第 三百四十二 章 · 第342章

Natásha’s wedding to Bezúkhov, which took place in 1813, was the last

happy event in the family of the old Rostóvs. Count Ilyá Rostóv died

that same year and, as always happens, after the father’s death the

family group broke up.

The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight

from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natásha’s despair, Pétya’s death,

and the old countess’ grief fell blow after blow on the old count’s

head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these

events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and

inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened

and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising.

The arrangements for Natásha’s marriage occupied him for a while. He

ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but

his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it

evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.

When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to

complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his

bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite

the doctor’s encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an

armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him

his medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,

sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having

dissipated their property—that being the chief fault of which he was

conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and

next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects

to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostóvs. All these

acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so

often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach

and emotion, as if justifying themselves: “Well, whatever he may have

been he was a most worthy man. You don’t meet such men nowadays.... And

which of us has not weaknesses of his own?”

It was just when the count’s affairs had become so involved that it was

impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he

unexpectedly died.

Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his

father’s death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and

without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to

Moscow. The state of the count’s affairs became quite obvious a month

after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small

debts the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to

double the value of the property.

Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But

he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father’s memory, which he

held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the

inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.

The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague

but powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count’s

careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As

always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get

paid first, and those who like Mítenka held promissory notes given them

as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was

allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity

the old man—the cause of their losses (if they were losses)—now

remorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the

debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them.

Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by

auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained

unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his

brother-in-law Bezúkhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due

for value received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as

the creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.

He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at

the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on

life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who

had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service,

he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of

which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sónya to a small

house on the Sívtsev Vrazhók.

Natásha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no

clear idea of Nicholas’ circumstances. Having borrowed money from his

brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him.

His position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve

hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sónya,

but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The

countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she

had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was

for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to

send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or

wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natásha or

Sónya, or for Nicholas himself.

Sónya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her

whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty

from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted

to Sónya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her

patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.

He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and

because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people

are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt

that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at

her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all

that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in

any case be renewed.

Nicholas’ position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something

aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save

anything, but to comply with his mother’s demands he even incurred some

small debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of

marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female

relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out—his mother’s

death—never entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped

for nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern

satisfaction in an uncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried

to avoid his old acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive

offers of assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and

even at home did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently

up and down the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed

carefully to cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled

him to endure his position.