         
Bolkonski, the little princess' husband. He was a very handsome             
young man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features.                  
Everything about him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet,        
measured step, offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little        
wife. It was evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing          
room, but had found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look      
at or listen to them. And among all these faces that he found so            
tedious, none seemed to bore him so much as that of his pretty wife.        
He turned away from her with a grimace that distorted his handsome          
face, kissed Anna Pavlovna's hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned         
the whole company.                                                          
  "You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna Pavlovna.                     
  "General Kutuzov," said Bolkonski, speaking French and stressing the      
last syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman, "has been             
pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp...."                                  
  "And Lise, your wife?"                                                    
  "She will go to the country."                                             
                                                      {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  "Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?"                
  "Andre," said his wife, addressing her husband in the same                
coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, "the vicomte has         
been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!"      
  Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who            
from the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with         
glad, affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he            
looked round Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance          
with whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming         
face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.                   
  "There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he to           
Pierre.                                                                     
  "I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to supper        
with you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the          
vicomte who was continuing his story.                                       
                                                     {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  "No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing Pierre's      
hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He wished          
to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasili and his             
daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.          
  "You must excuse me, dear Vicomte," said Prince Vasili to the             
Frenchman, holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent      
his rising. "This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives me          
of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to          
leave your enchanting party," said he, turning to Anna Pavlovna.            
  His daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs, lightly         
holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more           
radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,        
almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.                                  
  "Very lovely," said Prince Andrew.                                        
  "Very," said Pierre.                                                      
                                                     {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna            
Pavlovna: "Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a          
whole month and this is the first time I have seen him in society.          
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever            
women."                                                                     
-                                                                           
  Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew        
his father to be a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly lady who      
had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook              
Prince Vasili in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had      
assumed had left her kindly and tearworn face and it now expressed          
only anxiety and fear.                                                      
  "How about my son Boris, Prince?" said she, hurrying after him            
into the anteroom. "I can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me        
what news I may take back to my poor boy."                                  
  Although Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very politely to      
the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an           
ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might           
not go away.                                                                
                                                     {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  "What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he         
would be transferred to the Guards at once?" said she.                      
  "Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can," answered              
Prince Vasili, "but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I            
should advise you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn.          
That would be the best way."                                                
  The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one of the      
best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of      
society had lost her former influential connections. She had now            
come to Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her          
only son. It was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasili that she had        
obtained an invitation to Anna Pavlovna's reception and had sat             
listening to the vicomte's story. Prince Vasili's words frightened          
her, an embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a      
moment; then she smiled again and dutched Prince Vasili's arm more          
tightly.                                                                    
  "Listen to me, Prince," said she. "I have never yet asked you for         
anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my         
father's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's sake to        
do this for my son- and I shall always regard you as a benefactor,"         
she added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry, but promise! I have asked         
Golitsyn and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always              
were," she said, trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.             
  "Papa, we shall be late," said Princess Helene, turning her               
beautiful head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she      
stood waiting by the door.                                                  
                                                     {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 25}
  Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be               
economized if it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and having            
once realized that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him,          
he would soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using        
his influence. But in Princess Drubetskaya's case he felt, after her        
second appeal, something like qualms of conscience. She had reminded        
him of what was quite true; he had been indebted to her father for the      
first steps in his career. Moreover, he could see by her manners            
that she was one of those women- mostly mothers- who, having once made      
up their minds, will not rest until they have gained their end, and         
are prepared if necessary to go on insisting day after day and hour         
after hour, and even to make scenes. This last consideration moved          
him.                                                                        
  "My dear Anna Mikhaylovna," said he with his usual familiarity and        
weariness of tone, "it is almost impossible for me to do what you ask;      
but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father's             
memory, I will do the impossible- your son shall be transferred to the      
Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?"                          
  "My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you- I knew your        
kindness!" He turned to go.                                                 
  "Wait- just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards..."        
she faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael Ilarionovich              
Kutuzov... recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at           
rest, and then..."                                                          
  Prince Vasili smiled.                                                     
                                                     {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 30}
  "No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutuzov is pestered         
since his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that        
all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as          
adjutants."                                                                 
  "No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear benefactor..."           
  "Papa," said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before,           
"we shall be late."                                                         
  "Well, au revoir! Good-by! You hear her?"                                 
  "Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?"                            
                                                     {BK1|CH4 ^paragraph 35}
  "Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don't promise."                          
  "Do promise, do promise, Vasili!" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he went,      
with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably came        
naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.         
  Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit                
employed all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone      
her face resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She                
returned to the group where the vicomte was still talking, and again        
pretended to listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her      
task was accomplished.                                                      
                                                                            
BK1|CH5                                                                     
  CHAPTER V                                                                 
-                                                                           
  "And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at           
Milan?" asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of Genoa      
and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and            
Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions          
of the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's head whirl! It is      
as if the whole world had gone crazy."                                      
  Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with a            
sarcastic smile.                                                            
  "'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!'* They say he was very          
fine when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in                
Italian: "'Dio mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'"                        
-                                                                           
  *God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!                   
                                                      {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  "I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run        
over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to         
endure this man who is a menace to everything."                             
  "The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte, polite      
but hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis      
XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he              
became more animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward          
of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they           
are sending ambassadors to compliment the usurper."                         
  And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.                  
  Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time        
through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the          
little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Conde      
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much            
gravity as if she had asked him to do it.                                   
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  "Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d' azur- maison Conde," said        
he.                                                                         
  The princess listened, smiling.                                           
  "If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer," the        
vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which        
he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others         
but follows the current of his own thoughts, "things will have gone         
too far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French              
society- I mean good French society- will have been forever destroyed,      
and then..."                                                                
  He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to      
make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna,      
who had him under observation, interrupted:                                 
  "The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which              
always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family,            
"has declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to      
choose their own form of government; and I believe that once free from      
the usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the          
arms of its rightful king," she concluded, trying to be amiable to the      
royalist emigrant.                                                          
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  "That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte quite        
rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it         
will be difficult to return to the old regime."                             
  "From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking into         
the conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to      
Bonaparte's side."                                                          
  "It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte               
without looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to          
know the real state of French public opinion.                               
  "Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic          
smile.                                                                      
  It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his        
remarks at him, though without looking at him.                              
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 20}
  "'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,'"          
Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting                
Napoleon's words. "'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.' I        
do not know how far he was justified in saying so."                         
  "Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of the         
duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some        
people," he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, "he ever was a hero,         
after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and         
one hero less on earth."                                                    
  Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their               
appreciation of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the          
conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would say               
something inappropriate, she was unable 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.          
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 25}
  "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."              
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 30}
  "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 it- equality of citizenship and freedom      
of speech and of the press- and only for that reason did he obtain          
power."                                                                     
  "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.             
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 35}
  "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."                                       
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 40}
  "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 contrary. 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 duc- or even an ordinary man who- is        
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.                                   
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 45}
  "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         
another- a 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 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.                                                         
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 50}
  "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 plague-stricken; 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, Vicomte- I 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.                                                     
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 55}
  "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 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...."                                                                   
                                                     {BK1|CH5 ^paragraph 60}
  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.                                                         
                                                                            
BK1|CH6                                                                     
  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 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.                                                                
                                                      {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  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!"                                                                
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  "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 wrapping 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.                                                               
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  "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 saber; Prince                  
Hippolyte, under pretense of helping, was in everyone's way.                
  "Allow me, sir," said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold,                 
disagreeable tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.            
  "I am expecting you, Pierre," said the same voice, but gently and         
affectionately.                                                             
  The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte      
laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte      
whom he had promised to take home.                                          
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  "Well, mon cher," said the vicomte, having seated himself beside          
Hippolyte in the carriage, "your little princess is very nice, very         
nice indeed, quite French," and he kissed the tips of his fingers.          
Hippolyte burst out laughing.                                               
  "Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,"        
continued the vicomte. "I pity the poor husband, that little officer        
who gives himself the airs of a monarch."                                   
  Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, "And you          
were saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One        
has to know how to deal with them."                                         
-                                                                           
  Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's study like      
one quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa,         
took from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was            
Caesar's Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it          
in the middle.                                                              
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 25}
  "What have you done to Mlle Scherer? She will be quite ill now,"          
said Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white        
hands.                                                                      
  Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his        
eager face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.                    
  "That abbe is very interesting but he does not see the thing in           
the right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but- I        
do not know how to express it... not by a balance of political              
power...."                                                                  
  It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such              
abstract conversation.                                                      
  "One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have you        
at last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a           
diplomatist?" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.                
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 30}
  Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.                
  "Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the             
other."                                                                     
  "But you must decide on something! Your father expects it."               
  Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbe as tutor,      
and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow        
his father dismissed the abbe and said to the young man, "Now go to         
Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to         
anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasili, and here is money.             
Write to me all about it, and I will help you in everything." Pierre        
had already been choosing a career for three months, and had not            
decided on anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was        
speaking. Pierre rubbed his forehead.                                       
  "But he must be a Freemason," said he, referring to the abbe whom he      
had met that evening.                                                       
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 35}
  "That is all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us      
talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?"                          
  "No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted to      
tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for         
freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the          
army; but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in           
the world is not right."                                                    
  Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's childish            
words. He put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to         
such nonsense, but it would in fact have been difficult to give any         
other answer than the one Prince Andrew gave to this naive question.        
  "If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no         
wars," he said.                                                             
  "And that would be splendid," said Pierre.                                
                                                     {BK1|CH6 ^paragraph 40}
  Prince Andrew smiled ironically.                                          
  "Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about..."       
  "Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre.                       
  "What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going..." He           
paused. "I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit        
me!"                                                                        
                                                                            
BK1|CH7                                                                     
  CHAPTER VII                                                               
-                                                                           
  The rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the next room. Prince          
Andrew shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it      
had had in Anna Pavlovna's drawing room. Pierre removed his feet            
from the sofa. The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a         
house dress as fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose           
and politely placed a chair for her.                                        
  "How is it," she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly         
and fussily in the easy chair, "how is it Annette never got married?        
How stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for           
saying so, but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative         
fellow you are, Monsieur Pierre!"                                           
  "And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he      
wants to go to the war," replied Pierre, addressing the princess            
with none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their      
intercourse with young women.                                               
  The princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to the         
quick.                                                                      
  "Ah, that is just what I tell him!" said she. "I don't understand         
it; I don't in the least understand why men can't live without wars.        
How is it that we women don't want anything of the kind, don't need         
it? Now you shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here he is           
Uncle's aide-de-camp, a most brilliant position. He is so well              
known, so much appreciated by everyone. The other day at the                
Apraksins' I heard a lady asking, 'Is that the famous Prince                
Andrew?' I did indeed." She laughed. "He is so well received                
everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp to the Emperor. You         
know the Emperor spoke to him most graciously. Annette and I were           
speaking of how to arrange it. What do you think?"                          
                                                      {BK1|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the        
conversation, gave no reply.                                                
  "When are you starting?" he asked.                                        
  "Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken of,"         
said the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which she had      
spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly            
ill-suited to the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member.        
"Today when I remembered that all these delightful associations must        
be broken off... and then you know, Andre..." (she looked                   
significantly at her husband) "I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she whispered,      
and a shudder ran down her back.                                            
  Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone          
besides Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a          
tone of frigid politeness.                                                  
  "What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand," said he.        
                                                     {BK1|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  "There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a          
whim of his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up      
alone in the country."                                                      
  "With my father and sister, remember," said Prince Andrew gently.         
  "Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to      
be afraid."                                                                 
  Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a         
joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if           
she felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though      
the gist of the matter lay in that.                                         
  "I still can't understand what you are afraid of," said Prince            
Andrew slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.                            
                                                     {BK1|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.      
  "No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have..."            
  "Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier," said Prince Andrew.         
"You had better go."                                                        
  The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip               
quivered. Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about      
the room.                                                                   
  Pierre looked over his spectacles with naive surprise, now at him         
and now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.        
                                                     {BK1|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  "Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?" exclaimed the little      
princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a               
tearful grimace. "I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you            
have changed so to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the        
war and have no pity for me. Why is it?"                                    
  "Lise!" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed an        
entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself         
regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:                                
  "You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you           
behave like that six months ago?"                                           
  "Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince Andrew still more                
emphatically.                                                               
  Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened        
to all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to          
bear the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.                       
                                                     {BK1|CH7 ^paragraph 25}
  "Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because... I assure you      
I myself have experienced... and so... because... No, excuse me! An         
outsider is out of place here... No, don't distress yourself...             
Good-by!"                                                                   
  Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.                                     
  "No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of      
the pleasure of spending the evening with you."                             
  "No, he thinks only of himself," muttered the princess without            
restraining her angry tears.                                                
  "Lise!" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch          
which indicates that patience is exhausted.                                 
                                                     {BK1|CH7 ^paragraph 30}
  Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess' pretty      
face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful         
eyes glanced askance at her husband's face, and her own assumed the         
timid, deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags      
its drooping tail.                                                          
  "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she muttered, and lifting her dress with one        
hand she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.             
  "Good night, Lise," said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand      
as he would have done to a stranger.                                        
                                                                            
BK1|CH8                                                                     
  CHAPTER VIII                                                              
-                                                                           
  The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre           
continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his              
forehead with his small hand.                                               
  "Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to the door.      
  They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining           
room. Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and           
glass bore that imprint of newness found in the households of the           
newly married. Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his              
elbows on the table and, with a look of nervous agitation such as           
Pierre had never before seen on his face, began to talk- as one who         
has long had something on his mind and suddenly determines to speak         
out.                                                                        
  "Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry        
till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable         
of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and          
have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and          
irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing- or        
all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be              
wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise.      
If you marry expecting anything from yourself in the future, you            
will feel at every step that for you all is ended, all is closed            
except the drawing room, where you will be ranged side by side with         
a court lackey and an idiot!... But what's the good?..." and he             
waved his arm.                                                              
  Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different        
and the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at           
his friend in amazement.                                                    
                                                      {BK1|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  "My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman, one of        
those rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God, what          
would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one        
to whom I mention this, because I like you."                                
  As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkonski      
who had lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed          
eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his      
thin face was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in           
which the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with            
brilliant light. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at         
ordinary times, the more impassioned he became in these moments of          
almost morbid irritation.                                                   
  "You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is           
the whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career," said        
he (though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), "but Bonaparte when he      
worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had               
nothing but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself        
up with a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And      
all you have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and                
torments you with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and         
triviality- these are the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I          
am now going to the war, the greatest war there ever was, and I know        
nothing and am fit for nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic        
wit," continued Prince Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen          
to me. And that stupid set without whom my wife cannot exist, and           
those women... If you only knew what those society women are, and           
women in general! My father is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial        
in everything- that's what women are when you see them in their true        
colors! When you meet them in society it seems as if there were             
something in them, but there's nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don't         
marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!" concluded Prince Andrew.               
  "It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should                
consider yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have          
everything before you, everything. And you..."                              
  He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he         
thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.        
                                                     {BK1|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  "How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his            
friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the         
highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which             
might be best described as strength of will. Pierre was always              
astonished at Prince Andrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his        
extraordinary memory, his extensive reading (he had read everything,        
knew everything, and had an opinion about everything), but above all        
at his capacity for work and study. And if Pierre was often struck          
by Andrew's lack of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he      
himself was particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a          
defect but as a sign of strength.                                           
  Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life,           
praise and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary          
to wheels that they may run smoothly.                                       
  "My part is played out," said Prince Andrew. "What's the use of           
talking about me? Let us talk about you," he added after a silence,         
smiling at his reassuring thoughts.                                         
  That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face.                    
  "But what is there to say about me?" said Pierre, his face                
relaxing into a careless, merry smile. "What am I? An illegitimate          
son!" He suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a      
great effort to say this. "Without a name and without means... And          
it really..." But he did not say what "it really" was. "For the             
present I am free and am all right. Only I haven't the least idea what      
I am to do; I wanted to consult you seriously."                             
                                                     {BK1|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance- friendly and          
affectionate as it was- expressed a sense of his own superiority.           
  "I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among           
our whole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all        
the same. You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up              
visiting those Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so      
badly- all this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!"               
  "What would you have, my dear fellow?" answered Pierre, shrugging         
his shoulders. "Women, my dear fellow; women!"                              
  "I don't understand it," replied Prince Andrew. "Women who are comme      
il faut, that's a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of women,         
'women and wine' I don't understand!"                                       
  Pierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kuragin's and sharing the             
dissipated life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to      
reform by marrying him to Prince Andrew's sister.                           
                                                     {BK1|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  "Do you know?" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy              
thought, "seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading            
such a life I can't decide or think properly about anything. One's          
head aches, and one spends all one's money. He asked me for tonight,        
but I won't go."                                                            
  "You give me your word of honor not to go?"                               
  "On my honor!"                                                            
                                                                            
BK1|CH9                                                                     
  CHAPTER IX                                                                
-                                                                           
  It was past one o'clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a             
cloudless, northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending        
to drive straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more        
he felt the impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was         
light enough to see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed         
more like morning or evening than night. On the way Pierre                  
remembered that Anatole Kuragin was expecting the usual set for             
cards that evening, after which there was generally a drinking bout,        
finishing with visits of a kind Pierre was very fond of.                    
  "I should like to go to Kuragin's," thought he.                           
  But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go        
there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so          
passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so                  
accustomed to that he decided to go. The thought immediately                
occurred to him that his promise to Prince Andrew was of no account,        
because before he gave it he had already promised Prince Anatole to         
come to his gathering; "besides," thought he, "all such 'words of           
honor' are conventional things with no definite meaning, especially if      
one considers that by tomorrow one may be dead, or something so             
extraordinary may happen to one that honor and dishonor will be all         
the same!" Pierre often indulged in reflections of this sort,               
nullifying all his decisions and intentions. He went to Kuragin's.          
  Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards' barracks, in which        
Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the               
stairs, and went in at the open door. There was no one in the               
anteroom; empty bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there      
was a smell of alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the            
distance.                                                                   
  Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet                  
dispersed. Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in        
which were the remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw            
him, was drinking on the sly what was left in the glasses. From the         
third room came sounds of laughter, the shouting of familiar voices,        
the growling of a bear, and general commotion. Some eight or nine           
young men were crowding anxiously round an open window. Three others        
were romping with a young bear, one pulling him by the chain and            
trying to set him at the others.                                            
                                                      {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  "I bet a hundred on Stevens!" shouted one.                                
  "Mind, no holding on!" cried another.                                     
  "I bet on Dolokhov!" cried a third. "Kuragin, you part our hands."        
  "There, leave Bruin alone; here's a bet on."                              
  "At one draught, or he loses!" shouted a fourth.                          
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  "Jacob, bring a bottle!" shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow        
who stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine      
linen shirt unfastened in front. "Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here          
is Petya! Good man!" cried he, addressing Pierre.                           
  Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,          
particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober           
ring, cried from the window: "Come here; part the bets!" This was           
Dolokhov, an officer of the Semenov regiment, a notorious gambler           
and duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about      
him merrily.                                                                
  "I don't understand. What's it all about?"                                
  "Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here," said Anatole,           
taking a glass from the table he went up to Pierre.                         
  "First of all you must drink!"                                            
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
  Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows        
at the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and           
listening to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre's glass        
while explaining that Dolokhov was betting with Stevens, an English         
naval officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the           
outer ledge of the third floor window with his legs hanging out.            
  "Go on, you must drink it all," said Anatole, giving Pierre the last      
glass, "or I won't let you go!"                                             
  "No, I won't," said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up to      
the window.                                                                 
  Dolokhov was holding the Englishman's hand and clearly and                
distinctly repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself               
particularly to Anatole and Pierre.                                         
  Dolokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue             
eyes. He was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore          
no mustache, so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face,      
was clearly seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely            
curved. The middle of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed         
firmly on the firm lower one, and something like two distinct smiles        
played continually round the two corners of the mouth; this,                
together with the resolute, insolent intelligence of his eyes,              
produced an effect which made it impossible not to notice his face.         
Dolokhov was a man of small means and no connections. Yet, though           
Anatole spent tens of thousands of rubles, Dolokhov lived with him and      
had placed himself on such a footing that all who knew them, including      
Anatole himself, respected him more than they did Anatole. Dolokhov         
could play all games and nearly always won. However much he drank,          
he never lost his clearheadedness. Both Kuragin and Dolokhov were at        
that time notorious among the rakes and scapegraces of Petersburg.          
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
  The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented           
anyone from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two           
footmen, who were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions      
and shouts of the gentlemen around.                                         
  Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted        
to smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame,        
but could not move it. He smashed a pane.                                   
  "You have a try, Hercules," said he, turning to Pierre.                   
  Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame           
out with a crash.                                                           
  "Take it right out, or they'll think I'm holding on," said Dolokhov.      
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 25}
  "Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?" said Anatole.       
  "First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of      
rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of         
the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.        
  Dolokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the            
window sill. "Listen!" cried he, standing there and addressing those        
in the room. All were silent.                                               
  "I bet fifty imperials"- he spoke French that the Englishman might        
understand him, but he did, not speak it very well- "I bet fifty            
imperials... or do you wish to make it a hundred?" added he,                
addressing the Englishman.                                                  
  "No, fifty," replied the latter.                                          
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 30}
  "All right. Fifty imperials... that I will drink a whole bottle of        
rum without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on          
this spot" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the         
window) "and without holding on to anything. Is that right?"                
  "Quite right," said the Englishman.                                       
  Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the             
buttons of his coat and looking down at him- the Englishman was short-      
began repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.                   
  "Wait!" cried Dolokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window sill      
to attract attention. "Wait a bit, Kuragin. Listen! If anyone else          
does the same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?"      
  The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to      
accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and              
though he kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on          
translating Dolokhov's words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar      
of the Life Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the        
window sill, leaned over, and looked down.                                  
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 35}
  "Oh! Oh! Oh!" he muttered, looking down from the window at the            
stones of the pavement.                                                     
  "Shut up!" cried Dolokhov, pushing him away from the window. The lad      
jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.               
  Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it             
easily, Dolokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and        
lowered his legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he             
adjusted himself on his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the      
right and then to the left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought         
two candles and placed them on the window sill, though it was               
already quite light. Dolokhov's back in his white shirt, and his curly      
head, were lit up from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the      
Englishman in front. Pierre stood smiling but silent. One man, older        
than the others present, suddenly pushed forward with a scared and          
angry look and wanted to seize hold of Dolokhov's shirt.                    
  "I say, this is folly! He'll be killed," said this more sensible          
man.                                                                        
  Anatole stopped him.                                                      
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 40}
  "Don't touch him! You'll startle him and then he'll be killed.            
Eh?... What then?... Eh?"                                                   
  Dolokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands,              
arranged himself on his seat.                                               
  "If anyone comes meddling again," said he, emitting the words             
separately through his thin compressed lips, "I will throw him down         
there. Now then!"                                                           
  Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the            
bottle and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised           
his free hand to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped        
to pick up some broken glass remained in that position without              
taking his eyes from the window and from Dolokhov's back. Anatole           
stood erect with staring eyes. The Englishman looked on sideways,           
pursing up his lips. The man who had wished to stop the affair ran          
to a corner of the room and threw himself on a sofa with his face to        
the wall. Pierre hid his face, from which a faint smile forgot to fade      
though his features now expressed horror and fear. All were still.          
Pierre took his hands from his eyes. Dolokhov still sat in the same         
position, only his head was thrown further back till his curly hair         
touched his shirt collar, and the hand holding the bottle was lifted        
higher and higher and trembled with the effort. The bottle was              
emptying perceptibly and rising still higher and his head tilting           
yet further back. "Why is it so long?" thought Pierre. It seemed to         
him that more than half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly Dolokhov made         
a backward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously;         
this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the        
sloping ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and arm wavered          
still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the              
window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered           
his eyes and thought he would never never them again. Suddenly he           
was aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dolokhov was standing on      
the window sill, with a pale but radiant face.                              
  "It's empty."                                                             
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 45}
  He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly.              
Dolokhov jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.                             
  "Well done!... Fine fellow!... There's a bet for you!... Devil            
take you!" came from different sides.                                       
  The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the              
money. Dolokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon        
the window sill.                                                            
  "Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I'll do the same thing!" he        
suddenly cried. "Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a         
bottle. I'll do it.... Bring a bottle!"                                     
  "Let him do it, let him do it," said Dolokhov, smiling.                   
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 50}
  "What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why,           
you go giddy even on a staircase," exclaimed several voices.                
  "I'll drink it! Let's have a bottle of rum!" shouted Pierre, banging      
the table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to climb      
out of the window.                                                          
  They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone           
who touched him was sent flying.                                            
  "No, you'll never manage him that way," said Anatole. "Wait a bit         
and I'll get round him.... Listen! I'll take your bet tomorrow, but         
now we are all going to -'s."                                               
  "Come on then," cried Pierre. "Come on!... And we'll take Bruin with      
us."                                                                        
                                                     {BK1|CH9 ^paragraph 55}
  And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the           
ground, and began dancing round the room with it.                           
                                                                            
BK1|CH10                                                                    
  CHAPTER X                                                                 
-                                                                           
  Prince Vasili kept the promise he had given to Princess                   
Drubetskaya who had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Boris on        
the evening of Anna Pavlovna's soiree. The matter was mentioned to the      
Emperor, an exception made, and Boris transferred into the regiment of      
Semenov Guards with the rank of cornet. He received, however, no            
appointment to Kutuzov's staff despite all Anna Mikhaylovna's               
endeavors and entreaties. Soon after Anna Pavlovna's reception Anna         
Mikhaylovna returned to Moscow and went straight to her rich                
relations, the Rostovs, with whom she stayed when in the town and           
where and where her darling Bory, who had only just entered a regiment      
of the line and was being at once transferred to the Guards as a            
cornet, had been educated from childhood and lived for years at a           
time. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August,        
and her son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was to join      
them on the march to Radzivilov.                                            
  It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostovs- the      
mother and the youngest daughter- both named Nataly. Ever since the         
morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going                
continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova's big house          
on the Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself        
and her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing-room with the          
visitors who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one         
another in relays.                                                          
  The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental        
type of face, evidently worn out with childbearing- she had had             
twelve. A languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness,            
gave her a distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna          
Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya, who as a member of the household was also          
seated in the drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the             
visitors. The young people were in one of the inner rooms, not              
considering it necessary to take part in receiving the visitors. The        
count met the guests and saw them off, inviting them all to dinner.         
  "I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher," or "ma chere"- he            
called everyone without exception and without the slightest                 
variation in his tone, "my dear," whether they were above or below him      
in rank- "I thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose            
name day we are keeping. But mind you come to dinner or I shall be          
offended, ma chere! On behalf of the whole family I beg you to come,        
mon cher!" These words he repeated to everyone without exception or         
variation, and with the same expression on his full, cheerful,              
clean-shaven face, the same firm pressure of the hand and the same          
quick, repeated bows. As soon as he had seen a visitor off he returned      
to one of those who were still in the drawing room, drew a chair            
toward him or her, and jauntily spreading out his legs and putting his      
hands on his knees with the air of a man who enjoys life and knows how      
to live, he swayed to and fro with dignity, offered surmises about the      
weather, or touched on questions of health, sometimes in Russian and        
sometimes in very bad but self-confident French; then again, like a         
man weary but unflinching in the fulfillment of duty, he rose to see        
some visitors off and, stroking his scanty gray hairs over his bald         
patch, also asked them to dinner. Sometimes on his way back from the        
anteroom he would pass through the conservatory and pantry into the         
large marble dining hall, where tables were being set out for eighty        
people; and looking at the footmen, who were bringing in silver and         
china, moving tables, and unfolding damask table linen, he would            
call Dmitri Vasilevich, a man of good family and the manager of all         
his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the enormous table          
would say: "Well, Dmitri, you'll see that things are all as they            
should be? That's right! The great thing is the serving, that's it."        
And with a complacent sigh he would return to the drawing room.             
  "Marya Lvovna Karagina and her daughter!" announced the countess'         
gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing room. The          
countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold snuffbox with      
her husband's portrait on it.                                               
                                                     {BK1|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  "I'm quite worn out by these callers. However, I'll see her and no        
more. She is so affected. Ask her in," she said to the footman in a         
sad voice, as if saying: "Very well, finish me off."                        
  A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling        
daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.                 
  "Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child...        
at the Razumovski's ball... and Countess Apraksina... I was so              
delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices,                  
interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and      
the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which         
last out until, at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of        
dresses and say, "I am so delighted... Mamma's health... and                
Countess Apraksina... and then, again rustling, pass into the               
anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles, and drive away. The conversation        
was on the chief topic of the day: the illness of the wealthy and           
celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count Bezukhov, and about his           
illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved so improperly at Anna      
Pavlovna's reception.                                                       
  "I am so sorry for the poor count," said the visitor. "He is in such      
bad health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill           
him!"                                                                       
  "What is that?" asked the countess as if she did not know what the        
visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of         
Count Bezukhov's distress some fifteen times.                               
                                                    {BK1|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  "That's what comes of a modern education," exclaimed the visitor.         
"It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as      
he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible          
things that he has been expelled by the police."                            
  "You don't say so!" replied the countess.                                 
  "He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Prince        
Vasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up          
to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it.              
Dolokhov has been degraded to the ranks and Bezukhov's son sent back        
to Moscow. Anatole Kuragin's father managed somehow to get his son's        
affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg."               
  "But what have they been up to?" asked the countess.                      
  "They are regular brigands, especially Dolokhov," replied the             
visitor. "He is a son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhova, such a worthy            
woman, but there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear                
somewhere, put it in a carriage, and set off with it to visit some          
actresses! The police tried to interfere, and what did the young men        
do? They tied a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear        
into the Moyka Canal. And there was the bear swimming about with the        
policeman on his back!"                                                     
                                                    {BK1|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  "What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!" shouted        
the count, dying with laughter.                                             
  "Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?"                       
  Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.                        
  "It was all they could do to rescue the poor man," continued the          
visitor. "And to think it is Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's son who         
amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so            
well educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has        
done for him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in        
spite of his money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite         
declined: I have my daughters to consider."                                 
  "Why do you say this young man is so rich?" asked the countess,           
turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of                  
inattention. "His children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also        
is illegitimate."                                                           
                                                    {BK1|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  The visitor made a gesture with her hand.                                 
  "I should think he has a score of them."                                  
  Princess Anna Mikhaylovna intervened in the conversation,                 
evidently wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went        
on in society.                                                              
  "The fact of the matter is," said she significantly, and also in a        
half whisper, "everyone knows Count Cyril's reputation.... He has lost      
count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite."                   
  "How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!" remarked the        
countess. "I have never seen a handsomer man."                              
                                                    {BK1|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  "He is very much altered now," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "Well, as I         
was saying, Prince Vasili is the next heir through his wife, but the        
count is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to      
the Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death- and he is          
so ill that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from         
Petersburg- no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune,              
Pierre or Prince Vasili. Forty thousand serfs and millions of               
rubles! I know it all very well for Prince Vasili told me himself.          
Besides, Cyril Vladimirovich is my mother's second cousin. He's also        
my Bory's godfather," she added, as if she attached no importance at        
all to the fact.                                                            
  "Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on         
some inspection business," remarked the visitor.                            
  "Yes, but between ourselves," said the princess, that is a                
pretext. The fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich,          
hearing how ill he is."                                                     
  "But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke," said the count;      
and seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to           
the young ladies. "I can just imagine what a funny figure that              
policeman cut!"                                                             
  And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly         
form again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who            
always eats well and, in particular, drinks well. "So do come and dine      
with us!" he said.                                                          
                                                                            
BK1|CH11                                                                    
  CHAPTER XI                                                                
-                                                                           
  Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably,      
but not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they        
now rose and took their leave. The visitor's daughter was already           
smoothing down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when         
suddenly from the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls      
running to the door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a            
girl of thirteen, hiding something in the folds of her short muslin         
frock, darted in and stopped short in the middle of the room. It was        
evident that she had not intended her flight to bring her so far.           
Behind her in the doorway appeared a student with a crimson coat            
collar, an officer of the Guards, a girl of fifteen, and a plump            
rosy-faced boy in a short jacket.                                           
  The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his            
arms wide and threw them round the little girl who had run in.              
  "Ah, here she is!" he exclaimed laughing. "My pet, whose name day it      
is. My dear pet!"                                                           
  "Ma chere, there is a time for everything," said the countess with        
feigned severity. "You spoil her, Ilya," she added, turning to her          
husband.                                                                    
  "How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your            
name day," said the visitor. "What a charming child," she added,            
addressing the mother.                                                      
                                                     {BK1|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life-          
with childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook           
her bodice, with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little        
legs in lace-frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers- was just at         
that charming age when a girl is no longer a child, though the child        
is not yet a young woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her      
flushed face in the lace of her mother's mantilla- not paying the           
least attention to her severe remark- and began to laugh. She laughed,      
and in fragmentary sentences tried to explain about a doll which she        
produced from the folds of her frock.                                       
  "Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see..." was all Natasha            
managed to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned               
against her mother and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter      
that even the prim visitor could not help joining in.                       
  "Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you," said the          
mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and             
turning to the visitor she added: "She is my youngest girl."                
  Natasha, raising her face for a moment from her mother's mantilla,        
glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.        
  The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it        
necessary to take some part in it.                                          
                                                    {BK1|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  "Tell me, my dear," said she to Natasha, "is Mimi a relation of           
yours? A daughter, I suppose?"                                              
  Natasha did not like the visitor's tone of condescension to childish      
things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.                     
  Meanwhile the younger generation: Boris, the officer, Anna                
Mikhaylovna's son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count's eldest          
son; Sonya, the count's fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya,           
his youngest boy, had all settled down in the drawing room and were         
obviously trying to restrain within the bounds of decorum the               
excitement and mirth that shone in all their faces. Evidently in the        
back rooms, from which they had dashed out so impetuously, the              
conversation had been more amusing than the drawing-room talk of            
society scandals, the weather, and Countess Apraksina. Now and then         
they glanced at one another, hardly able to suppress their laughter.        
  The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from              
childhood, were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though           
not alike. Boris was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had      
regular, delicate features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and          
an open expression. Dark hairs were already showing on his upper            
lip, and his whole face expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas      
blushed when he entered the drawing room. He evidently tried to find        
something to say, but failed. Boris on the contrary at once found           
his footing, and related quietly and humorously how he had know that        
doll Mimi when she was still quite a young lady, before her nose was        
broken; how she had aged during the five years he had known her, and        
how her head had cracked right across the skull. Having said this he        
glanced at Natasha. She turned away from him and glanced at her             
younger brother, who was screwing up his eyes and shaking with              
suppressed laughter, and unable to control herself any longer, she          
jumped up and rushed from the room as fast as her nimble little feet        
would carry her. Boris did not laugh.                                       
  "You were meaning to go out, weren't you, Mamma? Do you want the          
carriage?" he asked his mother with a smile.                                
                                                    {BK1|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  "Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready," she answered,               
returning his smile.                                                        
  Boris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. The plump      
boy ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been         
disturbed.                                                                  
                                                                            
BK1|CH12                                                                    
  CHAPTER XII                                                               
-                                                                           
  The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting         
the young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four      
years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up             
person), were Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender            
little brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by         
long lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a         
tawny tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her             
slender but graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her        
movements, by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and          
by a certain coyness and reserve of manner, she reminded one of a           
pretty, half-grown kitten which promises to become a beautiful              
little cat. She evidently considered it proper to show an interest          
in the general conversation by smiling, but in spite of herself her         
eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who was going to      
join the army, with such passionate girlish adoration that her smile        
could not for a single instant impose upon anyone, and it was clear         
that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more energy         
and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like Natasha      
and Boris, escape from the drawing room.                                    
  "Ah yes, my dear," said the count, addressing the visitor and             
pointing to Nicholas, "his friend Boris has become an officer, and          
so for friendship's sake he is leaving the university and me, his           
old father, and entering the military service, my dear. And there           
was a place and everything waiting for him in the Archives Department!      
Isn't that friendship?" remarked the count in an inquiring tone.            
  "But they say that war has been declared," replied the visitor.           
  "They've been saying so a long while," said the count, "and               
they'll say so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My          
dear, there's friendship for you," he repeated. "He's joining the           
hussars."                                                                   
  The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.                     
                                                     {BK1|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  "It's not at all from friendship," declared Nicholas, flaring up and      
turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. "It is not from               
friendship at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation."             
  He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were        
both regarding him with a smile of approbation.                             
  "Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars, is dining with us        
today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.      
It can't be helped!" said the count, shrugging his shoulders and            
speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.               
  "I have already told you, Papa," said his son, "that if you don't         
wish to let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except        
in the army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.- I don't            
know how to hide what I feel." As he spoke he kept glancing with the        
flirtatiousness of a handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady             
visitor.                                                                    
  The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any          
moment to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.         
                                                    {BK1|CH12 ^paragraph 10}
  "All right, all right!" said the old count. "He always flares up!         
This Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he        
rose from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it,"          
he added, not noticing his visitor's sarcastic smile.                       
  The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karagina turned to        
young Rostov.                                                               
  "What a pity you weren't at the Arkharovs' on Thursday. It was so         
dull without you," said she, giving him a tender smile.                     
  The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish        
smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation         
without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the          
heart of Sonya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of         
his talk he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry         
glance, and hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the              
artificial smile on her lips, she got up and left the room. All             
Nicholas' animation vanished. He waited for the first pause in the          
conversation, and then with a distressed face left the room to find         
Sonya.                                                                      
  "How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their            
sleeves!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went            
out. "Cousinage- dangereux voisinage;"* she added.                          
                                                    {BK1|CH12 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  *Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.                                  
-                                                                           
  "Yes," said the countess when the brightness these young people           
had brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question      
no one had put but which was always in her mind, "and how much              
suffering, how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might         
rejoice in them now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than         
the joy. One is always, always anxious! Especially just at this age,        
so dangerous both for girls and boys."                                      
  "It all depends on the bringing up," remarked the visitor.                
                                                    {BK1|CH12 ^paragraph 20}
  "Yes, you're quite right," continued the countess. "Till now I            
have always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full        
confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who         
imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall      
always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with        
his impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he      
will all the same never be like those Petersburg young men."                
  "Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the              
count, who always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by         
deciding that everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an          
hussar. What's one to do, my dear?"                                         
  "What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor;        
"a little volcano!"                                                         
  "Yes, a regular volcano," said the count. "Takes after me! And            
what a voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth            
when I say she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an        
Italian to give her lessons."                                               
  "Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to             
train it at that age."                                                      
                                                    {BK1|CH12 ^paragraph 25}
  "Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "Why, our               
mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen."                          
  "And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!" said the              
countess with a gentle smile, looking at Boris' and went on, evidently      
concerned with a thought that always occupied her: "Now you see if I        
were to be severe with her and to forbid it... goodness knows what          
they might be up to on the sly" (she meant that they would be               
kissing), "but as it is, I know every word she utters. She will come        
running to me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything.      
Perhaps I spoil her, but really that seems the best plan. With her          
elder sister I was stricter."                                               
  "Yes, I was brought up quite differently," remarked the handsome          
elder daughter, Countess Vera, with a smile.                                
  But the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally           
do; on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore                 
unpleasant, expression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid,           
quick at learning, was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what      
she said was true and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone-           
the visitors and countess alike- turned to look at her as if wondering      
why she had said it, and they all felt awkward.                             
  "People are always too clever with their eldest children and try          
to make something exceptional of them," said the visitor.                   
                                                    {BK1|CH12 ^paragraph 30}
  "What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too        
clever with Vera," said the count. "Well, what of that? She's turned        
out splendidly all the same," he added, winking at Vera.                    
  The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to            
dinner.                                                                     
  "What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess,         
when she had seen her guests out.                                           
                                                                            
BK1|CH13                                                                    
  CHAPTER XIII                                                              
-                                                                           
  When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the      
conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation      
in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already         
growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not            
coming at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps               
approaching neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly      
among the flower tubs and hid there.                                        
  Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a           
little dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror        
examined his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her        
ambush, waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while            
before the glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha         
was about to call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me,"          
thought she. Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears,           
and muttering angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked           
her first impulse to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place,      
watching- as under an invisible cap- to see what went on in the world.      
She was experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering          
to herself, kept looking round toward the drawing-room door. It opened      
and Nicholas came in.                                                       
  "Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he,               
running up to her.                                                          
  "It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya.                    
  "Ah, I know what it is."                                                  
                                                     {BK1|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  "Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"        
  "So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like           
that, for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.                     
  Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not             
stirring and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with               
sparkling eyes. "What will happen now?" thought she.                        
  "Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are                  
everything!" said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."                   
  "I don't like you to talk like that."                                     
                                                    {BK1|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  "Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him         
and kissed her.                                                             
  "Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had          
gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.          
  "Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I          
have something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the           
conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.         
  Boris followed her, smiling.                                              
  "What is the something?" asked he.                                        
                                                    {BK1|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had            
thrown down on one of the tubs, picked it up.                               
  "Kiss the doll," said she.                                                
  Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not        
reply.                                                                      
  "Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went            
further in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!"      
she whispered.                                                              
  She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity        
and fear appeared on her flushed face.                                      
                                                    {BK1|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  "And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly,      
glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying         
from excitement.                                                            
  Boris blushed.                                                            
  "How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still      
more, but he waited and did nothing.                                        
  Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him      
so that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and,         
tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.                         
  Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of           
the tubs and stood, hanging her head.                                       
                                                    {BK1|CH13 ^paragraph 25}
  "Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but..."                    
  "You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in.                              
  "Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four      
years... then I will ask for your hand."                                    
  Natasha considered.                                                       
  "Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender        
little fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?"                             
                                                    {BK1|CH13 ^paragraph 30}
  A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.                    
  "Settled!" replied Boris.                                                 
  "Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?"                     
  She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the             
adjoining sitting room.                                                     
                                                                            
BK1|CH14                                                                    
  CHAPTER XIV                                                               
-                                                                           
  After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she          
gave orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to         
invite to dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished        
to have a tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood,                
Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she         
returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but          
pleasant face, drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.               
  "With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "There           
are not many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your             
friendship."                                                                
  Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her      
friend's hand.                                                              
  "Vera," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a           
favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are         
not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or..."                              
  The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all           
hurt.                                                                       
                                                     {BK1|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  "If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied        
as she rose to go to her own room.                                          
  But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples                
sitting, one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully.        
Sonya was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses         
for her, the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at           
the other window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and            
Natasha looked at Vera with guilty, happy faces.                            
  It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love;           
but apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.        
  "How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You        
have a room of your own," and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.          
  "In a minute, in a minute," he said, dipping his pen.                     
                                                    {BK1|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  "You always manage to do things at the wrong time," continued             
Vera. "You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt         
ashamed of you."                                                            
  Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no      
one replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered        
in the room with the inkstand in her hand.                                  
  "And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and            
Boris, or between you two? It's all nonsense!"                              
  "Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?" said Natasha in defense,         
speaking very gently.                                                       
  She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to         
everyone.                                                                   
                                                    {BK1|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  "Very silly," said Vera. "I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!"           
  "All have secrets of their own," answered Natasha, getting warmer.        
"We don't interfere with you and Berg."                                     
  "I should think not," said Vera, "because there can never be              
anything wrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are         
behaving with Boris."                                                       
  "Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me," remarked Boris. "I have      
nothing to complain of."                                                    
