ierre began. Instead of sitting down he paced the room, stopping now and then, lisping as he spoke and making wild gestures. 'I'll tell you. Do you know how things stand in Petersburg? The Tsar has lost his grip. He's so absorbed in his mysticism.' (For the new Pierre mysticism was unforgivable.) 'All he asks is to be left in peace, and he can only get peace through men with no faith or conscience, people who are strangling and destroying everything - Magnitsky,16 Arakcheyev and tutti quanti . . . You must admit: if you didn't look after your own property because all you wanted was peace and quiet, your bailiff would get the quickest results by being as vicious as he could,' he said, turning to Nikolay.
'Yes, but what are you getting at?' asked Nikolay.
'Well, everything's going downhill. Thieving in the law-courts. Brutality, round-the-clock drill and forced labour in the army. People are being tortured, and ideas are being suppressed. Anything youthful and honourable has had it! Everybody knows it can't go on like this. The strain is too great. Something's got to give,' exclaimed Pierre (speaking about the government as men have spoken about governments from time immemorial). 'I did tell them one thing in Petersburg.'
'Who?' asked Denisov.
'Oh, you know who,' said Pierre, with a shifty, meaningful look, 'Prince Fyodor and the rest of them. It's all right pushing education and charitable work. Of course it is. It's all very well intentioned, but as things stand we need more than that.'
Suddenly Nikolay became aware of his nephew's presence. His face darkened, and he went over to him.
'What are you doing in here?'
'Oh, leave him alone. Why not?' said Pierre, taking Nikolay by the arm. He had more to say. 'I told them it won't do. We need something else. While you're standing there waiting for something to give, while everybody's waiting for the coup that is bound to come, as many people as possible ought to get together, close ranks and join hands against the disaster that's coming to us all. All our youth and strength is being enticed away and corrupted. Some are seduced by women, some by honours, others by ambition or money - they're all going over to the other side. When it comes to independent, honest men like you and me - there's nobody left. I'll tell you what to do: broaden the scope of our Society. Let the watchword be not just loyalty, but independence and action!'
Nikolay had walked away from his nephew, and now he moved an armchair up, and irritably sat down in it. As he listened to Pierre he kept clearing his throat to show he wasn't happy, and his scowl grew darker and darker.
'Yes action, but what for?' he shouted. 'And how will you stand in relation to the government?'
'I'll tell you how. We'll be on the government's side! Maybe the Society doesn't have to be a secret one, as long as the government will allow it. We're not hostile to the government, we're a society of real conservatives. A society of gentlemen, in the fullest sense of the word. We're here to stop Pugachov17 coming along tomorrow and massacring my children and yours, to stop Arakcheyev sending me to a labour camp. That's why we're joining hands - with the sole object of ensuring everybody's welfare and security.'
'Yes, but it's a secret society, so it's hostile and dangerous. It can only spawn evil.'
'Why's that, then? Did the Tugendbund18 that saved Europe turn out to be dangerous?' (At that time no one was bold enough to think that Russia had saved Europe.) 'That's what it is, a League of Virtue. It's love and mutual help. It's what Christ preached on the cross . . .'
Natasha came in at this point, in mid-conversation, and looked at her husband with great delight. It was not what he was saying that made her happy. That didn't seem particularly interesting, because she saw it all as very straightforward, something she had known for a very long time. (She saw it this way because she knew where it all came from - the depths of Pierre's soul.) What pleased her was his eager, enthusiastic presence.
Pierre was being watched with even more solemn rapture by the forgotten boy with the slender neck protruding from its turned-down collar. Every word Pierre uttered set his heart on fire, and his fingers moved nervously as he picked up sticks of sealing-wax and quill pens that came to hand on his uncle's desk and snapped them in pieces without realizing what he was doing.
'It's not what you're thinking. What I'm proposing is a society just like the German Tugendbund.'
'Well, my fwend, it may be all wight for the kwauts, this Tugendbund, but I can't understand it. I can't even pwonounce it pwoperly,' came the loud, authoritative voice of Denisov. 'Everything's wotten and cowwupt, I give you that. But I can't understand all this Tugendbund wigmawole. Now give me a good old Wussian bunt19 and I'm your man!'
Pierre smiled and Natasha laughed, but Nikolay scowled more darkly than ever, and began arguing with Pierre that no coup was in the offing, and the danger he was on about didn't exist outside his imagination. Pierre took the opposite line, and since his intellectual capacity was sharper and more versatile, Nikolay was soon at a loss for words. This made him angrier than ever, because deep down he felt convinced, not by reason but by something stronger than reason, that his point of view was the right one.
'Well, let me tell you this,' he said, getting to his feet, trying nervously to stand his pipe up in the corner, and then flinging it down. 'I can't prove what I'm saying. You say everything's rotten, and there's going to be a coup. I can't see it. But you also say our oath of allegiance is only provisional, and what I say is this - you're my closest friend, as you well know, but if you formed a secret society and began working against the government - any government of ours - I know it would be my duty to obey the government. And if Arakcheyev tells me today to march a squadron against you and finish you off, I shan't hesitate for a second, I shall go. So there you have it.'
An awkward silence ensued. Natasha was the first to break it by defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defence was feeble and clumsy, but it did its job. The discussion began again, and without the unpleasant hostility engendered by Nikolay's last words.
When they all got up to go in to supper little Nikolay went over to Pierre with a pale face and a gleam in his luminous eyes.
'Uncle Pierre . . . you . . . er, no . . . If Papa had been alive . . . would he have been on your side?' he asked.
Pierre saw in an instant what an unusual, complex and powerfully moving series of thoughts and feelings must have been going through the boy's mind quite independently while they had been talking, and when he thought back to what he had been saying he felt annoyed that the boy had heard it all. But he still had to give him an answer.
'I think he probably would,' he said reluctantly, and walked out.
The boy looked down, and saw, apparently for the first time, what a mess he had made on the desk. He went beetroot red and walked over to Nikolay.
'I'm very sorry, Uncle. It was an accident,' he said, pointing to the broken bits of sealing-wax and pens.
Nikolay reacted with a face like thunder. 'All right. All right,' he said, throwing the broken pens and sealing-wax down under the table. And he turned away, all too obviously fighting down his mounting fury.
'You shouldn't have been here at all,' he said.
CHAPTER 15
Over supper no more was said about politics or societies; the conversation turned to Nikolay's favourite subject: memories of 1812. Denisov led off, and Pierre was at his genial and amusing best. The family broke up on the friendliest of terms.
Nikolay got undressed in his study, gave some instructions to his steward, who had been waiting for him, went into the bedroom in his dressing-gown and found his wife still at her desk, writing.
'What are you writing, Marie?' asked Nikolay. Countess Marya coloured up. She was afraid that what she was writing would not be understood or approved of by her husband.
She would have liked to hide what she was writing, but at the same time she was glad she had been caught, and had to tell him.
'It's my diary, Nikolay,' she said, handing him a blue note-book, filled with her bold, meticulous handwriting.
'A diary!' said Nikolay with a touch of mockery, taking the note-book. It was in French.
December 4th
Andryusha [their eldest son] refused to get dressed when he woke up this morning, so Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and stubborn. Tried threatening him, but he only got more bad-tempered. I said leave it to me, put him to one side, helped nurse to get the other children up, and told him I didn't love him. He was quiet for a long time - seemed surprised. Then he rushed at me still in his night-shirt, and sobbed so much it took me ages to calm him down. Clearly, what hurt him most was that he had upset me. Then when I gave him his report in the evening he cried pitifully again as he kissed me. You can do anything with him by showing affection.
'What's this about a report?' asked Nikolay.
'I've started giving the older ones little marks in the evening to let them know how well they've been behaving.'
Nikolay glanced at the luminous eyes watching him and carried on leafing through the diary and dipping in. The children's lives were documented with every detail that their mother deemed to be significant in showing the character of the children, or leading to general ideas about bringing them up. It was mostly a mass of trivial detail, but it didn't seem like that to the mother or the father, as he now read through this record of his children's lives for the very first time. An entry for the 5th of December read as follows: Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said no pudding. He had none, but he looked so miserable and positively greedy while the others were eating. My belief - punishing them by not letting them have any sweet things only encourages greediness. Must tell Nikolay.
Nikolay put the book down and looked at his wife. The luminous eyes were staring at him in some doubt: would he, or would he not, approve? There was no doubt about it: Nikolay not only approved, he was delighted with his wife.
Perhaps it was all a bit too pedantic, perhaps it didn't need to be done at all, thought Nikolay, but he was delighted by this constant, unflagging spiritual application, aimed only at improving the children's moral well-being. If Nikolay had been able to pin down his attitude he would have found that his strong, proud and tender love for his wife was actually founded on a certain reverence for her spirituality, and the lofty world of morality that she lived in and he had virtually no access to.
He was so proud that she was clever and good, he acknowledged his own insignificance alongside her in the spiritual world and he rejoiced all the more to realize that she, with her spirit, not only belonged to him, but was part of his very self.
'I really do approve of this, darling!' he said, with a meaningful air. And after a short pause he added, 'I've behaved very badly today. You weren't there in the study. Pierre and I were having things out, and I lost my temper. I just couldn't help it. He's such a baby. I don't know what would happen to him if Natasha didn't keep him under control. Can you imagine why he went to Petersburg? . . . They've set up a . . .'
'Yes, I do know,' said Countess Marya. 'Natasha told me.'
'Oh, well, you know, then,' Nikolay went on, hot under the collar at the mere recollection of their argument. 'He wants me to believe that every honest man has a duty to go against the government, when according to your oath of allegiance and your sense of duty . . . I'm sorry you weren't there. As it was, they all came down on me, Denisov, and Natasha, too . . . Natasha is just ridiculous. We know she can twist him round her little finger, but when it comes to an argument she hasn't an idea to call her own, she just repeats what he's said,' added Nikolay, yielding to that irresistible temptation that leads us criticize our nearest and dearest. Nikolay was forgetting that what he was saying about Natasha applied word for word to him and his wife.
'Yes, I have noticed that,' said Countess Marya.
'When I told him duty and the oath of allegiance come first, he went on and on . . . God knows what he said. It's such a pity you weren't there. What would you have said?'
'Well, I think you were absolutely right. I said as much to Natasha. Pierre says there's nothing but suffering, torment and corruption, and it's our duty to help our neighbour. He's right, of course,' said Countess Marya, 'but he forgets that charity begins at home, and God Himself has shown us where our duty lies. We can run risks for ourselves, but not for our children.'
'That's just what I said,' cried Nikolay, who imagined he had. 'But he would insist. All this talk about loving your neighbour, and Christianity, and right in front of little Nikolay. He slipped in and sat there breaking things to pieces.'
'You know, Nikolay, I often worry about little Nikolay,' said Countess Marya. 'He's a very unusual boy. And I'm afraid I neglect him for my own. We all have our children, our own ties, and he's got nobody. He's always alone with his thoughts.'
'Well, I must say you've nothing to reproach yourself for on that score. Anything the fondest mother could do for her son you've done for him, and you're still doing it. And of course I'm very pleased you do. He's a splendid boy, he really is! This evening he sat there in a kind of dream as he listened to Pierre. And just imagine, we got up to go into supper. I have a look, and lo and behold he's crumbled everything on my desk into little pieces, and he came up and told me. I've never known him tell a fib. He's a splendid boy, he really is!' repeated Nikolay, who deep down didn't much like Nikolay, though he always felt a need to keep calling him a splendid boy.
'Still, it's not like having a mother,' said Countess Marya. 'I know it's not the same, and it worries me. He's a wonderful boy, but I'm terribly afraid for him. Some company would be good for him.'
'Well, we've not long to wait. Next summer I'm taking him to Petersburg,' said Nikolay. 'Yes, Pierre's always been a dreamer and he always will be,' he went on, reverting to the argument in the study, which was obviously still on his mind. 'Why should I bother what's going on up there - Arakcheyev the villain, and all that stuff - why should I have bothered about that when we got married and I was up to my ears in debt and they were going to put me in prison, and my mother couldn't see it or understand what was going on? After that I had you, and the children, and my work. I'm at it from morning to night either in the office or out at work, and I'm not doing it for fun. No, I know I've got to work to keep mother happy, pay you back and make sure my children are not left in poverty as I was.'
Countess Marya wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone, and he attached too much importance to all this work, but she knew it didn't need saying, and it would be useless. She simply took his hand and kissed it. Taking his wife's gesture as a sign of approval and an endorsement of his line of thinking, he thought for a few moments without saying anything, and then went on expounding his ideas.
'Do you know something, Marie,' he said, 'Ilya Mitrofanych [his steward] was here today from the Tambov estate, and he tells me the forest would fetch eighty thousand.' And Nikolay's face was a picture of excitement as he began talking about the possibility of buying Otradnoye back before long. 'All I need is another ten years of life, and I'll leave the children . . . well provided for.'
Countess Marya listened to her husband, taking it all in. She knew that when he was thinking aloud like this he would sometimes ask her what he had been saying, and he was annoyed when he found out her thoughts had been elsewhere. But she had to work hard at this because she hadn't the slightest interest in what he was saying. As she watched him it wasn't really a question of her thoughts being elsewhere - her feelings were elsewhere. She felt a submissive and tender love for this man who was never going to understand everything that she understood, and this seemed to make her love him all the more, with a love verging on passion. But apart from these feelings that absorbed her entirely and stopped her going into the details of her husband's plans, she was conscious of other ideas flashing through her mind that had nothing to do with what he was saying. She kept thinking of her nephew (what her husband had told her about his excitement listening to Pierre had made its mark on her), and recalling various aspects of his tender, sensitive personality, and when she was thinking about her nephew she thought about her own children too. She didn't compare her nephew with her own children, but she did compare her own feelings for him, and she felt, sadly, that there was something lacking in her feelings towards little Nikolay.
Sometimes it had occurred to her that the difference might have something to do with his age, but he still made her feel guilty, and she swore in the depths of her soul to put things right and achieve the impossible by loving them all in one lifetime, loving her husband, her children, little Nikolay and all her fellow creatures, as Jesus had loved all mankind. Countess Marya's spirit was always striving towards the infinite, the eternal, absolute perfection, which meant she was never at peace. Her face froze in a grim expression that came from the hidden, lofty suffering of a spirit weighed down by the flesh. Nikolay stared at her. 'My God!' he thought, 'what will become of us if she dies, as I fear she will when she looks like that?' He stood there before the icon and began to say his bedtime prayers.
CHAPTER 16
The moment they were alone together Natasha too began to converse with her husband in that manner peculiar to husbands and wives, one of those in which ideas are perceived and exchanged with extraordinary clarity and speed by some means that transcends all the rules of logic and develops its own way without any spoken assertions, deductions or conclusions. Natasha was so used to talking to her husband like this that she took any process of logical thinking on Pierre's part as an unmistakable sign that something was wrong between them. Whenever he started to lay out an argument, speaking calmly and reasonably, and she followed his example by doing the same thing, she knew they were definitely in for a quarrel.
When they were alone together and Natasha, wide-eyed and blissfully happy, crept over to him and grabbed him by the head, suddenly, swiftly, pressing it to her bosom and saying, 'Now you're all mine, mine! I'm not letting you go!' this moment marked the beginning of the conversation, and it transcended all the rules of logic not least because they talked about several different things