Chapter Chapter 146 · 第146章

After Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any

apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before.

Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his

benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to

which he had devoted himself with such ardor—all the zest of such a

life vanished after the engagement of Andrew and Natásha and the death

of Joseph Alexéevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same

time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife

who now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance

with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities.

And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He

ceased keeping a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going

to the club again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch

with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Hélène

thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that

she was right, and to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.

In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and

fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,

driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable

tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Krémlin

Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and

hovels of the Sívtsev Vrazhók, those old Moscovites who desired

nothing, hurried nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he

saw those old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he

felt himself at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at

home, warm and dirty as in an old dressing gown.

Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre

like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him.

For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,

merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of

the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to

everyone.

Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,

gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,

churches, and books—no one and nothing met with a refusal from him,

and had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from

him and taken him under their protection, he would have given everything

away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As

soon as he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux

he was surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there

were quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the

antagonists. The Masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not

there.

When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile,

yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere

with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men.

At balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and

unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was

equally amiable to all, especially after supper. “Il est charmant; il

n’a pas de sexe,” * they said of him.

* “He is charming; he has no sex.”

Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were

hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.

How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first

arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him

to seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally

predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in

his position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one

time longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia;

then himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then

a strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the

possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful

human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection?

Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?

But instead of all that—here he was, the wealthy husband of an

unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and

drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government

a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in

Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the

idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting

he had so despised seven years before.

Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living

this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how

many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily,

with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single

tooth or hair remained.

In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to

him that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired

gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid,

contented fellows, satisfied with their position, “while I am still

discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these

comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a

path in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of

circumstances, society, and race—by that elemental force against which

man is powerless—to the condition I am in,” said he to himself in

moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer

despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his

comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.

Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust

with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such

acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment.

“What for? Why? What is going on in the world?” he would ask himself

in perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect

anew on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience

that there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away

from them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollón

Nikoláevich’s, to exchange the gossip of the town.

“Hélène, who has never cared for anything but her own body and

is one of the stupidest women in the world,” thought Pierre, “is

regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they

pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he

was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor

Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The

Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their

victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French,

also through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same

fourteenth of June they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear

by the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their

neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections for the

poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers,

and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody

needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not

understand. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries

and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in

Moscow forty times forty churches—but yesterday a deserter was knouted

to death and a minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, a

priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before his execution.” So

thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone

accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him each time as if it

were something new. “I understand the deception and confusion,” he

thought, “but how am I to tell them all that I see? I have tried, and

have always found that they too in the depths of their souls understand

it as I do, and only try not to see it. So it appears that it must

be so! But I—what is to become of me?” thought he. He had the

unfortunate capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and

believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the

evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part

in it. Every sphere of work was connected, in his eyes, with evil and

deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and

falsehood of it repulsed him and blocked every path of activity. Yet he

had to live and to find occupation. It was too dreadful to be under

the burden of these insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to

any distraction in order to forget them. He frequented every kind of

society, drank much, bought pictures, engaged in building, and above

all—read.

He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while

his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and

began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to

gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women;

from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more

and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors

warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he

drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several

glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant

warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a

readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it

deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the

terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was

not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some

aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or

supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the

influence of wine he said to himself: “It doesn’t matter. I’ll

get it unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now—I’ll

think it all out later on!” But the later on never came.

In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as

insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and

if anyone came to see him he was glad.

Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when

entrenched under the enemy’s fire, if they have nothing to do, try

hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To

Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life:

some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women,

some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some

in wine, and some in governmental affairs. “Nothing is trivial, and

nothing is important, it’s all the same—only to save oneself from it

as best one can,” thought Pierre. “Only not to see it, that dreadful

it!”