'I promised to call in at a soiree.'
They said no more. Prince Andrey stared into those forbidding glassy eyes and felt how stupid he had been to expect anything from Speransky, or anything associated with him. How could he ever have set any store by what Speransky was doing? That measured, mirthless laugh of his rang in Prince Andrey's ears long after he had left Speransky's.
On reaching home Prince Andrey began to look back over his life in Petersburg during the last four months, and he saw it in a new light. He thought of all the trouble he had taken, the hoops he had jumped through, and the whole story of his project for army reform, which had been accepted in principle but was now being shelved because another scheme, a really dreadful one, had already been drawn up and presented to the Tsar. He thought of all those committee meetings, with Berg one of the sitting members. He thought of the long, pernickety discussions that took place over every last point of order and procedure and the short and non-pernickety treatment given to anything that mattered. He thought of his work on law reform, his painstaking translation of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and he felt thoroughly ashamed. Then came a vivid memory of Bogucharovo, his life in the country, his trip to Ryazan. He thought of his peasants, and Dron, the village elder. Relating these people to the section on Personal Rights which he had been paragraphing, he wondered how on earth he could have spent so much time on such useless work.
CHAPTER 19
The next day Prince Andrey went to various houses that he hadn't visited before, including the Rostovs', with whom he had renewed his acquaintance at the ball. Common courtesy called for a visit to the Rostovs, but Prince Andrey also wanted to have another look at that unusual, lively young girl who had made such a pleasant impression on him, and see her in her own home.
Natasha was one of the first to welcome him. She was wearing a plain dark-blue dress, and Andrey felt sure she looked prettier in that than she had done in her ballgown. She and all the family received Prince Andrey like an old friend, simply but very warmly. The entire family, once a target for Prince Andrey's harshest criticism, now seemed to consist of excellent, open-hearted, kindly people. The old count was so persuasive with his charitable nature and generosity of spirit - such rare and attractive qualities in Petersburg - that Prince Andrey could not refuse an invitation to stay for dinner. 'Yes, these are very nice, splendid people,' thought Bolkonsky. 'Of course they haven't the slightest idea what a treasure they possess in Natasha, but they're so nice, and they're the best possible background for her to stand out against, with all her poetry and charm and all that liveliness!'
Prince Andrey recognized in Natasha a strange and special new world, brimful of unknown joys, the same strange world that had tantalized him on the avenue at Otradnoye and on that moonlight night at the window. But now it was no longer so strange and tantalizing; he had stepped into it and was already tasting its new pleasures.
After dinner Natasha went over to the clavichord at Prince Andrey's request and began to sing. Prince Andrey stood by one of the windows talking to the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of one phrase Prince Andrey stopped talking and suddenly felt close to tears, with a lump in his throat, something he had never known before. He watched Natasha as she sang, with a new and blissful sensation stirring in his soul. He was so happy, and at the same time so sad. He had nothing at all to weep about, but here he was on the verge of tears. What for? Past love? The little princess? Lost illusions? . . . Future hopes? . . . Yes and no. The main thing that was bringing him to the verge of tears was a sudden, vivid awareness of the dreadful disparity between something infinitely great and eternal that existed within him and something else, something constraining and physical that constituted him and even her. The disparity struck him with a mixture of anguish and bliss while she was singing.
When Natasha had finished she came over and wanted to know whether he liked her voice. Having said this, she felt embarrassed the moment the question was out of her mouth, realizing she ought never to have asked anything of the kind. He looked at her with a smile and said he liked her singing, as he liked everything else that she did.
It was late evening when Prince Andrey left the Rostovs'. He went to bed as habit dictated, but soon saw he wasn't going to get to sleep. He lit a candle and sat up in bed; he got out and in again, not at all worried about his insomnia. His soul was filled with a new feeling of bliss, as if he had emerged from a stuffy room into God's glorious daylight. It never occurred to him that he might be in love with the little Rostov girl. He wasn't even thinking about her. He was aware of her only as an image, but this opened up the whole of his life before him in a new light. 'Why do I go on struggling? Why do I keep on toiling at this narrow, cramped drudgery, when life lies open before me, the whole of life, with all its joys?' he kept asking himself. And now, for the first time in ages, he began to make happy plans for the future. He made a personal decision to sort out his son's education, find him a tutor and hand him into that man's care. Then he ought to retire from the army, go abroad and see something of England, Switzerland, Italy. 'I must take full advantage of my freedom while I'm still feeling young and strong,' he told himself. 'Pierre was right: if you want to be happy, you have to believe in the possibility of happiness, and I do believe in it now. Let the dead bury the dead, but while ever there is life, you must live and be happy.' These were his thoughts.
CHAPTER 20
One morning Colonel Adolf Berg called on Pierre, who knew him as he knew everybody else in Moscow and Petersburg. He was immaculately turned out in a brand-new uniform, with his pomaded locks combed out at the temples in the style made popular by Tsar Alexander.
'I've just come from your good lady, the countess, and to my great misfortune, my request couldn't be granted by her. I'm hoping I shall be more fortunate with you, Count,' he said with a smile.
'What can I do for you, Colonel? I'm all yours.'
'Now that I'm nicely settled in my new quarters, Count,' Berg announced, obviously assuming that news of this development must be a matter for great rejoicing, 'I thought I might set something up, just a little soiree for a few people known to me and my wife. (He beamed with even greater benevolence.) I had in mind asking the countess and you to do me the honour of coming over for a cup of tea, and . . . a little supper.'
Only Countess Helene, who considered it beneath her dignity to associate with nobodies like the Bergs, could have been cruel enough to turn down an invitation like this. Berg told him why he wanted to get together a small, select group of people at his new rooms, and why this would be a source of great pleasure for him, and although he would begrudge spending good money on cards or anything harmful, he didn't mind forking out for the sake of good company, and he explained it all so clearly that Pierre couldn't refuse, and he promised to come.
'Only please don't be late, Count, if I may make so bold. Ten minutes to eight, if I may make so bold. We'll have a few rounds of cards. Our general's going to be there. He's very good to me. And we'll have a bite to eat, Count. If you would be so kind.'
Contrary to his usual habit of always arriving late, Pierre got to the Bergs' not at ten minutes to eight, but at a quarter to.
The Bergs had everything ready for their little party and were quite ready to receive the guests.
Berg and his wife were sitting together in a clean, bright study, newly done out with little busts and pictures and new furniture. Berg sat beside his wife, neatly buttoned up in his new uniform, busily explaining the possibility, indeed the necessity, of cultivating people in higher stations - these were the only relationships that gave any pleasure. 'You pick things up, and you can ask the odd favour. Take me for instance - look where my life has gone since I started at the bottom. (Berg measured his life not in years but in awards and promotions.) My comrades have got nowhere, and I'll soon have my own regiment. And I'm fortunate enough to be your husband.' (He got to his feet and went over to kiss Vera's hand, stopping on the way to fold back the corner of
a rug that was ruckled up.) 'And how did I get all this? Mainly by knowing how to cultivate the right people. Of course, you do have to behave properly and get things right as well.'
Berg smiled with a sense of his own superiority over a feeble woman. He paused and reflected that this charming wife of his was indeed a feeble woman, incapable of ever attaining any of the qualities needed for masculine prowess - 'ein Mann zu sein',5 as the Germans put it. Meanwhile Vera was also smiling, with her own sense of superiority over a decent, well-behaved husband, who nevertheless, as she saw it, took such a wrong view of life - as all men did. Berg judged women by the standards of his own wife and considered all of them feeble and foolish. Vera judged men by the standards of her own husband and, extrapolating from him alone, she found all men conceited and self-centred, each convinced he was the only one with any sense whereas he didn't actually understand anything at all.
Berg got to his feet and gingerly embraced his wife, taking care not to squash the fine lace cape that had cost him a pretty penny, and he gave her a peck in the middle of her mouth.
'There's just one thing - we mustn't rush into having children,' he said, linking one thought to another at some subconscious level.
'No,' responded Vera. 'That's something I certainly don't want. We must live for society.'
'Princess Yusupov was wearing one just like that,' said Berg, smiling with pleasure and bonhomie as he pointed to the cape.
At that moment they were informed that Count Bezukhov had arrived. The young newlyweds smiled at each other with self-satisfaction on either side, each claiming unspoken credit for this visit.
'It's all a question of knowing how to cultivate the right people,' thought Berg. 'And knowing how to behave!'
'But, listen, when I'm looking after a guest,' said Vera, 'please don't interrupt me, because I know what they all need, and what needs to be said to different people.'
Berg was smiling too.
'Oh, we can't have that. Sometimes men need men's talk,' he said.
Pierre was shown into a small drawing-room where no one could sit down without disrupting the neat symmetry and tidiness, so it was perfectly natural and not the least bit strange that Berg, while magnanimously offering to disturb the symmetry of an armchair or a sofa for an honoured guest, found himself thoroughly uncomfortable and in several minds over how to do it, so he left his guest to resolve the matter of choice. Pierre shattered the symmetry by moving a chair up for himself, and with that the soiree was under way, with Berg and Vera falling over each other in their eagerness to look after the guest.
Vera had decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be treated to conversation about the French embassy, so without further ado she launched forth on that subject. Berg then decided the conversation needed a touch of masculinity, so he cut across his wife's remarks with a reference to the subject of the war with Austria, followed by an instinctive switch from generalities to his own personal interests and the various proposals he had had, to persuade him to take part in the Austrian campaign, and his reasons for declining. Despite the desultory conversation and Vera's resentment of the interpolated masculine touch, both host and hostess were satisfied that, although there was only one guest present, the soiree had got off to a good start, that their soiree and all the other soirees were like peas in pod, with the same conversation, tea and lighted candles.
It wasn't long before Boris, an old comrade of Berg's, arrived. There was a tinge of patronizing high-mindedness in his attitude to Berg and Vera. Then came the colonel and his lady, then the general himself, then the Rostovs, by which time the soiree really had become exactly like every other soiree. Berg and Vera could hardly contain their smiles of rapture at the sight of all this traffic in their drawing-room, at the blurred murmur of conversation and the rustle of skirts as people curtsied and bowed. Everything was just like everywhere else, especially the general, who complimented them on their rooms, clapped Berg on the shoulder and then took charge in a fatherly way of arranging the table for a game of boston. The general sat down alongside Count Ilya Rostov, who was next in seniority to himself. The old folk were grouped together, and so were the youngsters, and with the hostess at the tea table, the cakes in their silver basket the image of the cakes at the Panins' soiree, absolutely everything was like everywhere else.
CHAPTER 21
Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had no choice but to sit down and play boston with the old count, the general and the colonel. In his position at the card table he happened to be sitting across from Natasha, and he was struck by a curious change that had come over her since the day of the ball. She was quiet, and not only was she less pretty than she had been at the ball, she would have looked rather plain but for her air of sweet indifference to everything.
'What's wrong with her?' Pierre wondered as he glanced across. She was sitting next to her sister at the tea table, grudgingly responding to Boris at her side without bothering to look at him. After playing out a whole suit and taking five tricks, much to his partner's satisfaction, Pierre was distracted by the sound of greetings and someone coming in, but he glanced at her again as he raked in his tricks.
'What can have happened to her?' he said to himself in even greater wonder.
Prince Andrey was standing in front of her, talking away with tender solicitude written all over his face. She was looking up at him, red as a beetroot and visibly trying to control her panicky breathing. And suddenly the flaming glow from some inner fire that had been doused until then was newly ablaze in her. She was utterly transformed. From being a plain creature she was once more the beautiful girl she had been at the ball.
Prince Andrey came over to Pierre, and Pierre noticed a new, youthful expression in his friend's face too. Pierre changed places several times during the play, sitting sometimes with his back to Natasha and sometimes facing her, and through all six rubbers he kept a close watch on her and his friend.
'There's something very serious going on between those two,' thought Pierre, suddenly assailed by a worrying feeling of joy mixed with bitterness that took his mind off the game.
At the end of six rubbers the general got to his feet, saying there was no point in playing like that, and Pierre was free to roam. Natasha was talking to Sonya and Boris on one side of the room. Vera was saying something to Prince Andrey with a subtle smile on her face. Pierre went over to his friend, asked whether he was intruding on any secrets and sat down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince Andrey paying close attention to Natasha, felt that at a soiree, at a proper soiree, there really ought to be the odd gentle hint about the emotions, so she waited until Prince Andrey was on his own, struck up a conversation with him, mentioned emotions in general and then brought her sister into it. Dealing with such a clever man as Prince Andrey (which was how she saw him), she felt the need to handle this affair with tact and diplomacy. When Pierre came over and heard them talking he could see that Vera was getting carried away by her own self-confidence while Andrey seemed embarrassed - something that almost never happened to him.
'What's your opinion?' Vera was asking with a subtle smile on her face. 'Prince, you can see right through people. You can assess someone's character at a glance. What do you think about Natalie? Is she capable of being constant in her attachments? Could she be like other women (she had herself in mind), love somebody once and for all and stay faithful to him for ever? That's what I call true love! What do you think, Prince?'
'I don't know your sister all that well,' answered Prince Andrey with a sardonic smile intended to cover his embarrassment, 'so I can't settle a delicate question like that. In any case, I've always noticed that the less attractive a woman is, the more faithful she tends to be,' he added, looking round at Pierre as he joined them.
'Yes, Prince, you're quite right. In this day and age,' Vera persisted (talking of 'this day and age' in the way that persons of limited intelligence generally love to do, all too certain they have discovered and carefully considered what is spec
ial about their day and age, and that human characteristics change with the times), 'in this day and age a girl has so much liberty that the pleasure of receiving a lot of attention often suppresses her true feelings. And it has to be said that Natalie is very vulnerable in that area.'
This reversion to Natasha made Prince Andrey frown with annoyance. He made as if to get to his feet, but Vera persisted, with even greater subtlety in her smile.
'I'm sure no one has received more attention than she has,' Vera went on, 'but until quite recently she hasn't taken to anyone in particular. Now, you know, Count,' she said, turning to Pierre, 'not even our dear cousin, Boris, who, between ourselves, was very, very far gone in the land of tender feelings.' (She was referring to a map of love much in fashion at that time.)
Prince Andrey scowled, saying nothing.
'But you're a friend of Boris's, aren't you?' Vera said to him.
'Yes, I do know him . . .'
'He must have told you about his childish passion for Natasha.'
'Oh, was there a childish passion?' asked Prince Andrey with an unexpected rush of blood to his face.
'Oh yes. You know how it is - close intimacy between boy and girl cousins sometimes leads to love. Cousins, cousins, dangers in dozens. Don't you agree?'
'No doubt about it,' said Prince Andrey, and then, suddenly stimulated in the most awkward way, he started ribbing Pierre about the need to watch his step with his fifty-year-old lady cousins in Moscow, only to get to his feet in mid-joke, seize hold of Pierre's arm and take him to one side.
'What's going on?' asked Pierre, who had been watching his friend's strange agitation in some amazement, and had seen him glance across at Natasha as he got up.
'Listen, I must talk to you,' said Prince Andrey. 'You know that pair of women's gloves . . .' (He had in mind the masonic gloves given to a newly initiated brother for presentation to the woman he loved.) 'I . . . er, no, I'll talk to you later . . .' And with a strange glint in his eyes and a restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrey went over to Natasha and sat down beside her. Pierre watched as Prince Andrey asked her something and she blushed as she replied.