your children?'
'They'll be all right, sir. We can get along with masters like you.'
'Yes, but what about my heirs?' said Pierre. 'I might go and get married . . . It could happen, you know,' he added, with an involuntary smile.
'And a good thing too, your Excellency, if I may say so.'
'He thinks it's as easy as that,' thought Pierre. 'He's no idea how awful it is, and how dangerous. Is it too late? Or is it too soon? . . . It's such an awful business!'
'What are your orders? Will you be going tomorrow, sir?' asked Savelich.
'No. I'm putting it off for a while. I'll tell you when the time comes. I'm sorry I give you so much trouble,' said Pierre, and when he saw that Savelich was still smiling he thought to himself, 'Isn't it funny? He doesn't seem to know there's no Petersburg now - I've got that to settle first.'
'I'm sure he does know,' he thought. 'He's just pretending. Shall I have a word with him? Ask him what he thinks? No, some other time . . .'
Over breakfast Pierre told his cousin he had been at Princess Marya's the previous evening, and had come across - guess who - Natalie Rostov!
The princess looked as if she saw nothing unusual in this. It was just as if he had come across Anna Semyonovna.
'Do you know her?' asked Pierre.
'I have seen the princess,' she answered, 'and there was talk of a match between her and young Rostov. That would have been very nice for the Rostovs. I hear they are utterly ruined.'
'No, I meant - do you know Natasha Rostov?'
'Oh, I did hear that story about her. Very sad.'
'She doesn't understand, or she's pretending not to,' thought Pierre. 'Better not say anything.'
The princess had also been busy getting provisions ready for Pierre's journey.
'They're all being so nice to me,' thought Pierre. 'Fancy them bothering about all this now, when they can't have the slightest interest in it. And they're doing it for me - that's what's so marvellous.'
The same day the chief of police called on Pierre and invited him to send someone who could be trusted down to the Faceted Palace to receive goods that were being restored to their owners later in the day.
'And this man too,' thought Pierre, looking into the face of the chief of police. 'What a splendid, handsome officer, and how nice he is! Fancy him bothering about such trivialities at a time like this. And yet they call him dishonest; they say he's on the make. What nonsense! Though incidentally why shouldn't he be on the make? That's the way he was brought up. They're all doing it. He's got such a nice, good-humoured face, and he smiles when he looks at me.'
Pierre set off to dine with Princess Marya.
As he drove through the streets between the charred ruins, he revelled in the beauty of the desolation. The chimney-stacks and collapsed walls of houses stretched out one behind another all through the burnt-out quarters of the town, reminding him of the picturesque ruins of the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabdrivers and their passengers coming towards him, the carpenters knocking up house-frames, the women hawkers and shopkeepers all beamed at Pierre with cheerful faces and seemed to be saying, 'Oh, here he is! Now we'll see what happens . . .'
When he arrived at Princess Marya's house, Pierre was assailed by sudden doubts: had he really been there the day before, and seen Natasha and talked to her? 'Maybe I invented the whole thing, and when I go in there'll be nobody there.' But he had barely set foot in the room before the sensation of losing all his freedom made his whole being aware of her presence. She was wearing the same black dress that hung in soft folds, and her hair was done in the same way, and yet she looked quite different. If she had been like this when he had come in yesterday he would certainly have recognized her in an instant.
She was exactly like the girl he had once known, newly emerged from childhood, the girl who became engaged to Prince Andrey. There was a sharp, quizzical gleam in her eyes and a friendly, curiously mischievous look on her face.
Pierre took dinner with them, and would have gladly sat there all evening, but Princess Marya was going to evening service, so he left when they did.
Next day Pierre arrived early, dined with them and stayed the whole evening. Although Princess Marya and Natasha made him very welcome, and although the whole interest of Pierre's life was now focused on that house, as the evening wore on they reached a point where they had said all they had to say, and the conversation was drifting from one trivial topic to another and often broke down altogether. But Pierre stayed on so late that evening that Princess Marya and Natasha started looking at one another, obviously wondering how long it would be before he went home. Pierre could see this, but he couldn't bring himself to go. He felt embarrassed and uncomfortable, but still he sat on because he could not get up and go.
Princess Marya could see no end to it all, so she was the first to get to her feet, and complaining of a sick headache she started to say goodnight.
'So you're off to Petersburg tomorrow?' she said.
'Er no, I'm not going,' said Pierre hastily, with some surprise and something bordering on resentment in his tone. 'No . . . er . . . Oh, Petersburg? Yes, tomorrow . . . but I'm not saying goodbye. I'll call in . . . You may have some little commissions for me,' he added, standing in front of Princess Marya, turning very red and not leaving.
Natasha gave him her hand and retired. By contrast, Princess Marya, instead of going away, flopped down into an armchair, and turned her luminous, profoundly intensive eyes on Pierre in a close stare. The weariness that had been unmistakable only moments before had now gone. She gave a long, deep sigh, as if to prepare herself for a lengthy conversation.
The moment Natasha had gone, all Pierre's awkwardness and embarrassment instantly vanished, to be replaced by eager excitement.
He quickly moved a chair up close to Princess Marya. 'Yes, I've been wanting to tell you . . .' he said, replying to her stare as if words had been spoken. 'Princess, help me, please. What am I going to do? Is there any hope for me? Princess, my dear friend, listen to me. I know all about it. I know I'm not worthy of her. I know this is something we can't even talk about just now. But I want to be a brother to her. No I don't . . . I can't . . .'
He paused and ran his hands over his face and eyes.
'It's like this,' he went on, obviously struggling to make sense. 'I don't know how long I've been in love with her. But she's the only one I've ever loved, in all my life, and I love her so much I can't imagine living without her. I can't bring myself to ask for her hand now; but the thought that there's just a chance that she could be my wife and I might miss the opportunity . . . opportunity . . . is just awful. I want to know . . . is there any hope for me? Please tell me what to do. Dear Princess,' he said, touching her arm during a brief pause when there was no answer from her.
'I'm thinking about what you have just told me,' answered Princess Marya. 'This is how I see it. You're quite right that talking to her about love just now would be . . .' The princess paused. She was going to say that talking to her about love just now would be impossible, but she stopped herself because during the last three days she had seen such a sudden change come over Natasha that she would clearly be far from offended if Pierre were to declare his love - in fact, this was the one thing she was longing for.
'To speak to her now . . . wouldn't do,' she said nevertheless.
'But what can I possibly do?'
'Leave it with me,' said Princess Marya. 'I know . . .'
Pierre looked into her eyes.
'Well . . . well . . .' he said.
'I know she loves you . . . I mean she will love you,' said Princess Marya, correcting herself.
The words were hardly out of her mouth when Pierre leapt to his feet with a terrified look on his face and seized Princess Marya by the hand.
'What makes you think that? Do you really think there's some hope for me? Is that what you think?'
'Yes, it is,' said Princess Marya with a smile. 'Write to her parents. And leave it with me. I shall tell her when the time is right. I want this to happen. And I've a feeling in my heart that it will happen.'
'No, it's not possible! Oh, I'm so happy! Oh, I'm so happy! But no, it's not possible!' Pierre kept repeating, kissing Princess Marya's hands.
'Now off you go to Petersburg. That's the best thing. And I shall write to you,' she said.
'Petersburg? Do I have to? All right, I'll go. But I can call in tomorrow, can't I?'
Next day Pierre came to say goodbye. Natasha was less animated than in recent days, but there were times during that day when Pierre looked into her eyes and felt as if he was melting away, that both of them had disappeared and there was nothing left but happiness. 'Is it possible? No, it isn't,' he said to himself at every glance, every gesture, every word that came from her and filled his soul with gladness.
When the time came for him to say goodbye, he took her slender little hand and unconsciously held it a little longer in his own.
'Is it possible that this hand, this face, these eyes, all these treasures of womanly charm, so far from me now, is it possible they might one day be mine for ever, and I could know them as closely as I know myself? No, it can't be possible!'
'Goodbye, Count,' she said to him in a loud voice, though she added in a whisper, 'I shall look forward so much to seeing you again.'
And those simple words, along with the look in her eyes and the expression on her face that went with them, would last Pierre for two whole months, as the source of inexhaustible memories, meanings and happy dreams. 'I shall look forward so much to seeing you again.' 'Yes, yes, what was it she said? Yes. "I shall look forward so much to seeing you again." Oh, I'm so happy! How can I be as happy as this?' Pierre kept asking himself.
CHAPTER 19
On this occasion Pierre knew none of the spiritual torment that had troubled him under similar circumstances during his courtship of Helene.
This time he never found himself doing what he had done before - squirming with a sickening sense of shame as he went over the things he had said; he didn't keep saying to himself, 'Oh, why didn't I say that?' or 'Why, oh why did I say, "I love you"?' Quite the reverse: he found himself going over in his imagination every word Natasha had spoken and everything he had said, along with all the details of every look and smile, without wanting to add anything, or take anything away, but just wanting to hear it over and over again. This time there wasn't a shadow of doubt about the rightness or wrongness of what he had started. Only one terrible anxiety sometimes assailed his mind. Am I dreaming? Could Princess Marya be wrong? Am I being overconfident and egotistical? I believe it's true, and yet I can just see it happening - I'm sure it will - Princess Marya will tell her about me, and she'll smile back and say, 'That's funny! He's certainly got things wrong. Doesn't he realize he's just a man, nothing more than a man, and I . . . well, I'm different, I live on a higher plane?'
This was his only doubt, but it never left Pierre alone for long. Similarly, he had stopped making plans. The happiness before him seemed so incredible that all he could do was wait for it to happen; there could be nothing beyond that. Bringing things to a conclusion was all that mattered.
Pierre was seized by a sudden frenzy of sheer joy, the sort of thing he didn't think he was capable of. The whole meaning of life, for him and the whole world, seemed to be contained in his love and the possibility of being loved in return. Sometimes it seemed as if everybody was preoccupied by nothing but his future happiness. It was as if they were all rejoicing as much as he was but trying to hide it by pretending to be interested in other things. In every word and gesture he saw intimations of his own happiness. He often surprised people by looking or smiling at them in a blissful, meaningful way that seemed to express some secret empathy. But when he realized that people might be unaware of his happiness he pitied them from the bottom of his heart, and felt an urge to get them somehow to realize that the things they were interested in were all rubbish and nonsense not worth thinking about.
When people advised him to go into government service, or when there was open discussion of political developments or the war, with implications that such-and-such an outcome of such-and-such an event would determine the happiness of all men, he would listen with a gentle smile of commiseration and then shock the company by a series of strange observations. But both types of people - those seen by Pierre as understanding the real meaning of life (his feelings), and the miserable wretches who obviously didn't - all of them presented themselves to Pierre in the brilliant light of his own radiant feelings, and in everybody he came across he hadn't the slightest difficulty in seeing nothing but goodness and deserving of love.
As he went through his dead wife's papers and things, the memory of her evoked in him nothing but a feeling of regret that she had never known the happiness he knew now. Prince Vasily, who was now at the peak of his pride, having received a new post and the star that went with it, struck him as a pathetic figure, a nice old man greatly to be pitied.
In days to come Pierre would often recall this period of mindless bliss. Any judgements of people and circumstances made by him at this time remained forever true. Far from going back on his assessment of men and things, if ever he was assailed later on by doubts or contradictory feelings he would simply go back to the view he had held during his period of madness, and inevitably that view never let him down.
'All right,' he would think, 'maybe I did seem weird and ridiculous at that time, but I wasn't as crazy as I looked. Oh no, I was sharper and cleverer then than I've ever been, and I understood everything worth understanding in life, because . . . well, because I was happy.'
Pierre's madness simply meant that he didn't wait, as in days gone by, for people to show personal qualities, what he might call virtues, before loving them. With his heart overflowing with love he loved people for no reason at all, and then had no trouble discovering many a sound reason that made them worth loving.
CHAPTER 20
After Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natasha had told Princess Marya with a happy smile of mischief that he looked exactly, yes, exactly, as if he was fresh from the bath-house, with his short jacket and close-cropped hair, from that moment something secret, unrecognized though irresistible, had awakened in Natasha's soul.
Everything about her - her face, her walk, her eyes, her voice - was suddenly changed. Much to her own surprise, a new vitality and hopes of happiness had burst forth and demanded satisfaction. After that first evening Natasha seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened to her. There was no more complaining about her present situation, not a word about the past, and she was no longer too scared to make happy plans for the future. She said very little about Pierre, but when Princess Marya mentioned him a long-dead gleam returned to her eyes, and her lips curved into a strange smile.
At first the change that had come over Natasha took Princess Marya by surprise, and when she understood what it meant she was saddened by it. 'Can she have loved my brother so little that she can forget him so quickly?' Princess Marya wondered, alone with her thoughts. But when she was with Natasha she wasn't angry with her, and she didn't blame her. The new vitality that had taken hold of Natasha was clearly so irresistible and so unexpected by Natasha herself that in her presence Princess Marya felt she had no right to blame her even in her heart of hearts.
Natasha gave herself up to this new sensation with such whole-heartedness and sincerity that she made no attempt to hide the fact that grief was behind her, and now she was happy and joyful.
When Princess Marya had returned to her room that night after her long talk to Pierre, Natasha had met her at the door.
'Has he said anything? Has he? Has he said anything?' she repeated. And Natasha's face had shone with happiness, though it also had a pathetic look as if to apologize for any happiness. 'I felt like listening at the door, but I knew you'd tell me.'
Although Princess Marya could well understand that look and was moved by it, although she felt sorry for Natasha in all her anxiety, for a moment she was offended by these words. She was thinking about her brother and his love.
'But what can we do? She can't help it,' thought Princess Marya, and with a sad and rather grim face she repeated for Natasha's benefit everything Pierre had said to her. Natasha was astounded to hear he was going to Petersburg.
'Going to Petersburg!' she repeated, as if she couldn't take it in.
But when she saw the gloomy expression on Princess Marya's face she guessed what was wrong and suddenly burst into tears.
'Marie,' she said, 'tell me what to do. I'm scared of doing the wrong thing. I'll do anything you say. Just tell me.'
'You do love him, don't you?'
'Yes!' whispered Natasha.
'Well, why are you crying? I'm so pleased for you,' said Princess Marya, so moved by her tears that she completely forgave Natasha's happiness.
'It won't happen straightaway . . . One day soon. But think how happy we'll be when I'm his wife and you get married to Nikolay!'
'Natasha, I asked you not to talk about that. Let's talk about you.' Neither of them said anything.
'Oh, but why does he have to go to Petersburg?' cried Natasha suddenly, only to come back with a ready answer. 'No, no, he has to go . . . Doesn't he, Marie? He does have to go . . .'
EPILOGUE
PART I
CHAPTER 1
Seven years had passed1 since the events of 1812. The turbulent sea of European history had settled within its shores. It seemed to have calmed down, but the mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws that determine their activity are unknown to us) were still at work.
Although the surface of the ocean of history seemed to be without a ripple, the movement of humanity went on as smoothly as the flow of time. Men kept coming together in various groups and splitting up again, and causes were gradually building up that would determine the formation and dissolution of empires and the displacement of peoples.
The ocean of history was no longer sent surging from one shore to another; it seethed in its depths. Historical figures were n