War and Peace

here was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the
eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the
Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion
they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide
something as she whispered:

“I can’t bear the sight of that woman.”

“Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room,” said Prince
Vasíli to Anna Mikháylovna. “Go and take something, my poor Anna
Mikháylovna, or you will not hold out.”

To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze
below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikháylovna into the small
drawing room.

“There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup
of this delicious Russian tea,” Lorrain was saying with an air of
restrained animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese
handleless cup before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid
in the small circular room. Around the table all who were at Count
Bezúkhov’s house that night had gathered to fortify themselves.
Pierre well remembered this small circular drawing room with its mirrors
and little tables. During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not
know how to dance, had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies
who, as they passed through in their ball dresses with diamonds and
pearls on their bare shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly
lighted mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now
this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea
things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the
night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly
whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none
of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the
bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have
liked to. He looked inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was
again going on tiptoe to the reception room where they had left Prince
Vasíli and the eldest princess. Pierre concluded that this also was
essential, and after a short interval followed her. Anna Mikháylovna
was standing beside the princess, and they were both speaking in excited
whispers.

“Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not
necessary,” said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the
same state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.

“But, my dear princess,” answered Anna Mikháylovna blandly but
impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other
from passing, “won’t this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment
when he needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is
already prepared...”

Prince Vasíli was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude,
with one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so
flabby that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but
he wore the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were
saying.

“Come, my dear Anna Mikháylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You
know how fond the count is of her.”

“I don’t even know what is in this paper,” said the younger of
the two ladies, addressing Prince Vasíli and pointing to an inlaid
portfolio she held in her hand. “All I know is that his real will is
in his writing table, and this is a paper he has forgotten....”

She tried to pass Anna Mikháylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar
her path.

“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikháylovna, seizing
the portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily.
“Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous
en conjure...”

The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the
portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if
the princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna
Mikháylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none
of its honeyed firmness and softness.

“Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a
family consultation; is it not so, Prince?”

“Why don’t you speak, cousin?” suddenly shrieked the princess so
loud that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. “Why
do you remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to
interfere, making a scene on the very threshold of a dying man’s room?
Intriguer!” she hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the
portfolio.

But Anna Mikháylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the
portfolio, and changed her grip.

Prince Vasíli rose. “Oh!” said he with reproach and surprise,
“this is absurd! Come, let go I tell you.”

The princess let go.

“And you too!”

But Anna Mikháylovna did not obey him.

“Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go
and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?”

“But, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna, “after such a solemn
sacrament, allow him a moment’s peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your
opinion,” said she, turning to the young man who, having come quite
close, was gazing with astonishment at the angry face of the princess
which had lost all dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince
Vasíli.

“Remember that you will answer for the consequences,” said Prince
Vasíli severely. “You don’t know what you are doing.”

“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
Mikháylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.

Prince Vasíli bent his head and spread out his hands.

At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long
and which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged
against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out
wringing her hands.

“What are you doing!” she cried vehemently. “He is dying and you
leave me alone with him!”

Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikháylovna, stooping, quickly
caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest
princess and Prince Vasíli, recovering themselves, followed her. A few
minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again
biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an
irrepressible hatred.

“Yes, now you may be glad!” said she; “this is what you have
been waiting for.” And bursting into tears she hid her face in her
handkerchief and rushed from the room.

Prince Vasíli came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was
sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre
noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an
ague.

“Ah, my friend!” said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was
in his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it
before. “How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am
near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is
awful...” and he burst into tears.

Anna Mikháylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet
steps.

“Pierre!” she said.

Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his
forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:

“He is no more....”

Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.

“Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as
tears.”

She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could
see his face. Anna Mikháylovna left him, and when she returned he was
fast asleep with his head on his arm.

In the morning Anna Mikháylovna said to Pierre:

“Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you.
But God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command
of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you
well enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes
duties on you, and you must be a man.”

Pierre was silent.

“Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been
there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised
me only the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he had
no time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father’s
wish?”

Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in
silence at Princess Anna Mikháylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
Mikháylovna returned to the Rostóvs’ and went to bed. On waking in
the morning she told the Rostóvs and all her acquaintances the details
of Count Bezúkhov’s death. She said the count had died as she would
herself wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As
to the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she
could not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved
better during those awful moments—the father who so remembered
everything and everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to
the son, or Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he
with grief, though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his
dying father. “It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the
soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son,” said she.
Of the behavior of the eldest princess and Prince Vasíli she spoke
disapprovingly, but in whispers and as a great secret.