Bab Bab 351 · 第351章

Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed

everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out.

Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the

boy to come downstairs.

“No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay,” replied

Nicholas Bolkónski also in a whisper.

“Ma tante, please let me stay,” said he, going up to his aunt.

His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary

glanced at him and turned to Pierre.

“When you are here he can’t tear himself away,” she said.

“I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!”

said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young

Nicholas with a smile. “You and I haven’t seen anything of one another

yet.... How like he is growing, Mary!” he added, addressing Countess

Mary.

“Like my father?” asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at

Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.

Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the

children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natásha

did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denísov rose, asked

for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sónya—who sat weary

but resolute at the samovar—and questioned Pierre. The curly-headed,

delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, starting

every now and then and muttering something to himself, and evidently

experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly head,

with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the place

where Pierre sat.

The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power,

in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denísov,

dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments

in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg

which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what

Pierre told them.

“One used to have to be a German—now one must dance with Tatáwinova

and Madame Kwüdener, and wead Ecka’tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they

should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose—he’d knock all this nonsense

out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semënov wegiment to a

fellow like that Schwa’tz!” he cried.

Nicholas, though free from Denísov’s readiness to find fault with

everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very

serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed

Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor

had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very

important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these

things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the

conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the

higher government circles.

But Natásha, knowing all her husband’s ways and ideas, saw that he had

long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to

another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of

which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince

Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince

Theodore had gone.

“What was it about?” asked Nicholas.

“Always the same thing,” said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.

“Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be

allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to

counteract it as far as they can.”

“What can decent men do?” Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. “What

can be done?”

“Why, this...”

“Come into my study,” said Nicholas.

Natásha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now

heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary

followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkónski

followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table

in a shady corner by the window.

“Well, what would you do?” asked Denísov.

“Always some fantastic schemes,” said Nicholas.

“Why this,” began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,

sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: “the position

in Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He

has abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism” (Pierre could not

tolerate mysticism in anyone now). “He seeks only for peace, and only

these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him—people who recklessly

hack at and strangle everything—Magnítski, Arakchéev, and tutti

quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates

yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the

more readily your object might be attained,” he said to Nicholas.

* Without faith or law.

“Well, what does that lead up to?” said Nicholas.

“Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the

army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the

people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and

honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is

strained to such a degree that it will certainly break,” said Pierre (as

those who examine the actions of any government have always said since

governments began). “I told them just one thing in Petersburg.”

“Told whom?”

“Well, you know whom,” said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under

his brows. “Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and

philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the

present circumstances something else is needed.”

At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face

darkened and he went up to the boy.

“Why are you here?”

“Why? Let him be,” said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and

continuing. “That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.

When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment,

when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as

possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general

calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and

depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition

or money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you

or I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the

mot d’ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!”

Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat

down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning

more and more.

“But action with what aim?” he cried. “And what position will you adopt

toward the government?”

“Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the

government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but

it is a society of true conservatives—a society of gentlemen in the full

meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachëv or other from

killing my children and yours, and Arakchéev from sending me off to some

Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the

general safety.”

“Yes, but it’s a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one

which can only cause harm.”

“Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe” (they did not then venture

to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) “do any harm? The Tugendbund

is an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ

preached on the Cross.”

Natásha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at

her husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her—that did not

even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple

and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she

knew that it sprang from Pierre’s whole soul), but it was his animated

and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.

The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar—whom

everyone had forgotten—gazed at Pierre with even greater and more

rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre’s burned into his heart, and with a

nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax

and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle’s table.

“It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German

Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing.”

“No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters,

but I don’t understand it and can’t even pwonounce it,” interposed

Denísov in a loud and resolute voice. “I agwee that evewything here is

wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don’t understand. If we’re

not satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That’s all wight. Je suis

vot’e homme!” *

* “I’m your man.”

Pierre smiled, Natásha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows

still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of

any great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his

imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties

were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This

made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning

but by something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his

opinion.

“I will tell you this,” he said, rising and trying with nervously

twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally

abandoning the attempt. “I can’t prove it to you. You say that

everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don’t

see it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional

matter, and to that I reply: ‘You are my best friend, as you know,

but if you formed a secret society and began working against the

government—be it what it may—I know it is my duty to obey the

government. And if Arakchéev ordered me to lead a squadron against you

and cut you down, I should not hesitate an instant, but should do it.’

And you may argue about that as you like!”

An awkward silence followed these words. Natásha was the first to speak,

defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak

and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and

no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas’ last remark.

When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkónski went

up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.

“Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with

you?” he asked.

And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and

powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in

this boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he

regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give

him an answer.

“Yes, I think so,” he said reluctantly, and left the study.

The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he

had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas.

“Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally,” he said, pointing to

the broken sealing wax and pens.

Nicholas started angrily.

“All right, all right,” he said, throwing the bits under the table.

And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away

from the boy.

“You ought not to have been here at all,” he said.