War and peace ( Constance Garnett-1900)

‘Hm ... if you want to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see him. Olga, go and see if uncle’s broth is ready—it will soon be time for it,’ she added, to show Pierre they were busy, and busy in seeing after his father’s comfort, while he was obviously only busy in causing him discomfort.

Olga went out. Pierre stood still a moment, looked at the sisters and bowing said: ‘Then I will go to my room. When I can see him, you will tell me.’ He went away and heard the ringing but not loud laugh of the sister with the mole behind him.

The next day Prince Vassily had come and settled in the count’s house. He sent for Pierre and said to him:

‘My dear fellow, if you behave here as you did at Petersburg, you will come to a very bad end; that’s all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill; you must not see him.’

Since then Pierre had not been disturbed, and he spent the whole day alone in his room upstairs.

At the moment when Boris came in, Pierre was walking up and down his room, stopping now and then in the corners, making menacing gestures at the wall, as though thrusting some invisible enemy through with a lance, then he gazed sternly over his spectacles, then pacing up and down again, murmuring indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating,

‘England’s day is over!’ he said, scowling and pointing at some one with his finger. ‘Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights of man, is condemned . . .’ he had not time to deliver Pitt’s sentence, imagining himself at that moment Napoleon, and having in the person of his hero succeeded in the dangerous crossing of the Channel and in the conquest of London, when he saw a graceful, handsome young officer come in. He stood still. Pierre had seen Boris last as a boy of fourteen, and did not remember him in the least. But in spite of that he took his hand in his characteristically quick and warm-hearted manner, and smiled cordially at him.

‘You remember me?’ Boris said calmly with a pleasant smile. ‘I have come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not quite well.’

‘Yes, he is ill, it seems. People are always bothering him,’ answered Pierre, trying to recall who this youth might be.

Boris perceived that Pierre did not know him, but did not think fit to make himself known, and without the slightest embarrassment looked him straight in the face.

‘Count Rostov asks you to come to dinner with him to-day,’ he said, after a rather long silence somewhat disconcerting for Pierre.

‘Ah, Count Rostov,’ began Pierre, delighted. ‘So you are his son, Ilya? Can you believe it, for the first moment I did not recognise you. Do you

46 WAR AND PEACE

remember how we used to slide on the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot . . . long ago?’

‘You are mistaken,’ said Boris, deliberately, with a bold and rather sarcastic smile. ‘I am Boris, the son of Princess Anna Mihalovna Drubet- skoy. It is the father of the Rostovs who is called Ilya, the son’s Nikolay. And I don’t know any Madame Jacquot.’

Pierre shook his hands and head, as though flies or bees were swarming upon him.

‘Ah, how is it! I’ve mixed it all up. There are such a lot of relatives in Moscow! You are Boris . . . yes. Well, now, we have got it clear. Tell me, what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? Things will go badly with the English, you know, if Napoleon gets across the Channel. I believe that the expedition is very possible. If only Villeneuve doesn’t make a mess of it! ’

Boris knew nothing at all about the Boulogne expedition, and it was the first time he had heard of Villeneuve.

‘Here in Moscow we are more interested in dinner parties and scandal than in politics,’ he said in his self-possessed, sarcastic tone. ‘I know nothing and think nothing about it. Moscow’s more engrossed in scandal than anything,’ he went on. ‘Just now they are all talking about you and about the count.’

Pierre smiled his kindly smile, as though afraid for his companion’s sake that he might say something he would regret. But Boris spoke distinctly, clearly and drily, looking straight into Pierre’s face.

‘There’s nothing else to do in Moscow but talk scandal,’ he went on. ‘Every one’s absorbed in the question whom the count will leave his fortune to, though perhaps he will outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he may.’

‘Yes, all that’s very horrid,’ Pierre interposed, ‘very horrid.’ Pierre was still afraid this officer would inadvertently drop into some remark disconcerting for himself.

‘And it must seem to you,’ said Boris, flushing slightly, but not changing his voice or attitude, ‘it must seem to you that every one’s thinking of nothing but getting something from him.’

‘That’s just it,’ thought Pierre.