“I’m very glad I didn’t go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince Ippolit, “it’s boring…A wonderful evening. Wonderful, isn’t it so?”
“They say the ball will be very nice,” replied the princess, her slightly mustached lip pulling upwards. “All the beautiful society women will be there.”
“Not all, since you won’t be there; not all,” said Prince Ippolit, laughing joyfully, and, snatching the shawl from the footman, even shoving him, he began putting it on the princess. Either from awkwardness or intentionally (no one would have been able to tell), he was a long while lowering his arms, even when the shawl was already put on, and it was as if he was embracing the young woman.
Graciously, but still smiling, she withdrew, turned, and looked at her husband. Prince Andrei’s eyes were shut, which made him look tired and sleepy.
“Are you ready, madame?” he asked his wife, looking past her.
Prince Ippolit hastily put on his redingote, which, in the new style, hung lower than his heels, and, tangling himself in it, ran to the porch after the princess, whom the footman was helping into the carriage.
“Princesse, au revoir,” he cried, his tongue getting as tangled as his feet.
The princess, picking up her dress, was settling herself in the darkness of the carriage; her husband was straightening his sword; Prince Ippolit, on the pretext of being of service, got in everyone’s way.
“Ex-cuse me, sir,” Prince Andrei, with dry unpleasantness, addressed himself in Russian to Prince Ippolit, who was standing in his way.
“I’ll be waiting for you, Pierre,” the same voice of Prince Andrei said gently and tenderly.
The postilion touched up the horses, and the wheels of the carriage rumbled. Prince Ippolit laughed fitfully, standing on the porch and waiting for the viscount, whom he had promised to take home.
“Eh, bien, mon cher, votre petite princesse est très bien, très bien,” said the viscount, getting into the carriage with Ippolit. “Mais très bien.” He kissed the tips of his fingers. “Et tout-à-fait française.”*68
Ippolit laughed with a snort.
“Et savez-vous que vous êtes terrible avec votre petit air innocent,” the viscount continued. “Je plains le pauvre mari, ce petit officier, qui se donne des airs de prince régnant.”†69
Ippolit snorted again and said through his laughter:
“Et vous disiez, que les dames russes ne valaient pas les dames françaises. Il faut savoir s’y prendre.”‡70
Pierre, arriving first, went to Prince Andrei’s study, being a familiar of the house, and, as was his habit, at once lay down on the sofa, took the first book that caught his eye from the shelf (it was Caesar’s Commentaries),21 and, leaning on his elbow, began reading it from the middle.
“What have you done to mademoiselle Scherer? She’ll be quite ill now,” said Prince Andrei, coming into his study and rubbing his small white hands.
Pierre swung his whole body so that the sofa creaked, turned his animated face to Prince Andrei, smiled, and waved his hand.
“No, that abbé is very interesting, only he has the wrong notion of things…In my opinion, eternal peace is possible, but I don’t know how to say it…Only it’s not through political balance…”
Prince Andrei was obviously not interested in these abstract conversations.
“Mon cher, you can’t go saying what you think everywhere. Well, so, have you finally decided on anything? Are you going to be a horse guard or a diplomat?” Prince Andrei asked after a moment’s silence.
Pierre sat up on the sofa with both legs tucked under him.
“Can you imagine, I still don’t know. I don’t like either of them.”
“But you must decide on something. Your father’s waiting.”
At the age of ten, Pierre had been sent abroad with an abbé-tutor and had remained there until he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow, his father dismissed the abbé and said to the young man: “Go to Petersburg now, look around, and choose. I’ll agree to anything. Here’s a letter to Prince Vassily, and here’s some money. Write to me about everything, I’ll help you in everything.” Pierre had been choosing a career for three months already and had done nothing. This was the choice that Prince Andrei was talking about with him. Pierre rubbed his forehead.
“But he must be a Mason,”22 he said, meaning the abbé he had seen at the soirée.
“That’s all rubbish,” Prince Andrei stopped him again, “better let’s talk about business. Have you been to the horse guards?…”
“No, I haven’t, but here’s what’s come into my head and I wanted to tell you. There’s war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for freedom, I could understand it, I’d be the first to go into military service; but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world…is not right.”
Prince Andrei merely shrugged his shoulders at Pierre’s childish talk. He made it look as though he could not reply to such stupidity; but in fact it was hard to reply to this naïve question in any other way than Prince Andrei had done.
“If everyone made war only according to his own convictions, there would be no war,” he said.
“And that would be excellent,” said Pierre.
Prince Andrei smiled.
“It might very well be excellent, but it will never happen…”
“Well, what makes you go to war?” asked Pierre.
“What makes me? I don’t know. I have to. Besides, I’m going…” He paused. “I’m going because this life I lead here, this life—is not for me!”
VI
There was the rustle of a woman’s dress in the next room. Prince Andrei shook himself as if coming to his senses, and his face took on the same expression it had had in Anna Pavlovna’s drawing room. Pierre lowered his legs from the sofa. The princess came in. She had already changed to a house dress, but one just as elegant and fresh. Prince Andrei stood up, politely moving an armchair for her.
“Why is it, I often wonder,” she began, in French as always, hurriedly and fussily sitting down in the armchair, “why is it that Annette has never married? How stupid you all are, messieurs, not to have married her. Forgive me, but you understand nothing about women. You’re such an arguer, M’sieur Pierre.”
“I also keep arguing with your husband. I don’t understand why he wants to go to the war,” said Pierre, without any constraint (so usual in the relations of a young man with a young woman), turning to the princess.
The princess gave a flutter. Evidently Pierre’s words had touched her to the quick.
“Ah, that’s just what I say!” she said. “I don’t understand, I decidedly do not understand, why men can’t live without war. Why is it that we women want none of it and have no need of it? Well, you be the judge. I keep telling him: here he’s his uncle’s adjutant, a most brilliant position. He’s so well-known, so appreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apraksins’ I heard a lady ask: ‘C’est ça le fameux prince André?’ Ma parole d’honneur!”*71 she laughed. “He’s so well received everywhere. He could easily become an imperial adjutant. You know, the sovereign spoke to him very graciously. Annette and I were saying that it could easily be arranged. What do you think?”
Pierre looked at Prince Andrei and, noticing that his friend did not like this conversation, made no reply.
“When do you go?” he asked.
“Ah! ne me parlez pas de ce départ, ne m’en parlez pas. Je ne veux pas en entendre parler,”†72 the princess said in the same capriciously playful tone in which she had spoken with Ippolit in the drawing room and which was so obviously unsuited to the family circle, where Pierre was like a member. “Today, when I thought how I’d have to break off all these dear relations…And then, you know, André?” She winked meaningfully at her husband. “J’ai peur, j’ai peur!”‡73 she whispered, her back shuddering.