“No, you must promise, I won’t let you go, my dear benefactor.”
“Papá,” the beauty repeated in the same tone, “we’ll be late.”
“Well, au revoir, good-bye, you see…”
“So you’ll speak to the sovereign tomorrow?”
“Without fail, but to Kutuzov I don’t promise.”
“No, do promise, do promise, Basile,” Anna Mikhailovna said behind him, with the smile of a young coquette, which must have suited her very well once, but now did not go with her emaciated face.
She evidently forgot her age and employed, out of habit, all her old feminine resources. But as soon as he left, her face again acquired the same cold, sham expression it had had before. She went back to the circle, where the viscount was going on with his story, and again pretended to listen, waiting for the moment to leave, since her business was done.
“But how do you find all this latest comedy du sacre de Milan,”14 asked Anna Pavlovna. “Et la nouvelle comédie des peuples de Gênes et de Lucques, qui viennent présenter leurs voeux à M. Buonaparte. M. Buonaparte assis sur un trône, et exauçant les voeux des nations! Adorable! Non, mais c’est à en devenir folle! On dirait, que le monde entier a perdu la tête.”†49
Prince Andrei grinned, looking straight into Anna Pavlovna’s face.
“‘Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche,’” he said (Bonaparte’s words, spoken as the crown was placed on him). “On dit qu’il a été très beau en prononçant ces paroles,”‡50 he added, and repeated the words once more in Italian: “‘Dio mi la dona, guai a chi la tocca.’”
“J’espère enfin,” Anna Pavlovna continued, “que ça a été la goutte d’eau qui fera déborder le verre. Les souverains ne peuvent plus supporter cet homme, qui menace tout.”*51
“Les souverains? Je ne parle pas de la Russie,” the viscount said courteously and hopelessly. “Les souverains, madame? Qu’ont-ils fait pour Louis XVI, pour la reine, pour madame Elisabeth?15 Rien,” he continued, growing animated. “Et croyez-moi, ils subissent la punition pour leur trahison de la cause des Bourbons. Les souverains? Ils envoient des ambassadeurs complimenter l’usurpateur.”†52
And with a contemptuous sigh, he again changed position. At these words, Prince Ippolit, who had long been gazing at the viscount through his lorgnette, suddenly turned his whole body to the little princess and, asking her for a needle, began showing her the coat of arms of the Condés,16 drawing with the needle on the table. He explained this coat of arms to her with a significant air, as if the princess had asked him about it.
“Baton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d’azur—maison Condé,”‡53 he said.
The princess listened, smiling.
“If Bonaparte remains on the throne of France for another year,” the viscount continued the new conversation, with the air of a man who does not listen to others, but, in matters known better to him than to anyone else, follows only the train of his own thoughts, “things will go too far. Intrigues, coercion, banishments, executions will forever destroy French society—I mean good society—and then…”
He shrugged his shoulders and spread his arms. Pierre was about to say something: the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna, who was keeping watch on him, interrupted.
“The emperor Alexander,” she said, with the sadness that always accompanied her talk about the imperial family, “declared that he would leave it to the French themselves to choose their form of government. And I think there’s no doubt that the whole nation, freed of the usurper, will throw itself into the arms of the lawful king,” Anna Pavlovna said, trying to be amiable to the émigré and royalist.
“That’s doubtful,” said Prince Andrei. “Monsieur le vicomte quite rightly supposes that things have already gone too far. I think it would be hard to return to the old ways.”
“From what I’ve heard,” Pierre, blushing, again mixed into the conversation, “almost all the nobility have already gone over to Bonaparte’s side.”
“It’s the Bonapartists who say that,” said the viscount, not looking at Pierre. “Right now it’s hard to know public opinion in France.”
“Bonaparte l’a dit,”*54 Prince Andrei said with a grin. (It was evident that he did not like the viscount and that, though he was not looking at him, his talk was directed against him.)
“‘Je leur ai montré le chemin de la gloire,’” he said after a short silence, again repeating the words of Napoleon, “‘ils n’en ont pas voulu; je leur ai ouvert mes antichambres, ils se sont précipités en foule…’ Je ne sais pas à quel point il a eu le droit de le dire.”†55
“Aucun,” the viscount retorted. “After the duke’s murder, even the most partial people ceased to see a hero in him. Si même ça a été un héros pour certains gens,” the viscount said, turning to Anna Pavlovna, “depuis l’assassinat du duc il y a un martyr de plus dans le ciel, un héros de moins sur la terre.”‡56
Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile appreciatively at these words of the viscount’s, Pierre again burst into the conversation, and Anna Pavlovna, though she anticipated that he would say something improper, could no longer stop him.
“The execution of the duc d’Enghien,” said Pierre, “was a necessity of state; and I precisely see greatness of soul in the fact that Napoleon was not afraid to take upon himself alone the responsibility for this act.”
“Dieu! mon dieu!”§57 Anna Pavlovna whispered in a frightened whisper.
“Comment, monsieur Pierre, vous trouvez que l’assassinat est grandeur d’âme?”#58 said the little princess, smiling and drawing her work towards her.
“Ah! Oh!” said various voices.
“Capital!” Prince Ippolit said in English and began slapping his knee with his palm. The viscount merely shrugged.
Pierre gazed triumphantly at his listeners over his spectacles.
“I say that,” he went on desperately, “because the Bourbons fled from the revolution, abandoning the people to anarchy; and Napoleon alone was able to understand the revolution, to defeat it, and therefore, for the sake of the common good, he could not stop short at the life of a single man.”
“Wouldn’t you like to move to that table?” asked Anna Pavlovna. But Pierre, not answering, went on with his speech.
“No,” he said, growing more and more inspired, “Napoleon is great, because he stood above the revolution, put an end to its abuses, and kept all that was good—the equality of citizens and freedom of speech and of the press—and that is the only reason why he gained power.”
“Yes, if he had taken that power and, without using it for murder, given it to the lawful king,” said the viscount, “then I would call him a great man.”
“He couldn’t do that. The people gave him power only so that he could deliver them from the Bourbons, and because the people saw a great man in him. The revolution was a great thing,” M’sieur Pierre went on, showing by this desperate and provocative parenthetical phrase his great youth and desire to speak everything out all the sooner.
“Revolution and regicide a great thing?…After that…wouldn’t you like to move to that table?” Anna Pavlovna repeated.