War and Peace

ierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual, he ate and
drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that
some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through
dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and
a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his
nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear
nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some
depressing and unsolved problem.

The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the
princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dólokhov’s intimacy with
his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which
in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw
badly through his spectacles, but that his wife’s connection with
Dólokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely
disbelieved both the princess’ hints and the letter, but he feared
now to look at Dólokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every time
he chanced to meet Dólokhov’s handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt
something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly
away. Involuntarily recalling his wife’s past and her relations with
Dólokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be
true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his wife.
He involuntarily remembered how Dólokhov, who had fully recovered his
former position after the campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come
to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon
companion, Dólokhov had come straight to his house, and Pierre had put
him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Hélène had smilingly
expressed disapproval of Dólokhov’s living at their house, and how
cynically Dólokhov had praised his wife’s beauty to him and from that
time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a day.

“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know him. It
would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule
me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him,
and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the
pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true,
but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.”
He remembered the expression Dólokhov’s face assumed in his moments
of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them
into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any
reason, or shot a post-boy’s horse with a pistol. That expression
was often on Dólokhov’s face when looking at him. “Yes, he is a
bully,” thought Pierre, “to kill a man means nothing to him. It must
seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him.
He must think that I, too, am afraid of him—and in fact I am afraid of
him,” he thought, and again he felt something terrible and monstrous
rising in his soul. Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv were now sitting
opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostóv was talking merrily to his
two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious
duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically at
Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very
noticeable one at the dinner. Rostóv looked inimically at Pierre,
first because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the
husband of a beauty, and in a word—an old woman; and secondly because
Pierre in his preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized
Rostóv and had not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor’s
health was drunk, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his
glass.

“What are you about?” shouted Rostóv, looking at him in an ecstasy
of exasperation. “Don’t you hear it’s His Majesty the Emperor’s
health?”

Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till
all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostóv.

“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostóv was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting “Hurrah!”

“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dólokhov to Rostóv.

“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostóv.

“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denísov.

Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking
about him. He reddened and turned away.

“Well, now to the health of handsome women!” said Dólokhov, and
with a serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of
his mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.

“Here’s to the health of lovely women, Peterkin—and their
lovers!” he added.

Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at
Dólokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets
with Kutúzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the
principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dólokhov, leaning
across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked
at Dólokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous
that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him.
He leaned his whole massive body across the table.

“How dare you take it?” he shouted.

Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvítski and the
neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezúkhov.

“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened
voices.

Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that
smile of his which seemed to say, “Ah! This is what I like!”

“You shan’t have it!” he said distinctly.

Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.

“You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!” he ejaculated, and,
pushing back his chair, he rose from the table.

At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt
that the question of his wife’s guilt which had been tormenting him
the whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative.
He hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denísov’s
request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostóv agreed to be
Dólokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for
the duel with Nesvítski, Bezúkhov’s second. Pierre went home, but
Rostóv with Dólokhov and Denísov stayed on at the club till late,
listening to the gypsies and other singers.

“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokólniki,” said Dólokhov, as he took
leave of Rostóv in the club porch.

“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostóv asked.

Dólokhov paused.

“Well, you see, I’ll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two
words. If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write
affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be
killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm
intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and
then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostromá used to tell
me. ‘Everyone fears a bear,’ he says, ‘but when you see one your
fear’s all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!’
And that’s how it is with me. À demain, mon cher.” *

* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.

Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the
Sokólniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv already
there. Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which
had no connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow.
He had evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and
screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed
by two considerations: his wife’s guilt, of which after his sleepless
night he had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of
Dólokhov, who had no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was
nothing to him.... “I should perhaps have done the same thing in his
place,” thought Pierre. “It’s even certain that I should have done
the same, then why this duel, this murder? Either I shall kill him, or
he will hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee. Can’t I go away from
here, run away, bury myself somewhere?” passed through his mind. But
just at moments when such thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a
particularly calm and absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of
the onlookers, “Will it be long? Are things ready?”

When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,
and the pistols loaded, Nesvítski went up to Pierre.

“I should not be doing my duty, Count,” he said in timid tones,
“and should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done
me in choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very
grave, moment I did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no
sufficient ground for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it....
You were not right, not quite in the right, you were impetuous...”

“Oh yes, it is horribly stupid,” said Pierre.

“Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent
will accept them,” said Nesvítski (who like the others concerned in
the affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that
the affair had come to an actual duel). “You know, Count, it is much
more honorable to admit one’s mistake than to let matters become
irreparable. There was no insult on either side. Allow me to
convey....”

“No! What is there to talk about?” said Pierre. “It’s all the
same.... Is everything ready?” he added. “Only tell me where to go
and where to shoot,” he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.

He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the
trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand—a fact that he
did not wish to confess.

“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he.

“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dólokhov to Denísov (who on
his side had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to
the appointed place.

The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road,
where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest
covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the
last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther
edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in
the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and
Nesvítski’s and Dólokhov’s sabers, which were stuck into the
ground ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at
forty paces’ distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had
been ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.