War and Peace

oon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed
everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out.
Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the
boy to come downstairs.

“No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay,” replied
Nicholas Bolkónski also in a whisper.

“Ma tante, please let me stay,” said he, going up to his aunt.

His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary
glanced at him and turned to Pierre.

“When you are here he can’t tear himself away,” she said.

“I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!”
said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young
Nicholas with a smile. “You and I haven’t seen anything of one another
yet.... How like he is growing, Mary!” he added, addressing Countess
Mary.

“Like my father?” asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at
Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.

Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the
children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natásha
did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denísov rose, asked
for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sónya—who sat weary
but resolute at the samovar—and questioned Pierre. The curly-headed,
delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, starting
every now and then and muttering something to himself, and evidently
experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly head,
with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the place
where Pierre sat.

The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power,
in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denísov,
dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments
in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg
which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what
Pierre told them.

“One used to have to be a German—now one must dance with Tatáwinova
and Madame Kwüdener, and wead Ecka’tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they
should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose—he’d knock all this nonsense
out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semënov wegiment to a
fellow like that Schwa’tz!” he cried.

Nicholas, though free from Denísov’s readiness to find fault with
everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very
serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed
Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor
had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very
important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these
things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the
conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the
higher government circles.

But Natásha, knowing all her husband’s ways and ideas, saw that he had
long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to
another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of
which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince
Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince
Theodore had gone.

“What was it about?” asked Nicholas.

“Always the same thing,” said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.
“Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be
allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to
counteract it as far as they can.”

“What can decent men do?” Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. “What
can be done?”

“Why, this...”

“Come into my study,” said Nicholas.

Natásha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now
heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary
followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkónski
followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table
in a shady corner by the window.

“Well, what would you do?” asked Denísov.

“Always some fantastic schemes,” said Nicholas.

“Why this,” began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,
sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: “the position
in Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He
has abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism” (Pierre could not
tolerate mysticism in anyone now). “He seeks only for peace, and only
these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him—people who recklessly
hack at and strangle everything—Magnítski, Arakchéev, and tutti
quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates
yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the
more readily your object might be attained,” he said to Nicholas.

* Without faith or law.

“Well, what does that lead up to?” said Nicholas.

“Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the
army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the
people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and
honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is
strained to such a degree that it will certainly break,” said Pierre (as
those who examine the actions of any government have always said since
governments began). “I told them just one thing in Petersburg.”

“Told whom?”

“Well, you know whom,” said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under
his brows. “Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and
philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the
present circumstances something else is needed.”

At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face
darkened and he went up to the boy.

“Why are you here?”

“Why? Let him be,” said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and
continuing. “That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.
When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment,
when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as
possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general
calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and
depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition
or money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you
or I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the
mot d’ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!”

Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat
down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning
more and more.

“But action with what aim?” he cried. “And what position will you adopt
toward the government?”

“Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the
government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but
it is a society of true conservatives—a society of gentlemen in the full
meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachëv or other from
killing my children and yours, and Arakchéev from sending me off to some
Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the
general safety.”

“Yes, but it’s a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one
which can only cause harm.”

“Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe” (they did not then venture
to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) “do any harm? The Tugendbund
is an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ
preached on the Cross.”

Natásha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at
her husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her—that did not
even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple
and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she
knew that it sprang from Pierre’s whole soul), but it was his animated
and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.

The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar—whom
everyone had forgotten—gazed at Pierre with even greater and more
rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre’s burned into his heart, and with a
nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax
and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle’s table.

“It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German
Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing.”

“No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters,
but I don’t understand it and can’t even pwonounce it,” interposed
Denísov in a loud and resolute voice. “I agwee that evewything here is
wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don’t understand. If we’re
not satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That’s all wight. Je suis
vot’e homme!” *

* “I’m your man.”

Pierre smiled, Natásha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows
still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of
any great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his
imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties
were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This
made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning
but by something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his
opinion.

“I will tell you this,” he said, rising and trying with nervously
twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally
abandoning the attempt. “I can’t prove it to you. You say that
everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don’t
see it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional
matter, and to that I reply: ‘You are my best friend, as you know,
but if you formed a secret society and began working against the
government—be it what it may—I know it is my duty to obey the
government. And if Arakchéev ordered me to lead a squadron against you
and cut you down, I should not hesitate an instant, but should do it.’
And you may argue about that as you like!”

An awkward silence followed these words. Natásha was the first to speak,
defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak
and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and
no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas’ last remark.

When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkónski went
up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.

“Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with
you?” he asked.

And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and
powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in
this boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he
regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give
him an answer.

“Yes, I think so,” he said reluctantly, and left the study.

The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he
had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas.

“Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally,” he said, pointing to
the broken sealing wax and pens.

Nicholas started angrily.

“All right, all right,” he said, throwing the bits under the table.

And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away
from the boy.

“You ought not to have been here at all,” he said.