“Contrat social,”*59 17 the viscount said with a meek smile.
“I’m not talking about regicide. I’m talking about ideas.”
“Yes, the ideas of pillage, murder, and regicide,” an ironic voice interrupted again.
“Those were extremes, to be sure, but the whole meaning wasn’t in them, the meaning was in the rights of man, emancipation from prejudice, the equality of citizens; and Napoleon kept all these ideas in all their force.”
“Liberty and equality,” the viscount said scornfully, as if finally deciding to prove seriously to this young man all the stupidity of his talk, “these are resounding words that have long been compromised. Who doesn’t love liberty and equality? Our Savior already preached liberty and equality. Did people become happier after the revolution? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but Bonaparte destroyed it.”
Prince Andrei kept glancing with a smile now at Pierre, now at the viscount, now at the hostess. For the first moment of Pierre’s outburst, Anna Pavlovna was horrified, accustomed though she was to society; but when she saw that despite the blasphemous speeches uttered by Pierre, the viscount did not lose his temper, and when she became certain that it was now impossible to suppress these speeches, she gathered her forces and, joining the viscount, attacked the orator.
“Mais, mon cher monsieur Pierre,” said Anna Pavlovna, “how do you explain a great man who could execute a duke, or, finally, any simple man, without a trial and without guilt?”
“I’d like to ask,” said the viscount, “how monsieur explains the eighteenth Brumaire.18 Was that not a deception? C’est un escamotage, qui ne ressemble nullement à la manière d’agir d’un grand homme.”†60
“And the prisoners he killed in Africa?”19 said the little princess. “It’s terrible!” And she shrugged her shoulders.
“C’est un roturier, vous aurez beau dire,”*61 said Prince Ippolit.
M’sieur Pierre did not know whom to answer, looked around at them all, and smiled. His smile was not like that of other people, blending into a non-smile. With him, on the contrary, when a smile came, his serious and even somewhat sullen face vanished suddenly, instantly, and another appeared—childish, kind, even slightly stupid, and as if apologetic.
To the viscount, who was meeting him for the first time, it was clear that this Jacobin was not at all as frightening as his words. Everyone fell silent.
“Do you want him to answer everybody at once?” asked Prince Andrei. “Besides, in the acts of a statesman one must distinguish among the acts of the private person, the military leader, and the emperor. So it seems to me.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Pierre picked up, gladdened by the arrival of unexpected help.
“It’s impossible not to admit,” Prince Andrei went on, “that Napoleon was a great man on the bridge of Arcole, and in the Jaffa hospital, when he shook hands with the plague victims,20 but…there are other acts which are hard to justify.”
Prince Andrei, who evidently wanted to soften the awkwardness of Pierre’s speech, got up, intending to leave and making a sign to his wife.
Suddenly Prince Ippolit rose and, gesturing for everyone to stay and sit down, began to speak:
“Ah! aujourd’hui on m’a raconté une anecdote moscovite, charmante: il faut que je vous en régale. Vous m’excusez, vicomte, il faut que je raconte en russe. Autrement on ne sentira pas le sel de l’histoire.”†62
And Prince Ippolit began to speak in Russian, with a pronunciation such as Frenchmen have after spending a year in Russia. Everyone stayed: so animatedly, so insistently did Prince Ippolit call for attention to his story.
“In Moscou there is a ladee, une dame. And she is very stingee. She must ’ave two valets de pied‡63 behind the carriage. And of very grand height. That was in her taste. Now, she ‘ad une femme de chambre,§64 also of grand height. She said…”
Here Prince Ippolit fell to thinking, evidently having a hard time working it out.
“She said…yes, she said: ‘Girl’ (to the femme de chambre), ‘put on a livrée and come with me, behind the carriage, faire des visites.’”*65
Here Prince Ippolit snorted and guffawed, far in advance of his listeners, which produced an impression unfavorable to the narrator. Many smiled, however, the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna among them.
“So she went. Suddenly there was a strong wind. The girl lost her hat, and her long hairs came undone…”
Here he could no longer control himself and began laughing fitfully, saying through his laughter:
“And the whole world found out…”
With that the anecdote ended. Though it was not clear why he had told it, and why it absolutely had to be told in Russian, all the same Anna Pavlovna and the others appreciated Prince Ippolit’s social grace, in thus pleasantly putting an end to M’sieur Pierre’s unpleasant and ungracious outburst. After the anecdote, the conversation broke up into small, insignificant commentaries on past and future balls, on performances, and on who would see whom when and where.
V
Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charmante soirée, the guests began to leave.
Pierre was clumsy. Fat, unusually tall, broad, with enormous red hands, he did not, as they say, know how to enter a salon, and still less did he know how to leave one, that is, by saying something especially pleasant at the door. Besides that, he was absentminded. Getting up, he took a three-cornered hat with a general’s plumage instead of his own and held on to it, plucking at the feathers, until the general asked him to give it back. But all his absentmindedness and inability to enter a salon and speak in it were redeemed by his expression of good nature, simplicity, and modesty. Anna Pavlovna turned to him and, with a Christian meekness expressing forgiveness for his outburst, nodded to him and said:
“I hope to see you again, but I also hope that you will change your opinions, my dear M’sieur Pierre,” she said.
When she said this to him, he made no reply, but only bowed and once more showed everyone his smile, which said nothing except perhaps this: “Opinions are opinions, but you see what a good and nice fellow I am.” And everyone, including Anna Pavlovna, involuntarily felt it.
Prince Andrei went out to the front hall and, offering his shoulders to the footman, who was putting his cloak on him, listened indifferently to his wife’s chatter with Prince Ippolit, who also came out to the front hall. Prince Ippolit stood beside the pretty, pregnant princess and looked at her directly and intently through his lorgnette.
“Go in, Annette, you’ll catch cold,” said the little princess, taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. “C’est arrêté,”*66 she added softly.
Anna Pavlovna had already managed to speak with Liza about the match she was contriving between Anatole and the little princess’s sister-in-law.
“I’m relying on you, my dear friend,” Anna Pavlovna said, also softly, “you’ll write to her and tell me comment le père envisagera la chose. Au revoir.”†67 And she left the front hall.
Prince Ippolit went over to the little princess and, bringing his face down close to hers, began saying something to her in a half whisper. Two footmen, one the princess’s, the other his, waiting for them to finish talking, stood with shawl and redingote and listened to their French talk, which they could not understand, with such faces as if they understood what was being said but did not want to show it. The princess, as usual, talked smilingly and listened laughingly.