He did not say you what, but his tone already showed how highly he valued his friend and how much he expected from him in the future.
“How can he say that!” thought Pierre. Pierre considered Prince Andrei the model of all perfections, precisely because Prince Andrei united in the highest degree all those qualities which Pierre did not possess and which could be most nearly expressed by the notion of strength of will. Pierre always marveled at Prince Andrei’s ability to deal calmly with all sorts of people, at his extraordinary memory, his erudition (he had read everything, knew everything, had notions about everything), and most of all at his ability to work and learn. If Pierre had often been struck by Andrei’s lack of ability for dreamy philosophizing (for which Pierre had a particular inclination), he saw it not as a defect, but as a strength.
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations, flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
“Je suis un homme fini,”*79 said Prince Andrei. “Why talk about me? Let’s talk about you,” he said, pausing and smiling at his comforting thoughts. This smile was instantly reflected on Pierre’s face.
“But what is there to say about me?” asked Pierre, spreading his mouth into a carefree, merry smile. “What am I? Je suis un bâtard!” And he suddenly flushed crimson. One could see that it had cost him great effort to say that. “Sans nom, sans fortune†80 …And what, really…” But he did not say what really. “I’m free so far, and I feel fine. Only I have no idea where to make my start. I seriously wanted to ask your advice.”
Prince Andrei looked at him with kindly eyes. But in his friendly, gentle gaze a consciousness of his own superiority still showed.
“You’re dear to me especially because you’re the only live person in our whole society. That’s fine for you. Choose whatever you like; it’s all the same. You’ll be fine anywhere, but there’s one thing: stop going to those Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It simply doesn’t suit you: all this carousing with hussars, and all…”
“Que voulez-vous, mon cher,” said Pierre, shrugging his shoulders, “les femmes, mon cher, les femmes!”‡81
“I don’t understand,” replied Andrei. “Les femmes comme il faut are another matter; but les femmes of Kuragin, les femmes et le vin,§82 I don’t understand!”
Pierre lived at Prince Vassily Kuragin’s and took part in the dissolute life of his son Anatole, the same one they planned to marry to Prince Andrei’s sister in order to reform him.
“You know what?” said Pierre, as if a lucky thought had unexpectedly occurred to him. “Seriously, I’ve been thinking that for a long time. With this life I can’t decide or even consider anything. I have a headache and no money. He invited me tonight, but I won’t go.”
“Give me your word of honor that you won’t go anymore?”
“Word of honor!”
It was already past one o’clock when Pierre left his friend’s house. It was a duskless Petersburg June night. Pierre got into a hired carriage with the intention of going home. But the closer he came, the more he felt the impossibility of falling asleep on that night, which more resembled an evening or a morning. One could see far down the empty streets. On the way, Pierre recalled that the usual gambling company was to gather at Anatole Kuragin’s that evening, after which there was usually drinking, ending with one of Pierre’s favorite amusements.
“It would be nice to go to Kuragin’s,” he thought. But at once he remembered the word of honor he had given Prince Andrei not to visit Kuragin.
But at once, as happens with so-called characterless people, he desired so passionately to experience again that dissolute life so familiar to him, that he decided to go. And at once the thought occurred to him that the word he had given meant nothing, because before giving his word to Prince Andrei, he had also given Prince Anatole his word that he would be there; finally he thought that all these words of honor were mere conventions, with no definite meaning, especially if you considered that you might die the next day, or something so extraordinary might happen to you that there would no longer be either honor or dishonor. That sort of reasoning often came to Pierre, destroying all his decisions and suppositions. He went to Kuragin’s.
Driving up to the porch of a large house near the horse guards’ barracks, in which Anatole lived, he went up the lighted porch, the stairs, and entered an open door. There was no one in the front hall; empty bottles, capes, galoshes were lying about; there was a smell of wine, the noise of distant talking and shouting.
Cards and supper were over, but the guests had not dispersed yet. Pierre threw off his cape and went into the first room, where the remains of supper lay and one lackey, thinking no one could see him, was finishing on the sly what was left of the wine in the glasses. From the third room came a racket, guffawing, the shouting of familiar voices, and the roaring of a bear. Some eight young men were crowded busily by an open window. Three were romping with a young bear, one of them dragging it by a chain, trying to frighten the others.
“I stake a hundred on Stevens!” shouted one.
“Make sure there’s no holding on!” shouted another.
“I’m for Dolokhov!” cried a third. “Break the grip, Kuragin.”23
“Let Bruin be, we’re making a bet.”
“At one go, otherwise you lose,” shouted a fourth.
“Yakov! Let’s have a bottle, Yakov!” shouted the host himself, a tall, handsome man, who was standing in the midst of the crowd in nothing but a fine shirt open on his chest. “Wait, gentlemen. Here’s Petrusha, my dear friend,” he turned to Pierre.
Another voice, that of a not very tall man with clear blue eyes, especially striking amidst all these drunken voices by its sober expression, shouted from the window: “Come here—break the grip!” This was Dolokhov, an officer of the Semyonovsky regiment, a notorious gambler and duellist, who lived with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking around merrily.
“I don’t understand a thing. What’s up?” he asked.
“Wait, he’s not drunk. Give me a bottle,” said Anatole, and taking a glass from the table, he went up to Pierre.
“First of all, drink.”
Pierre started drinking glass after glass, looking from under his brows at the drunken guests, who again crowded by the window, and listening to their talk. Anatole poured the wine for him and told him that Dolokhov was making a bet with the Englishman Stevens, a sailor who was there, that he, Dolokhov, could drink a bottle of rum sitting in the third-floor window with his legs hanging out.
“Well, drink it all,” said Anatole, handing Pierre the last glass, “otherwise I won’t let you go!”
“No, I don’t want to,” said Pierre, pushing Anatole away, and he went over to the window.
Dolokhov was holding the Englishman by the hand and clearly, distinctly articulating the terms of the bet, mainly addressing Anatole and Pierre.
Dolokhov was a man of medium height, curly-haired and with light blue eyes. He was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers, he wore no mustache, and his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was entirely visible. The lines of his mouth were remarkably finely curved. In the middle, the upper lip came down energetically on the sturdy lower lip in a sharp wedge, and at the corners something like two smiles were constantly formed, one on each side; and all of that together, especially combined with a firm, insolent, intelligent gaze, made up such an expression that it was impossible not to notice this face. Dolokhov was not a rich man and had no connections. And though Anatole ran through tens of thousands, Dolokhov lived with him and managed to place himself so that Anatole and all those who knew them respected Dolokhov more than Anatole. Dolokhov gambled at all games and almost always won. No matter how much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness. Kuragin and Dolokhov were both celebrities at that time in the world of Petersburg scapegraces and carousers.