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

On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andréy brought with him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostóvs’ once since the ball. Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and Natásha sat down beside a little chess table with Sónya, thereby inviting Prince Andréy to come too. He did so.

“You have known Bezúkhov a long time?” he asked. “Do you like him?”

“Yes, he’s a dear, but very absurd.”

And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his absentmindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.

“Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natáli,” Prince Andréy said with sudden seriousness⁠—“I am going away and heaven knows what may happen. You may cease to⁠ ⁠… all right, I know I am not to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here⁠ ⁠…”

“What can happen?”

“Whatever trouble may come,” Prince Andréy continued, “I beg you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for advice and help! He is a most absentminded and absurd fellow, but he has a heart of gold.”

Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sónya, nor Prince Andréy himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on Natásha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day, dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed her hand for the last time. “Don’t go!” she said in a tone that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying now and then, “Oh, why did he go away?”

But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.

During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nikoláy Andréevich Bolkónski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Márya who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Márya had two passions and consequently two joys⁠—her nephew, Nikolúshka, and religion⁠—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. “You want to make him”⁠—Nikólenka⁠—“into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andréy wants a son and not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Márya’s presence how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke about them.

He continually hurt Princess Márya’s feelings and tormented her, but it cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust? And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word “justice.” All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law⁠—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did.

During the winter Prince Andréy had come to Bald Hills and had been gay, gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Márya had known him for a long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with his father about something, and Princess Márya noticed that before his departure they were dissatisfied with one another.

Soon after Prince Andréy had gone, Princess Márya wrote to her friend Julie Karágina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream) of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her own brother, killed in Turkey.

Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.

Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can⁠—I will not say comfort us⁠—but save us from despair. Religion alone can explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life⁠—not merely harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others⁠—are called away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I saw, and one I shall never forget⁠—that of my dear sister-in-law⁠—left that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had to die, so I asked why that angel Liza, who not only never wronged anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though generally incomprehensible to us, is but a