War and Peace

Natásha’s wedding to Bezúkhov, which took place in 1813, was the last happy event in the family of the old Rostóvs. Count Ilyá Rostóv died that same year and, as always happens, after the father’s death the family group broke up. The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natásha’s despair, Pétya’s death, and the old countess’ grief fell blow after blow on the old count’s head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising. The arrangements for Natásha’s marriage occupied him for a while. He ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him. When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite the doctor’s encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him his medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day, sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having dissipated their property—that being the chief fault of which he was conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostóvs. All these acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach and emotion, as if justifying themselves: “Well, whatever he may have been he was a most worthy man. You don’t meet such men nowadays.... And which of us has not weaknesses of his own?” It was just when the count’s affairs had become so involved that it was impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he unexpectedly died. Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his father’s death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to Moscow. The state of the count’s affairs became quite obvious a month after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to double the value of the property. Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father’s memory, which he held sacred,...