War And Peace

It was a long time before Pierre could get to sleep that night. He paced his room, scowling as he plunged into a difficult train of thought, or shrugging his shoulders and wincing, or sometimes beaming blissfully.

He was thinking about Prince Andrey, Natasha and the love between them. At one moment he felt jealous of her past, the next moment he took himself to task, and then he forgave himself for feeling like that. It was six in the morning, and he was still pacing.

‘What shall I do, then? What if it has to be? What else can I do? That’s it – I’ve got to do it,’ he said to himself. Then he undressed very quickly and got into bed, happy and all worked up, but free from doubt and hesitation.

‘It might seem strange and impossible, happiness like that, but I’ve got to do all I can to make us man and wife,’ he said to himself.

Several days before Pierre had settled on the following Friday as the day he would leave for Petersburg. When he woke it was Thursday morning, and Savelich came in for instructions about packing for the journey.

‘Petersburg? Who’s going to Petersburg? Who’s in Petersburg?’ was his instinctive reaction, though he kept it to himself. ‘Oh, yes, ages ago, before all this happened, I did plan to go to Petersburg for some reason or other,’ he recalled. ‘What could it have been? Maybe I’ll still go . . . Isn’t he a good man, looking after me like this? He never forgets a thing,’ he thought, looking at Savelich’s old face. ‘What a lovely smile!’ he thought.

‘So, you still don’t want your freedom, Savelich?’ asked Pierre.

‘What would I want with freedom, your Excellency? I got on well with the old count – God rest his soul – and with you, sir, there hasn’t been nothing unpleasant.’

‘Yes, but what about your children?’

‘They’ll be all right, sir. We can get along with masters like you.’

‘Yes, but what about my heirs?’ said Pierre. ‘I might go and get married . . . It could happen, you know,’ he added, with an involuntary smile.

‘And a good thing too, your Excellency, if I may say so.’

‘He thinks it’s as easy as that,’ thought Pierre. ‘He’s no idea how awful it is, and how dangerous. Is it too late? Or is it too soon? . . . It’s such an awful business!’

‘What are your orders? Will you be going tomorrow, sir?’ asked Savelich.

‘No. I’m putting it off for a while. I’ll tell you when the time comes. I’m sorry I give you so much trouble,’ said Pierre, and when he saw that Savelich was still smiling he thought to himself, ‘Isn’t it funny? He doesn’t seem to know there’s no Petersburg now – I’ve got that to settle first.’

‘I’m sure he does know,’ he thought. ‘He’s just pretending. Shall I have a word with him? Ask him what he thinks? No, some other time . . .’

Over breakfast Pierre told his cousin he had been at Princess Marya’s the previous evening, and had come across – guess who – Natalie Rostov!

The princess looked as if she saw nothing unusual in this. It was just as if he had come across Anna Semyonovna.

‘Do you know her?’ asked Pierre.

‘I have seen the princess,’ she answered, ‘and there was talk of a match between her and young Rostov. That would have been very nice for the Rostovs. I hear they are utterly ruined.’

‘No, I meant – do you know Natasha Rostov?’

‘Oh, I did hear that story about her. Very sad.’

‘She doesn’t understand, or she’s pretending not to,’ thought Pierre. ‘Better not say anything.’

The princess had also been busy getting provisions ready for Pierre’s journey.

‘They’re all being so nice to me,’ thought Pierre. ‘Fancy them bothering about all this now, when they can’t have the slightest interest in it. And they’re doing it for me – that’s what’s so marvellous.’

The same day the chief of police called on Pierre and invited him to send someone who could be trusted down to the Faceted Palace to receive goods that were being restored to their owners later in the day.

‘And this man too,’ thought Pierre, looking into the face of the chief of police. ‘What a splendid, handsome officer, and how nice he is! Fancy him bothering about such trivialities at a time like this. And yet they call him dishonest; they say he’s on the make. What nonsense! Though incidentally why shouldn’t he be on the make? That’s the way he was brought up. They’re all doing it. He’s got such a nice, good-humoured face, and he smiles when he looks at me.’

Pierre set off to dine with Princess Marya.

As he drove through the streets between the charred ruins, he revelled in the beauty of the desolation. The chimney-stacks and collapsed walls of houses stretched out one behind another all through the burnt-out quarters of the town, reminding him of the picturesque ruins of the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabdrivers and their passengers coming towards him, the carpenters knocking up house-frames, the women hawkers and shopkeepers all beamed at Pierre with cheerful faces and seemed to be saying, ‘Oh, here he is! Now we’ll see what happens . . .’