บทที่ บทที่ 352 · 第352章

The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but

turned on the subject Nicholas liked best—recollections of 1812. Denísov

started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing about

them. The family separated on the most friendly terms.

After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given

instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the

bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her

table, writing.

“What are you writing, Mary?” Nicholas asked.

Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would

not be understood or approved by her husband.

She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same

time was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now have to

tell him.

“A diary, Nicholas,” she replied, handing him a blue exercise book

filled with her firm, bold writing.

“A diary?” Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the

book.

It was in French.

December 4. Today when Andrúsha (her eldest boy) woke up he did not

wish to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and

obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I took the

matter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse’s help to get the

other children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long time

he was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in

his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time.

It was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me.

Afterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began

crying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by

tenderness.

“What is a ‘ticket’?” Nicholas inquired.

“I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how

they have behaved.”

Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and

continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down

everything in the children’s lives that seemed noteworthy to their

mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections

on educational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant

trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now

that he read this diary about his children for the first time.

Under the date “5” was entered:

Mítya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had

none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were

eating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only

develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.

Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes

gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her

diary? There could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his

admiration for his wife.

Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even

done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the

sole aim was the children’s moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas

been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady,

tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at

her spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach,

in which she had her being.

He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own

insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the

more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of

himself.

“I quite, quite approve, my dearest!” said he with a significant look,

and after a short pause he added: “And I behaved badly today. You

weren’t in the study. We began disputing—Pierre and I—and I lost my

temper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don’t know what would

become of him if Natásha didn’t keep him in hand.... Have you any idea

why he went to Petersburg? They have formed...”

“Yes, I know,” said Countess Mary. “Natásha told me.”

“Well, then, you know,” Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere

recollection of their discussion, “he wanted to convince me that it is

every honest man’s duty to go against the government, and that the oath

of allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren’t there. They all fell on

me—Denísov and Natásha... Natásha is absurd. How she rules over him! And

yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of her own

but only repeats his sayings...” added Nicholas, yielding to that

irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and

dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natásha could

have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife.

“Yes, I have noticed that,” said Countess Mary.

“When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he

started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there—what

would you have said?”

“As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natásha so. Pierre says

everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it

is our duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there,” said

Countess Mary, “but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us,

duties indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose

ourselves to risks we must not risk our children.”

“Yes, that’s it! That’s just what I said to him,” put in Nicholas, who

fancied he really had said it. “But they insisted on their own view:

love of one’s neighbor and Christianity—and all this in the presence of

young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things.”

“Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas,”

said Countess Mary. “He is such an exceptional boy. I am afraid I

neglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and relations while

he has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts.”

“Well, I don’t think you need reproach yourself on his account. All that

the fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are doing for

him, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This

evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy—as we were

going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to

bits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an

untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!” repeated Nicholas, who at heart was

not fond of Nicholas Bolkónski but was always anxious to recognize that

he was a fine lad.

“Still, I am not the same as his own mother,” said Countess Mary. “I

feel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am

dreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have companions.”

“Well it won’t be for long. Next summer I’ll take him to Petersburg,”

said Nicholas. “Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be,”

he continued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently

disturbed him. “Well, what business is it of mine what goes on

there—whether Arakchéev is bad, and all that? What business was it of

mine when I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with

prison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And

then there are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own

pleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night?

No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not

to leave the children such beggars as I was.”

Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone

and that he attached too much importance to these matters. But she knew

she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. She only

took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval and

a confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes’ reflection

continued to think aloud.

“You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofánych” (this was his overseer) “came

back from the Tambóv estate and told me they are already offering eighty

thousand rubles for the forest.”

And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of

repurchasing Otrádnoe before long, and added: “Another ten years of life

and I shall leave the children... in an excellent position.”

Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told

her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes

ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she

had been thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to

attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked

at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt

a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all

that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still

stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this

feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following

the details of her husband’s plans, thoughts that had no connection with

what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew.

Her husband’s account of the boy’s agitation while Pierre was speaking

struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive

character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she

thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but

compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt

with regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young

Nicholas.

Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the

difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and

promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible—in

this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all

her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary’s soul always

strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could

therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret

suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nicholas

gazed at her. “O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always

fear when her face is like that?” thought he, and placing himself before

the icon he began to say his evening prayers.