My poor husband is enduring travail and hunger in horrible Jewish taverns, but the news that I have only enthuses me even more.
You have doubtless heard of the heroic action of Rayevsky, who has embraced his two sons and said, 'I shall die at their side, but we shall not yield!' And although the enemy was twice as strong, indeed we did not yield. We pass the time here as best we can, but in war, as in war! Princess Alina and Sophie spend entire days with me, and we, the unhappy widows of living husbands, have delightful conversations while we make lint. We want only for you, my darling . . .
and so on.
But the main reason why Princess Marya could make nothing of the war was that the old prince never mentioned it, refused to acknowledge its existence, and laughed in Dessalles' face when he brought the subject up over dinner. The prince spoke with such easy assurance that Princess Marya suspended judgement and believed what he said.
Throughout the whole of July the old prince was unusually energetic, even vivacious. He laid out another new garden and began a new building for the servants. The only thing that worried Princess Marya was that he slept badly. He had given up his habit of sleeping in his study and now slept in a different place every night. First he would have his camp-bed set up in the gallery, then he would use the sofa or a high-backed armchair in the drawing-room, dozing the hours away while young Petrushka acted as a replacement for Mademoiselle Bourienne and read to him. After that he would try a night in the dining-room.
On the 1st of August a second letter came from Prince Andrey. The first one, received soon after his departure, had contained an abject apology from Prince Andrey for having spoken out of turn, and a request to be restored to favour. The old prince had responded in terms of affection, and from then on he had kept away from the Frenchwoman. Prince Andrey's second letter came from just outside Vitebsk, after it had fallen to the French, and it consisted of a brief account of the whole campaign, including a sketch-map by way of illustration, and some speculation on the future course of the campaign. In this letter Prince Andrey pointed out to his father the awkwardness of his situation at Bald Hills close to the theatre of war, in the direct line of the enemy's advance, and advised him to move to Moscow.
At dinner that evening, when Dessalles said he had heard that the French had taken Vitebsk, the old prince remembered Prince Andrey's letter.
'I've heard from Prince Andrey today,' he said to Princess Marya. 'Have you read the letter?'
'No, Father,' the princess answered diffidently. There was no possibility that she could have read the letter; this was the first she had heard of it.
'He writes about this war,' said the prince, with the sneering smirk that had become second nature to him nowadays when speaking about the war.
'Very interesting, I'm sure,' said Dessalles. 'Prince Andrey is in a position to know . . .'
'Oh yes, very interesting!' put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.
'Go and get it,' said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne. 'You know where it is, on that little table under the paperweight.' Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.
'No, wait,' he called out with a scowl. 'You go, Mikhail Ivanych!'
Mikhail Ivanych got to his feet and set off for the study. But he was scarcely out of the room when the old prince glanced round edgily, threw down his napkin and walked out himself, muttering, 'Can't trust them to do anything. Always get things wrong.'
As he went out, Princess Marya, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne and even little Nikolay exchanged glances, though no one said a word. Back came the old prince, bustling in with Mikhail Ivanych. He put the letter and the plan down at his side, but dinner passed without him handing it to anyone to read.
It was only when they had gone through into the drawing-room that he handed the letter to Princess Marya, then he unfolded the plan of his new buildings in front of himself, stared down at it and told her to read the letter out loud. When she had done so, Princess Marya looked quizzically at her father. He was still staring down at the plan, apparently in a world of his own.
'What do you make of it, Prince?' Dessalles ventured to inquire.
'Make of it? What do I make of it?' said the old prince, as if shocked into listening, his eyes still riveted on the building-plan.
'It is very possible that the theatre of war may move in our direction . . .'
'Ha-ha-ha! The theatre of war!' said the old prince. 'I've told you before, and I tell you again - the theatre of war is Poland, and the enemy will never get beyond the Niemen.' Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was going on about the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper.2 But Princess Marya could not remember where the Niemen was geographically so she assumed that what her father had said was true.
'When the snow thaws they'll drown in the marshes of Poland. They're the only ones who can't see it,' said the old prince, clearly harking back to the 1807 campaign, which seemed like yesterday to him. 'Bennigsen should have gone into Prussia before that, then things would have taken a different turn . . .'
'But, Prince,' Dessalles ventured, 'the letter mentions Vitebsk . . .'
'Oh, the letter. Yes . . .' said the prince, with some irritation. 'Yes . . . yes . . .' His face went all gloomy. He paused. 'Yes, he says the French have been beaten at, er, what river was it?'
Dessalles looked down.
'The prince doesn't say anything about that,' he said gently.
'He doesn't what? Well, I didn't invent it, that's for sure.'
There was a long silence.
'Yes . . . yes . . . Well then, Mikhail Ivanych,' he snapped, looking up suddenly and pointing to the building-plan, 'tell me how you're going to change this . . .'
Mikhail Ivanych went over to the drawing. The old prince had a few words with him about the new building, then he glared at Princess Marya and Dessalles and walked off to his room.
Princess Marya could see shock and embarrassment written all over Dessalles' face as he watched her father go. She noted his silence and was struck by the fact that her father had left his son's letter behind on the drawing-room table. But she could not bring herself to speak, to ask Dessalles what lay behind his embarrassed silence; she could not even think about it.
That evening Mikhail Ivanych was sent by the prince to Princess Marya to ask for the letter left behind in the drawing-room. Princess Marya handed it over, and with extreme reluctance she ventured to ask what her father was doing.
'Still very busy,' said Mikhail Ivanych with a mixture of politeness and irony in a smile that drained the colour from her face. 'He's very worried about the new building. He did a bit of reading, but now . . .' - Mikhail Ivanych lowered his voice - 'he's at his bureau, going through his will, I imagine.' (In recent days one of the old prince's favourite occupations had been going through the papers he wanted to leave behind at his death, a collection that he called his 'will'.) 'And is Alpatych being sent to Smolensk?' asked Princess Marya. 'Oh yes. He's been waiting for ages.'
CHAPTER 3
When Mikhail Ivanych came back to the study with the letter the old prince was sitting at the open bureau wearing his spectacles and an eye-shade, holding a fistful of papers at arm's length and reading them in the light of a shaded candle. His pose was one of high seriousness: these papers, which he called his 'remarks', were to be delivered to the Tsar after his death.
When Mikhail Ivanych came in there were tears in the prince's eyes as he remembered writing what he was now reading. He took the letter from Mikhail Ivanych, stowed it in his pocket, folded up his papers and called to Alpatych, who had been waiting by the door for some time.
He had written down on a piece of paper a list of things he wanted from Smolensk, and now he began pacing the floor as he issued instructions to the ever-patient Alpatych, still standing by the door.
'First, writing paper - d'ye hear? Eight quires of this quality, gilt-edged . . . Take this sample. Make sure you get the right kind. Some varnish, sealing-wax - it's all on Mikhail Ivanych's
list.'
He took a few more paces and consulted his memorandum.
'Then go to the governor and give him the letter about the deed, in person.'
Then bolts were needed for the doors of the new building, and they had to be of a special kind designed by the old prince himself. Then a strongly bound box had to be ordered to keep his will in.
By now the issuing of instructions to Alpatych had taken more than two hours, but still the prince wouldn't let him go. He sat down, deep in thought, then his eyes closed and he was off into a doze. Alpatych shifted position.
'Well, go on then, off you go,' said the prince. 'If there's anything else, I'll send a message.'
Alpatych went out. The prince went back to the bureau, glanced inside, riffled through his papers, closed the top and sat down at the table to write to the governor.
It was late by the time he got to his feet with the letter written and sealed. He felt tired, but he knew he would never get to sleep: it was in bed that nasty thoughts came to him. He called Tikhon and went through the rooms with him, to let him know where to make up his bed for tonight. He prowled around, assessing the merits of every corner.
Nowhere suited him, but the worst place of all was his usual couch in the study. That couch filled him with dread, probably because of the horrible thoughts he had had, lying on it. Nowhere was quite right, but the best spot was a little corner in the sitting-room behind the piano, a place he hadn't yet slept in.
With the help of a footman Tikhon brought all the things in and began to make up the bed.
'No, no, not like that!' cried the old prince. With his own hands he eased the bed a fraction away from the corner, and then back again.
'Well, at last, I've done everything that can be done. Now I shall get some rest,' thought the prince, and he let Tikhon undress him.
Frowning with annoyance at the effort involved in taking off his coat and trousers, the prince undressed, flopped down on his bed and was soon, to all intents and purposes, lost in thought, as he stared down with disgust at his desiccated yellow legs. In fact he wasn't thinking at all, he was just gathering himself for the enormous effort of lifting his legs up and rolling over on the bed. 'Ugh, it's so hard! Ugh, I'll be glad when this struggle is over. If only you would let me go!' he kept thinking. Tightening his lips, he made that effort for the twentieth time, and there he was, lying down. But hardly had he managed this when the bed started moving gently backwards and forwards beneath him, as though it was breathing by itself, rocking and knocking. This happened nearly every night. His eyes had been steadily closing; now they were open.
'Leave me alone, damn you!' he growled, raging against some unknown presence. 'Ye-es, there was something important, something very important . . . I saved it up to think about in bed. Was it the bolts? No, I got that off my chest. No, there was something else, something in the drawing-room . . . Princess Marya said something stupid. Dessalles was going on about it, blithering idiot . . . Something in my pocket . . . Oh, I can't remember.'
'Tishka! What did we talk about over dinner?'
'Prince Andrey, Mikhail Ivanych . . .'
'Shut your mouth.' The prince slapped his hand down on the table. 'Yes, I've got it, Prince Andrey's letter. Princess Marya read it out. Dessalles was going on about Vitebsk. I'll read it now.'
He told Tikhon to get the letter out of his pocket and push the little table with the lemonade and the spiral wax candle on it a bit nearer the bed. Then he put his glasses on and started reading. Only now, in the still of the night, as he went through the letter under the pale glow emanating from the green shade, did he get a momentary glimpse of its meaning.
'The French are at Vitebsk, and that could mean four days from Smolensk. Maybe they're already there . . .'
'Tishka!'
Tikhon leapt up.
'No, no, it doesn't matter!' he cried.
He tucked the letter away under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And in his mind's eye there it was again - the Danube, high noon, reeds, the Russian camp, and him a young general without a line on his face, a merry, dashing, ruddy-faced figure, striding into Potyomkin's gaily coloured tent. Again he burns with envy of this highly favoured man, and it hurts as much as it did at the time. And he goes through every word uttered at that first interview with Potyomkin. Then another vision - a dumpy woman, yellowing and jowly, the Dowager Empress, her smiles, all that she said at her first gracious reception of him. And then her face as she lay on the catafalque, and the clash with Zubov over her coffin for the right to go and kiss her hand.
'Oh, hurry me away, back to that time. Hurry me out of here and now, so I can be left in peace!'
CHAPTER 4
Bald Hills, the estate of Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky, was situated forty miles east of Smolensk, and a couple of miles off the Moscow road.
On the evening of the day when the old prince had taken so long to give Alpatych his instructions Dessalles asked if he could have a word with Princess Marya, and told her that since the prince was not quite himself and wasn't taking any precautions to guarantee his own safety, even though Prince Andrey's letter had made it clear that staying on at Bald Hills would not be without risk, he respectfully advised her to write on her own account, and send a letter via Alpatych to the provincial governor in Smolensk, asking for a statement of how things stood and the degree of risk they were running at Bald Hills. Dessalles had written the letter to the governor and Princess Marya had signed it; now it was handed to Alpatych, who was told to give it to the governor and come back as soon as possible if there was danger.
When he had received all his commissions, Alpatych put on his white beaver hat (a present from the prince), took his stick, just like the prince, walked out to be seen off by the servants, and got into the leather gig harnessed to three sleek roans.
The big bell was tied up and the little ones had been muffled with paper. The prince didn't allow them to drive with bells at Bald Hills, though out on the road Alpatych loved to hear them all jingling. Alpatych was like a king with his courtiers: there to see him off were the land-office clerk, a scullery maid and a cook, two old women, a boy servant dressed like a Cossack, several coachmen and one or two other servants.
His daughter was busy stuffing chintz-covered feather cushions down behind his back and under his bottom. His old sister-in-law slipped a little bundle in on the sly. One of the coachmen helped him in.
'All these women making a fuss! Women, women!' said Alpatych, babbling his words just like the old prince, as he got into the little trap. Dropping his imitation of the prince, he gave the clerk some final instructions about work, then raised his hat over a bald pate and crossed himself three times.
'If anything happens . . . you come back, Yakov Alpatych. In the name of Jesus, spare a thought for us,' called his wife with an ear to the rumours of war and the enemy.
'Women, women, all this fuss!' Alpatych muttered to himself as he drove off, glancing round at the fields. He could see the rye turning yellow, thick oats that were still green, and black stretches where the second ploughing was only just under way. Alpatych drove on, admiring the corn crop that had turned out so well this year, scanning the rye fields, some of which were already being reaped, and thinking all the time like a true manager about sowing and reaping, and whether he might have forgotten any of the prince's instructions. He stopped twice to feed the horses, and got to town in the late afternoon of the 4th of August.
On the way Alpatych had encountered and overtaken wagons and troops, and as he drove into Smolensk he could hear gunfire in the distance, though it didn't worry him. What did worry him more than anything was that just outside Smolensk he had seen a splendid field of oats being mown down by some soldiers apparently for fodder, and they had pitched camp in the middle of it. This really worried him, but he soon forgot it when his mind went back to his own business.
All the interests in Alpatych's life had been bounded by the will of the prince for over thirty years, and he had neve
r strayed beyond those bounds. As far as Alpatych was concerned anything not connected with carrying out the prince's orders was of no interest, in fact it didn't exist.
Arriving in Smolensk, then, on the evening of the 4th of August, Alpatych stayed where he had made a habit of staying for the last thirty years, at an inn kept by Ferapontov on the other side of the Dnieper in the suburb of Gachina. Twelve years before, Ferapontov, tipped off by Alpatych, had bought some woodland from the old prince and gone into trade; by now he owned a house, an inn and a corn-merchant's shop all in the same province. Ferapontov was a portly, dark, red-faced forty-year-old peasant with thick lips, a big knobbly nose, a knobbly forehead overlooking bunchy black brows, and a round belly.
He was standing there in a cotton shirt and waistcoat outside his shop, which opened on to the street. As soon as he saw Alpatych he came forward to meet him.
'You're very welcome, Yakov Alpatych. Folks is leaving town, and'ere you are comin' in,' he said.
'What do you mean leaving town?' said Alpatych.
'Yes, I'm tellin' you - folks is stupid. Dead scared o' the French.'
'Women's talk, women's talk!' replied Alpatych.
'I'm with you there, Yakov Alpatych. What I say is - there's orders not to let him through - so they won't. But the peasants is charging three roubles for a horse and cart. No conscience!'
Yakov Alpatych was only half-listening. He ordered a samovar, and hay for the horses, then he drank some tea and lay down to sleep.