War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📕

“Ah, my boy, my head’s in a whirl!” said the old man with a smile, as if he felt a little confused before his son. “Now, if you would only help a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but shouldn’t we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that sort of thing.”

“Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagratión worried himself less before the battle of Schön Grabern than you do now,” said his son with a smile.

The old count pretended to be angry.

“Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!”

And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and son.

“What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktíst?” said he. “Laughing at us old fellows!”

“That’s so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that’s not their business!”

“That’s it, that’s it!” exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son by both hands, he cried, “Now I’ve got you, so take the sleigh and pair at once, and go to Bezúkhov’s, and tell him ‘Count Ilyá Andréevich has sent you to ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.’ We can’t get them from anyone else. He’s not there himself, so you’ll have to go in and ask the princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyáy⁠—the coachman Ipátka knows⁠—and look up the gypsy Ilyúshka, the one who danced at Count Orlóv’s, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to me.”

“And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?” asked Nikoláy, laughing. “Dear, dear!⁠ ⁠…”

At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike, preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna Mikháylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to excuse his costume.

“No matter at all, my dear count,” she said, meekly closing her eyes. “But I’ll go to Bezúkhov’s myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case. He has forwarded me a letter from Borís. Thank God, Borís is now on the staff.”

The count was delighted at Anna Mikháylovna’s taking upon herself one of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.

“Tell Bezúkhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is his wife with him?” he asked.

Anna Mikháylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted on her face.

“Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate,” she said. “If what we hear is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young Bezúkhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what consolation I can.”

“Wh-what is the matter?” asked both the young and old Rostóv.

Anna Mikháylovna sighed deeply.

“Dólokhov, Márya Ivánovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now⁠ ⁠… she has come here and that daredevil after her!” said Anna Mikháylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called Dólokhov. “They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune.”

“Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club⁠—it will all blow over. It will be a tremendous banquet.”

Next day, the third of March, soon after one o’clock, two hundred and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagratión, to dinner.

On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it, while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important, and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in conversation⁠—Count Rostopchín, Prince Yúri Vladímirovich Dolgorúkov, Valúev, Count Markóv, and Prince Vyázemski⁠—did not show themselves at the club, but met in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took their opinions from others⁠—Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv among them⁠—remained for a while without any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who guided the club’s opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear, and in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat, the treachery of the Pole Przebyszéwski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Kutúzov’s incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people. But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and had achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagratión, distinguished by his Schön Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to Bagratión’s being selected as Moscow’s hero was the fact that he had no connections in the city