บทที่ บทที่ 95 · 第95章

Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state

of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his

friend Bolkónski, whom he had not seen for two years.

Boguchárovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among

fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The

house lay behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and

with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that

stretched along the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were

a few fir trees.

The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a

bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular façade

still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid

out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a

water cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight,

the bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of

tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply

to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly

built lodge close to the pond. Antón, a man who had looked after Prince

Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the

prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.

Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after

the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in

Petersburg.

He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered

wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón

ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.

“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.

“A visitor,” answered Antón.

“Ask him to wait,” and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed

back.

Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to

face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre

embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek

and looked at him closely.

“Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad,” said Prince Andrew.

Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He

was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a

smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in

spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous

and glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more

manly-looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used

to it were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged

concentration on some one thought.

As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation,

it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They

put questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to

be talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on

some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans

for the future, Pierre’s journeys and occupations, the war, and so

on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his

friend’s look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile

with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful

animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would

have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not.

The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his

enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince

Andrew’s presence. He was ashamed to express his new Masonic views,

which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour.

He checked himself, fearing to seem naïve, yet he felt an irresistible

desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite

different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.

“I can’t tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly

know myself again.”

“Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then,” said Prince

Andrew.

“Well, and you? What are your plans?”

“Plans!” repeated Prince Andrew ironically. “My plans?” he said,

as if astonished at the word. “Well, you see, I’m building. I mean

to settle here altogether next year....”

Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew’s face,

which had grown much older.

“No, I meant to ask...” Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted

him.

“But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels

and all you have been doing on your estates.”

Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far

as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been

made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre’s story of what he

had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened

not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was

telling him.

Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend’s company

and at last became silent.

“I’ll tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andrew, who

evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, “I am

only bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back

to my sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know

her already,” he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with

whom he now found nothing in common. “We will go after dinner. And

would you now like to look round my place?”

They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political

news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other

intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of

the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here,

while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future

arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:

“However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then

we’ll set off.”

At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre’s marriage.

“I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andrew.

Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said

hurriedly: “I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you

know it is all over, and forever.”

“Forever?” said Prince Andrew. “Nothing’s forever.”

“But you know how it all ended, don’t you? You heard of the duel?”

“And so you had to go through that too!”

“One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man,” said

Pierre.

“Why so?” asked Prince Andrew. “To kill a vicious dog is a very

good thing really.”

“No, to kill a man is bad—wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?” urged Prince Andrew. “It is not given to man

to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will

err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”

“What does harm to another is wrong,” said Pierre, feeling with

pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was

roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to

his present state.

“And who has told you what is bad for another man?” he asked.

“Bad! Bad!” exclaimed Pierre. “We all know what is bad for

ourselves.”

“Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is

something I cannot inflict on others,” said Prince Andrew, growing

more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook

to Pierre. He spoke in French. “I only know two very real evils in

life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils.

To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy

now.”

“And love of one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice?” began Pierre.

“No, I can’t agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and

not to have to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for

myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least

trying” (Pierre’s modesty made him correct himself) “to live for

others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I

shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe what you are

saying.” Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.

“When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you’ll get on with her,”

he said. “Perhaps you are right for yourself,” he added after

a short pause, “but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for

yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness

when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I

lived for glory.—And after all what is glory? The same love of others,

a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I

lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have

become calmer since I began to live only for myself.”

“But what do you mean by living only for yourself?” asked Pierre,

growing excited. “What about your son, your sister, and your

father?”

“But that’s just the same as myself—they are not others,”

explained Prince Andrew. “The others, one’s neighbors, le prochain,

as you and Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and

evil. Le prochain—your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good.”

And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He

evidently wished to draw him on.

“You are joking,” replied Pierre, growing more and more excited.

“What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even

doing a little—though I did very little and did it very badly? What

evil can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like

ourselves, were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth

beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in

a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and

consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying

of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be

rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum

for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a

peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give

them rest and leisure?” said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. “And

I have done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done

something toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good

action, and more than that, you can’t make me believe that you do not

think so yourself. And the main thing is,” he continued, “that I

know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the

only sure happiness in life.”

“Yes, if you put it like that it’s quite a different matter,” said

Prince Andrew. “I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build

hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what’s

right and what’s good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by

us. Well, you want an argument,” he added, “come on then.”

They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served

as a veranda.

“Come, let’s argue then,” said Prince Andrew, “You talk of

schools,” he went on, crooking a finger, “education and so forth;

that is, you want to raise him” (pointing to a peasant who passed by

them taking off his cap) “from his animal condition and awaken in him

spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only

happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of.

I envy him, but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my

means. Then you say, ‘lighten his toil.’ But as I see it, physical

labor is as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as

mental activity is to you or me. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed

after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can’t sleep but toss

about till dawn, because I think and can’t help thinking, just as

he can’t help plowing and mowing; if he didn’t, he would go to the

drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his terrible physical

labor but should die of it in a week, so he could not stand my physical

idleness, but would grow fat and die. The third thing—what else was

it you talked about?” and Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. “Ah,

yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and

bleed him and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to

everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for

him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of them as it is.

It would be different if you grudged losing a laborer—that’s how I

regard him—but you want to cure him from love of him. And he does not

want that. And besides, what a notion that medicine ever cured anyone!

Killed them, yes!” said he, frowning angrily and turning away from

Pierre.

Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was

evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke

readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His

glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.

“Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!” said Pierre. “I don’t

understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such moments

myself not long ago, in Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I

collapsed so that I don’t live at all—everything seems hateful to

me... myself most of all. Then I don’t eat, don’t wash... and how is

it with you?...”

“Why not wash? That is not cleanly,” said Prince Andrew; “on the

contrary one must try to make one’s life as pleasant as possible.

I’m alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I

can without hurting others.”

“But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit

without moving, undertaking nothing....”

“Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do

nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the

honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get

out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary

qualifications for it—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness

necessary for the position. Then there’s this house, which must be

built in order to have a nook of one’s own in which to be quiet. And

now there’s this recruiting.”

“Why aren’t you serving in the army?”

“After Austerlitz!” said Prince Andrew gloomily. “No, thank you

very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active

Russian army. And I won’t—not even if Bonaparte were here at

Smolénsk threatening Bald Hills—even then I wouldn’t serve in the

Russian army! Well, as I was saying,” he continued, recovering his

composure, “now there’s this recruiting. My father is chief in

command of the Third District, and my only way of avoiding active

service is to serve under him.”

“Then you are serving?”

“I am.”

He paused a little while.

“And why do you serve?”

“Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of

his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too

energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is

terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander in chief of

the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late

a fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster’s clerk at Yúkhnovna

hanged,” said Prince Andrew with a smile. “So I am serving because

I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him

from actions which would torment him afterwards.”

“Well, there you see!”

“Yes, but it is not as you imagine,” Prince Andrew continued. “I

did not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk

who had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been

very glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father—that again

is for myself.”

Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly

while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no

desire to do good to his neighbor.

“There now, you wish to liberate your serfs,” he continued; “that

is a very good thing, but not for you—I don’t suppose you ever had

anyone flogged or sent to Siberia—and still less for your serfs. If

they are beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don’t suppose they are

any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the

stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is

a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon

themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being

able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I

pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You

may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those

traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable,

become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain

themselves and grow more and more miserable.”

Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking

that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his

father’s case.

He did not reply.

“So that’s what I’m sorry for—human dignity, peace of mind,

purity, and not the serfs’ backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave

as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads.”

“No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you,” said

Pierre.