الفصل الفصل 5 · 第5章

“And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at

Milan?” asked Anna Pávlovna, “and of the comedy of the people of

Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and

Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of

the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one’s head whirl! It is as

if the whole world had gone crazy.”

Prince Andrew looked Anna Pávlovna straight in the face with a

sarcastic smile.

“‘Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche!’’ * They say he was

very fine when he said that,” he remarked, repeating the words in

Italian: “‘Dio mi l’ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!’’

* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!

“I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run

over,” Anna Pávlovna continued. “The sovereigns will not be able to

endure this man who is a menace to everything.”

“The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia,” said the vicomte, polite

but hopeless: “The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis

XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!” and he became

more animated. “And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their

betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending

ambassadors to compliment the usurper.”

And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.

Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time

through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the

little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Condé

coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity

as if she had asked him to do it.

“Bâton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d’azur—maison Condé,”

said he.

The princess listened, smiling.

“If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer,” the

vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which

he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but

follows the current of his own thoughts, “things will have gone too

far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I

mean good French society—will have been forever destroyed, and

then....”

He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to

make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pávlovna,

who had him under observation, interrupted:

“The Emperor Alexander,” said she, with the melancholy which

always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, “has

declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose

their own form of government; and I believe that once free from the

usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms

of its rightful king,” she concluded, trying to be amiable to the

royalist emigrant.

“That is doubtful,” said Prince Andrew. “Monsieur le Vicomte quite

rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will

be difficult to return to the old regime.”

“From what I have heard,” said Pierre, blushing and breaking into

the conversation, “almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to

Bonaparte’s side.”

“It is the Buonapartists who say that,” replied the vicomte without

looking at Pierre. “At the present time it is difficult to know the

real state of French public opinion.”

“Bonaparte has said so,” remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic

smile.

It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his

remarks at him, though without looking at him.

“‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow

it,’” Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting

Napoleon’s words. “‘I opened my antechambers and they crowded

in.’ I do not know how far he was justified in saying so.”

“Not in the least,” replied the vicomte. “After the murder of the

duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some

people,” he went on, turning to Anna Pávlovna, “he ever was a hero,

after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one

hero less on earth.”

Before Anna Pávlovna and the others had time to smile their

appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again broke into the

conversation, and though Anna Pávlovna felt sure he would say something

inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.

“The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,” declared Monsieur Pierre,

“was a political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon

showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole

responsibility of that deed.”

“Dieu! Mon Dieu!” muttered Anna Pávlovna in a terrified whisper.

“What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows

greatness of soul?” said the little princess, smiling and drawing her

work nearer to her.

“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed several voices.

“Capital!” said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his

knee with the palm of his hand.

The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his

audience over his spectacles and continued.

“I say so,” he continued desperately, “because the Bourbons fled

from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone

understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,

he could not stop short for the sake of one man’s life.”

“Won’t you come over to the other table?” suggested Anna

Pávlovna.

But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.

“No,” cried he, becoming more and more eager, “Napoleon is great

because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses,

preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom

of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did he obtain

power.”

“Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to

commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have

called him a great man,” remarked the vicomte.

“He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might

rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great

man. The Revolution was a grand thing!” continued Monsieur Pierre,

betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme

youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.

“What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that...

But won’t you come to this other table?” repeated Anna Pávlovna.

“Rousseau’s Contrat Social,” said the vicomte with a tolerant

smile.

“I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas.”

“Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,” again interjected an

ironical voice.

“Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most

important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from

prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon

has retained in full force.”

“Liberty and equality,” said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at

last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words

were, “high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does

not love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and

equality. Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the

contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.”

Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the

vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of

Pierre’s outburst Anna Pávlovna, despite her social experience, was

horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre’s sacrilegious words

had not exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was

impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in

a vigorous attack on the orator.

“But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” said she, “how do you explain the

fact of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man who—is

innocent and untried?”

“I should like,” said the vicomte, “to ask how monsieur explains

the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not

at all like the conduct of a great man!”

“And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!” said the

little princess, shrugging her shoulders.

“He’s a low fellow, say what you will,” remarked Prince Hippolyte.

Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His

smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled,

his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by

another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to

ask forgiveness.

The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that

this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were

silent.

“How do you expect him to answer you all at once?” said Prince

Andrew. “Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish

between his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor.

So it seems to me.”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of

this reinforcement.

“One must admit,” continued Prince Andrew, “that Napoleon as a man

was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he

gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but ... but there are other acts

which it is difficult to justify.”

Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of

Pierre’s remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to

go.

Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,

and asking them all to be seated began:

“I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.

Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point will be

lost....” And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian

as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.

Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their

attention to his story.

“There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must

have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her

taste. And she had a lady’s maid, also big. She said....”

Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with

difficulty.

“She said.... Oh yes! She said, ‘Girl,’ to the maid, ‘put on a

livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some

calls.’”

Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his

audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several

persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pávlovna, did however

smile.

“She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and

her long hair came down....” Here he could contain himself no

longer and went on, between gasps of laughter: “And the whole world

knew....”

And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told

it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pávlovna and the

others appreciated Prince Hippolyte’s social tact in so agreeably

ending Pierre’s unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote

the conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last

and next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and

where.