War and Peace

hile these conversations were going on in the reception room and the
princess’ room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for)
and Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was
driving into the court of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna,
having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that
he was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre
followed Anna Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began
to think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He
noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back
door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who
looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the
shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other
men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides.
But neither Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who
could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. “It seems
to be all right,” Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikháylovna.
She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to
Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it
was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had
to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikháylovna’s air
of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely
necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by
some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots
clattering. These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them
there.

“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna
Mikháylovna of one of them.

“Yes,” replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were
now permissible; “the door to the left, ma’am.”

“Perhaps the count did not ask for me,” said Pierre when he reached
the landing. “I’d better go to my own room.”

Anna Mikháylovna paused and waited for him to come up.

“Ah, my friend!” she said, touching his arm as she had done her
son’s when speaking to him that afternoon, “believe me I suffer no
less than you do, but be a man!”

“But really, hadn’t I better go away?” he asked, looking kindly at
her over his spectacles.

“Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.
Think that he is your father ... perhaps in the agony of death.” She
sighed. “I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to
me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.”

Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had
to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna who was
already opening a door.

This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the
princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been
in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of
these rooms. Anna Mikháylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
with a decanter on a tray as “my dear” and “my sweet,” asked
about the princess’ health and then led Pierre along a stone passage.
The first door on the left led into the princesses’ apartments. The
maid with the decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything
in the house was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna
Mikháylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious
impatience, while the princess jumped up and with a gesture of
desperation slammed the door with all her might.

This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on
Prince Vasíli’s face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre
stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna
Mikháylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as
if to say that this was no more than she had expected.

“Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,” said she in
reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.

Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what
“watching over his interests” meant, but he decided that all these
things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly
lit room adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those
sumptuous but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front
approach, but even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water
had been spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer
and by a servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They
went into the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian
windows opening into the conservatory, with its large bust and full
length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still
sitting here in almost the same positions as before, whispering to one
another. All became silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna
Mikháylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who,
hanging his head, meekly followed her.

Anna Mikháylovna’s face expressed a consciousness that the decisive
moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,
keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than
that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the
dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid
glance at all those in the room and noticing the count’s confessor
there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet
seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing
first of one and then of another priest.

“God be thanked that you are in time,” said she to one of the
priests; “all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young
man is the count’s son,” she added more softly. “What a terrible
moment!”

Having said this she went up to the doctor.

“Dear doctor,” said she, “this young man is the count’s son. Is
there any hope?”

The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his
shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna with just the same movement raised her
shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away
from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and
tenderly sad voice, she said:

“Trust in His mercy!” and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit
and wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was
watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.

Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved
toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikháylovna had
disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him
with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they
whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind
of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before
received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to
the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up
and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully
silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre
wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to
pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not
even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and
that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful
rite which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound
to accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the
aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady’s chair, placing his huge hands
symmetrically on his knees in the naïve attitude of an Egyptian statue,
and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in
order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his
own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of
those who were guiding him.

Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasíli with head erect
majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three
stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;
his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed
Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),
and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly
fixed on.

“Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is
well!” and he turned to go.

But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: “How is...” and hesitated,
not knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man “the
count,” yet ashamed to call him “father.”

“He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my
friend...”

Pierre’s mind was in such a confused state that the word “stroke”
suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasíli
in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of
illness. Prince Vasíli said something to Lorrain in passing and went
through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his
whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and
the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.
Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and
at last Anna Mikháylovna, still with the same expression, pale but
resolute in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly
on the arm said:

“The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be
administered. Come.”

Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed
that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all
followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to
enter that room.