“For pity’s sake,” I said once, “what makes you mix into what’s none of our business? Let the men fight and shout about politics; women don’t go to war, and they have no business with Bonaparte.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Shame on you,” she said. “Don’t women have a fatherland? Don’t they have fathers, brothers, husbands? Is Russian blood alien to us? Or do you think we’re born only to be spun around in the ecossaise at balls and compelled to embroider little dogs on canvas at home? No, I know what effect a woman can have on public opinion or even on the heart of just one man. I don’t accept the humiliation we’re condemned to. Look at Mme de Staëclass="underline" Napoleon fought with her as with an enemy force…And uncle still dares to mock her fearfulness at the approach of the French army! ‘Don’t worry, madam: Napoleon is making war on Russia, not on you…’ Oh, yes! If uncle were caught by the French, he’d be allowed to stroll about the Palais-Royal; but Mme de Staël in such a case would die in a state prison. And Charlotte Corday? And our Marfa Posadnitsa? And Princess Dashkova?9 How am I inferior to them? Certainly not in boldness of heart and resoluteness.”
I listened to Polina with amazement. Never had I suspected such ardor, such ambition in her. Alas! What had her extraordinary inner qualities and courageous loftiness of mind brought her to? It’s true what my favorite writer said: Il n’est de bonheur que dans les voies communes.*2
The sovereign’s arrival redoubled the general agitation. The ecstasy of patriotism finally took hold of high society. Drawing rooms became debating chambers. Everywhere there was talk of patriotic donations. They repeated the immortal speech of the young Count Mamonov, who donated his entire fortune.10 After that some mamas observed that the count was no longer such an enviable match, but we all admired him. Polina raved about him.
“What are you going to donate?” she once asked my brother.
“I haven’t come into my fortune yet,” my scapegrace replied. “All in all, I’ve got thirty thousand in debts: I donate that on the altar of the fatherland.”
Polina became angry.
“For some people,” she said, “honor and the fatherland are mere trifles. Their brothers die on the battlefield, and they play the fool in drawing rooms. I don’t know if you could find a woman base enough to allow such a buffoon to pretend he’s in love with her.”
My brother flared up.
“You’re too exacting, Princess,” he retorted. “You demand that everyone see Mme de Staël in you and speak to you in tirades from Corinne. Know that a man may joke with a woman and not joke before the fatherland and its enemies.”
With those words, he turned away. I thought they had quarreled forever, but I was mistaken: Polina liked my brother’s impertinence, she forgave him his inappropriate joke for the noble impulse of indignation, and, learning a week later that he had joined Mamonov’s regiment, she herself asked me to reconcile them. My brother was in ecstasy. He immediately offered her his hand. She accepted, but put off the wedding until the end of the war. The next day my brother left for the army.
Napoleon was approaching Moscow; our troops were retreating; Moscow was alarmed. Her inhabitants were getting out one after the other. The prince and princess persuaded mother to go with them to their estate in ––sky province.
We arrived in * * *, an enormous village fifteen miles from the provincial capital. There were a great many neighbors around us, most of them newly arrived from Moscow. We all got together each day; our country life was just like city life. Letters from the army came almost every day; the old ladies looked for the location of the bivouac on the map and were angry at not finding it. Polina was interested only in politics, read nothing but newspapers and Rastopchin’s handbills, and did not open a single book. Surrounded by people whose notions were limited, constantly hearing absurd opinions and ill-founded news, she fell into deep despondency; languor took possession of her soul. She despaired of the salvation of the fatherland, it seemed to her that Russia was quickly approaching its fall, each report redoubled her hopelessness, Count Rastopchin’s police announcements put her out of patience. She found their jocular tone the height of indecency, and the measures he had taken an insufferable barbarity. She did not grasp the idea of that time, so great in its horror, the idea whose bold execution saved Russia and freed Europe. She spent hours at a time, her elbows propped on a map of Russia, counting the miles, following the quick movements of the troops. Strange ideas came to her head. Once she declared to me her intention of leaving our village, going to the French camp, making her way to Napoleon, and killing him there with her own hands. I had no difficulty persuading her of the madness of such an undertaking. But the thought of Charlotte Corday stayed with her for a long time.
Her father, as you already know, was a rather light-minded man; all he thought about was living in the country in as much of a Moscow style as possible. He gave dinners, started a théâtre de société where he staged French proverbes, and tried in every way possible to diversify our pleasures. Several captured officers arrived in town. The prince was glad of the new faces and talked the governor into letting him house them at his place…
There were four of them. Three were quite insignificant men, fanatically devoted to Napoleon, unbearably loud-mouthed, though in truth they had paid for their boastfulness with their honorable wounds. But the fourth was an extremely remarkable man.
He was then twenty-six years old. He belonged to a good family. His face was pleasant. His tone was very good. We paid attention to him at once. He accepted our kindnesses with noble modesty. He spoke little, but what he said was well grounded. Polina liked him, because he was the first who could clearly explain military actions and troop movements to her. He calmed her down, explaining that the retreat of the Russian army was not a senseless flight and was as disturbing for the French as it was infuriating for the Russians.
“But you,” Polina asked him, “aren’t you convinced of your emperor’s invincibility?”
Sénicourt (I shall also call him by the name Mr. Zagoskin gave him)—Sénicourt, after a brief pause, replied that in his situation frankness would be awkward. Polina insistently demanded an answer. Sénicourt admitted that the thrust of French troops into the heart of Russia could prove dangerous for them, that it seemed the campaign of 1812 was over, but had produced nothing decisive.
“Over!” Polina objected. “Yet Napoleon still keeps going forward, and we still keep retreating!”
“So much the worse for us,” Sénicourt replied, and changed the subject.
Polina, who was sick of both the cowardly prophecies and the foolish boasting of our neighbors, listened eagerly to judgments based on actual knowledge and impartiality. From my brother I received letters which it was impossible to make any sense of. They were filled with jokes, clever and bad, questions about Polina, banal assurances of love, and so on. Polina, reading them, became annoyed and shrugged her shoulders.
“Admit,” she said, “that your Alexei is a most empty man. Even in the present circumstances, from the battlefield, he finds a way of writing letters that mean nothing at all. What sort of conversation will he have with me in the course of a quiet family life?”
She was mistaken. The emptiness of my brother’s letters proceeded not from his own nonentity, but from a prejudice—a most insulting one for us, however: he supposed that with women one should use language adapted to the weakness of their understanding, and that important subjects do not concern us. Such an opinion would be impolite anywhere, but with us it is also stupid. There is no doubt that Russian women are better educated, read more, and think more than the men, who busy themselves with God knows what.