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

all the morning finding fault with everyone and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be understood himself. Princess Márya well knew this mood of quiet absorbed querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor’s arrival the morning had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Márya sat down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she could hear all that passed in the study.

At first she heard only Métivier’s voice, then her father’s, then both voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and on the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Métivier with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled downwards.

“You don’t understand?” shouted the prince, “but I do! French spy, slave of Bonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you⁠ ⁠…” and he slammed the door.

Métivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne who at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room.

“The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep calm, I will call again tomorrow,” said Métivier; and putting his fingers to his lips he hastened away.

Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry: “Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment’s peace in my own house!”

After Métivier’s departure the old prince called his daughter in, and the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list, and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he could not have a moment’s peace and could not die quietly.

“No, ma’am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand it! I cannot endure any more,” he said, and left the room. Then, as if afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying to appear calm added: “And don’t imagine I have said this in a moment of anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be carried out⁠—we must part; so find some place for yourself.⁠ ⁠…” But he could not restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one who loves is capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and screamed:

“If only some fool would marry her!” Then he slammed the door, sent for Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.

At two o’clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.

These guests⁠—the famous Count Rostopchín, Prince Lopukhín with his nephew, General Chatróv an old war comrade of the prince’s, and of the younger generation Pierre and Borís Drubetskóy⁠—awaited the prince in the drawing room.

Borís, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been anxious to be presented to Prince Nikoláy Andréevich, and had contrived to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.

The prince’s house did not belong to what is known as fashionable society, but his little circle⁠—though not much talked about in town⁠—was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Borís had realized this the week before when the commander in chief in his presence invited Rostopchín to dinner on St. Nikoláy’s Day, and Rostopchín had replied that he could not come:

“On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince Nikoláy Andréevich.”

“Oh, yes, yes!” replied the commander in chief. “How is he?⁠ ⁠…”

The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince Nikoláy Andréevich came in serious and taciturn. Princess Márya seemed even quieter and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address her, feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count Rostopchín alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest town news, and now the latest political gossip.

Lopukhín and the old general occasionally took part in the conversation. Prince Nikoláy Andréevich listened as a presiding judge receives a report, only now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he took heed of what was being reported to him. The tone of the conversation was such as indicated that no one approved of what was being done in the political world. Incidents were related evidently confirming the opinion that everything was going from bad to worse, but whether telling a story or giving an opinion the speaker always stopped, or was stopped, at the point beyond which his criticism might touch the sovereign himself.

At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon’s seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and the Russian Note, hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.

“Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel,” said Count Rostopchín, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times before. “One only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the crowned heads. Now the Pope’s turn has come and Bonaparte doesn’t scruple to depose the head of the Catholic Church⁠—yet all keep silent! Our sovereign alone has protested against the seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and even⁠ ⁠…” Count Rostopchín paused, feeling that he had reached the limit beyond which censure was impossible.

“Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of Oldenburg,” said Prince Nikoláy Andréevich. “He shifts the Dukes about as I might move my serfs from Bald Hills to Boguchárovo