“Non, mais figurez-vous, la vieille comtesse Zouboff avec des fausses boucles et la bouche pleine de fausses dents, comme si elle voulait défier les années…†175 Ha, ha, ha, Marie!”
Five times already, with other people, Prince Andrei had heard exactly the same phrase about the countess Zubov and the same laughter from his wife. He quietly went into the room. The princess, round, rosy, with her work in her hands, was sitting in an armchair and talking non-stop, telling over her Petersburg memories and even phrases. Prince Andrei went to her, stroked her head, and asked whether she had rested from the journey. She made a reply and went on with the same talk.
The coach and six was standing at the porch. Outside it was a dark autumn night. The coachman could not see the shafts of the carriage. On the porch people with lanterns bustled about. Lights shone through the big windows of the immense house. The domestic servants crowded in the front hall, wishing to say good-bye to the young prince; in the reception room stood the whole household: Mikhail Ivanovich, Mlle Bourienne, Princess Marya, and the little princess. Prince Andrei had been summoned to his father’s study, where the old prince wanted to say good-bye to him man to man. Everyone was waiting for them to emerge.
When Prince Andrei went into the study, the old prince, in his old man’s spectacles and his white smock, in which he received no one except his son, was sitting at the table and writing. He looked up.
“You’re leaving?” And he started writing again.
“I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“Kiss me here,” he pointed to his cheek. “Thank you, thank you!”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“For not overstaying and clinging to a woman’s skirt. Service before all. Thank you, thank you!” And he went on writing, so that spatters flew from his scratching pen. “If you want to say something, speak. I can do the two things at once,” he added.
“About my wife…I’m so ashamed to be leaving her on your hands…”
“What’s this drivel? Say what you want.”
“When it’s time for my wife to give birth, send to Moscow for an accoucheur*176 …So that he’ll be here.”
The old prince stopped and, as if unable to understand, stared with stern eyes at his son.
“I know no one can help if nature doesn’t help,” Prince Andrei said, visibly embarrassed. “I agree that only one case in a million ends badly, but it’s her and my fantasy. People have said things to her, she’s had dreams, and she’s afraid.”
“Hm…hm…” the old prince said to himself, still writing. “I’ll do it.”
He signed with a flourish, suddenly turned quickly to his son, and laughed.
“A bad business, eh?”
“What is, papa?”
“A wife!” the old prince said curtly and significantly.
“I don’t understand,” said Prince Andrei.
“Nothing to be done, my friend,” said the prince, “they’re all like that, no use unmarrying. Don’t be afraid; I won’t tell anybody; but you know it yourself.”
He seized his hand in his bony little fist, shook it, looked straight into his son’s face with his quick eyes that seemed to see through a person, and again laughed his cold laugh.
The son sighed, admitting by this sigh that his father had understood him. The old man, continuing to fold and seal letters with his habitual dexterity, kept snatching up and throwing down wax, seal, and paper.
“What can you do? She’s beautiful! I’ll do everything. You can rest easy,” he said brusquely while sealing a letter.
Andrei said nothing: he was both pleased and displeased that his father understood him. The old man got up and handed the letter to his son.
“Listen,” he said, “don’t worry about your wife: whatever can be done, will be done. Now listen: give this letter to Mikhail Ilarionovich. I write that he should use you in good posts and not keep you long as an adjutant: nasty duty! Tell him I remember him and love him. And write and tell me how he receives you. If he’s all right, serve him. Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky’s son won’t serve anyone on charity. Well, now come here.”
He spoke so quickly that half the words remained unfinished, but his son was used to understanding him. He led his son to the desk, opened the lid, pulled out a drawer, and took from it a notebook filled with his bold, tall, compact handwriting.
“I’m sure to die before you. Know that these are my journals, to be given to the sovereign after my death. Now here is a Lombard note53 and a letter: it’s a prize for whoever writes the history of Suvorov’s campaigns. To be sent to the Academy. Here are my jottings, read them for yourself when I’m gone, you’ll find useful things.”
Andrei did not tell his father that he would probably live for a long time yet. He understood that there was no need to say it.
“I’ll do it all, father,” he said.
“Well, and now good-bye!” He gave his son his hand to kiss and embraced him. “Remember one thing, Prince Andrei: if you’re killed, I, your old father, will be pained…” He unexpectedly fell silent and suddenly went on in a shrill voice: “But if I learn that you have not behaved like Nikolai Bolkonsky’s son, I will be ashamed!” he shrieked.
“That you might not have told me, father,” the son said, smiling.
The old man fell silent.
“I also wanted to ask you,” Prince Andrei continued, “if I’m killed, and if I should have a son, don’t let him leave you, as I told you yesterday; he should grow up here with you…please.”
“Not give him to your wife?” the old man said and laughed.
They stood silently facing each other. The old man’s quick eyes were aimed straight into his son’s eyes. Something twitched in the lower part of the old prince’s face.
“We’ve said our good-byes…off with you!” he said suddenly. “Off with you!” he shouted in a loud and angry voice, opening the door of the study.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked both princesses, seeing Prince Andrei and the momentarily emerging figure of the old man in a white smock, wigless, and in an old man’s spectacles, shouting in an angry voice.
Prince Andrei sighed and said nothing.
“Well,” he said, turning to his wife, and this “well” sounded like cold mockery, as if he had said: “Now perform your tricks.”
“André, déjà?”*177 the little princess said, turning pale and looking at her husband in fear.
He embraced her. She cried out and fell unconscious on his shoulder.
He cautiously withdrew the shoulder she was lying on, looked into her face, and carefully seated her in an armchair.
“Adieu, Marie,” he said softly to his sister, they kissed each other’s hands, and with quick steps he walked out of the room.
The princess lay in the armchair, and Mlle Bourienne rubbed her temples. Princess Marya, supporting her sister-in-law, went on looking with her beautiful, tear-filled eyes at the door through which Prince Andrei had gone and making signs of the cross at him. From the study, like gunshots, came the oft-repeated angry sounds of the old man blowing his nose. As soon as Prince Andrei left, the door to the study quickly opened, and the old man’s stern figure appeared in its white smock.
“Gone? Well, that’s good!” he said, gave the unconscious little princess an angry look, shook his head reproachfully, and slammed the door.
I
In October 1805 Russian troops were occupying villages and towns in the archduchy of Austria, and more new regiments kept arriving from Russia to be stationed by the fortress of Braunau, burdening the local inhabitants with their billeting. In Braunau the commander in chief, Kutuzov, had his headquarters.