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Volume I, Part One, Chapter XIV

Countess Rostóva with her daughters and already a large number of guests was sitting in the drawing room. The count had taken the gentlemen guests into his study, offering them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From time to time he went out and asked: has she not arrived? They were expecting Máriya Dmítriyevna Akhrosímova, known in society as le terrible dragon, a lady famous not for wealth, not for honors, but for the directness of her mind and the frank simplicity of her address. Máriya Dmítriyevna was known to the imperial family, known to all Moscow and all Petersburg, and both cities, wondering at her, secretly laughed at her rudeness, told anecdotes about her; nevertheless all without exception respected and feared her.

In the study, full of smoke, a conversation was going on about the war, which had been declared by a manifesto, and about the levy. No one had yet read the manifesto, but everyone knew of its appearance. The count was sitting on the ottoman between two neighbors who were smoking and talking. The count himself did not smoke and did not speak, but inclining his head, now to one side, now to the other, with evident pleasure looked at the smokers and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he had set at each other.

One of the speakers was a civilian, with a wrinkled, bilious and shaven thin face, a man already approaching old age, although dressed like the most fashionable young man; he sat with his legs on the ottoman with the air of a man at home and, having thrust the amber mouthpiece far into the side of his mouth, inhaled the smoke in short puffs and screwed up his eyes. This was the old bachelor Shinshín, a cousin of the countess, a wicked tongue, as they said of him in Moscow drawing rooms. He seemed to condescend to his interlocutor. The other, a fresh, rosy guards officer, irreproachably washed, buttoned up and combed, held the amber at the middle of his mouth and with rosy lips slightly drew out the smoke, letting it out in little rings from his handsome mouth. This was that lieutenant Berg, an officer of the Semënovsky regiment, with whom Borís was going together to the regiment, and with whom Natásha teased Véra, the eldest countess, calling Berg her fiancé. The count sat between them and listened attentively. The pleasantest occupation for the count, with the exception of the game of boston, which he loved very much, was the position of a listener, especially when he succeeded in setting two talkative interlocutors at each other.

— Well, how is it then, my dear fellow, mon très honorable Alfóns Kárlych, — said Shinshín, chuckling and combining (which was the peculiarity of his speech) the simplest popular Russian expressions with refined French phrases. — Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l'état, you want to get a little income from the company?

— No, sir, Pëtr Nikoláich, I only wish to show that in the cavalry the advantages are much less compared to the infantry. Now just consider, Pëtr Nikoláich, my position...

Berg always spoke very precisely, calmly and politely. His conversation always concerned only himself; he always remained calmly silent as long as they spoke of something not having a direct relation to him. And he could be silent in this way for several hours, not experiencing and not producing in others the slightest embarrassment. But as soon as the conversation concerned him personally, he began to speak lengthily and with evident pleasure.

— Consider my position, Pëtr Nikoláich: were I in the cavalry, I would receive not more than two hundred rubles a third, even in the rank of lieutenant; and now I receive two hundred and thirty, — he said with a joyful, pleasant smile, looking round at Shinshín and the count, as if it were obvious to him that his success would always constitute the chief aim of all other men's desires.

— Besides, Pëtr Nikoláich, having transferred to the guards, I am in sight, — continued Berg, — and vacancies in the guards infantry are much more frequent. Then, figure it out yourself, how could I have set myself up on two hundred and thirty rubles. And I put some by and even send some to my father, — he continued, blowing a smoke ring.

— La balance у est... A German threshes his wheat on the head of an axe, comme dit le proverbe, — shifting the amber to the other side of his mouth, said Shinshín and winked at the count.

The count burst out laughing. Other guests, seeing that Shinshín was keeping up the conversation, came up to listen. Berg, noticing neither the mockery nor the indifference, continued to recount how by transferring to the guards he had already gained a rank over his comrades from the corps, how in wartime a company commander might be killed, and he, being left the senior in the company, might very easily become company commander, and how everyone in the regiment loved him, and how his papa was pleased with him. Berg was evidently enjoying himself as he told all this, and did not seem to suspect that other people might also have their own interests. But everything he recounted was so sweetly sedate, the naivety of his youthful egoism was so evident, that he disarmed his listeners.

— Well, my dear fellow, both in the infantry and in the cavalry, you will get on everywhere; I prophesy it to you, — said Shinshín, patting him on the shoulder and lowering his feet from the ottoman.

Berg smiled joyfully. The count, and after him the guests, went out into the drawing room. ————

It was that time before a formal dinner when the assembled guests do not start a long conversation in expectation of being called to the appetizers, but at the same time consider it necessary to move about and not be silent, so as to show that they are not in the least impatient to sit down to table. The hosts glance at the door and occasionally exchange looks with one another. The guests from these looks try to guess whom or what they are still waiting for: an important late relative or a dish that is not yet ready.

Pierre arrived just before dinner and sat awkwardly in the middle of the drawing room in the first armchair he came across, blocking everyone's way. The countess wanted to make him speak, but he looked naively through his spectacles around him, as if looking for someone, and answered all the countess's questions in monosyllables. He was in everyone's way and was the only one who did not notice it. The greater part of the guests, who knew his story with the bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout and quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy and modest fellow could have done such a trick with a police officer.

— Have you recently arrived? — the countess asked him.

— Oui, madame, — he answered, looking round.

— Have you not seen my husband?

— Non, madame. — He smiled quite inappropriately.

— You were in Paris recently, it seems? Very interesting, I suppose.

— Very interesting.

The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikháylovna. Anna Mikháylovna understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and, sitting down beside him, began to speak about his father; but, just as to the countess, he answered her only in monosyllables. The guests were all occupied among themselves.

Les Razoumovsky... Ça a été charmant... Vous êtes bien bonne... La comtesse Apraksine... was heard from all sides. The countess stood up and went into the hall.

— Máriya Dmítriyevna? — her voice was heard from the hall.

— The very one, — a rough woman's voice was heard in reply, and immediately following it Máriya Dmítriyevna entered the room.

All the young ladies and even the ladies, excepting the very oldest, stood up. Máriya Dmítriyevna stopped in the doorway and, from the height of her corpulent body, holding her fifty-year-old head with its gray ringlets high, looked round at the guests and, as if tucking up her sleeves, unhurriedly smoothed the wide sleeves of her dress. Máriya Dmítriyevna always spoke in Russian.

— To the dear birthday girl and her children, — she said in her loud, thick voice, which drowned out all other sounds. — What's the matter with you, you old sinner, — she addressed the count, who was kissing her hand, — I expect you are bored in Moscow? nowhere to chase the hounds? But what's to be done, father, when these little birds grow up... — she pointed to the young ladies, — whether you like it or not, you must look for suitors.

— Well, how are things, my Cossack? (Máriya Dmítriyevna called Natásha a Cossack) — she said, caressing with her hand Natásha, who came up to her hand without fear and merrily. — I know the girl's a potion, but I love her.

She took out of her huge reticule pear-shaped sapphire earrings and, having given them to Natásha, who was glowing with her name-day and blushing, immediately turned away from her and addressed Pierre.

— Eh, eh! my dear fellow! come here, — she said in a feigned-quiet and thin voice. — Come here, my dear fellow...

And she threateningly tucked up her sleeves still higher.

Pierre went up, looking at her naively through his spectacles.

— Come here, come here, my dear fellow! I alone told the truth even to your father when he was in favor, and God Himself commands me to tell it to you.

She paused. Everyone was silent, waiting for what was to come, and feeling that this was only the preface.

— Fine, nothing to say! a fine boy!.. His father is lying on his deathbed, and he amuses himself, setting a police officer astride a bear. Shame, father, shame! You had better go to the war.

She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who was scarcely able to keep from laughing...

— Well now, to the table, I expect it is time? — said Máriya Dmítriyevna.

In front went the count with Máriya Dmítriyevna; then the countess, who was led by the hussar colonel, a necessary man, with whom Nikoláy was to catch up with the regiment. Anna Mikháylovna with Shinshín. Berg gave his arm to Véra. The smiling Julie Karágina went with Nikoláy to the table. After them went other couples, stretching across the whole hall, and behind them all singly the children, the tutors and governesses. The waiters began to move about, chairs scraped, the music struck up in the gallery, and the guests took their places. The sounds of the count's private band were replaced by the sounds of knives and forks, the talking of the guests, the quiet footsteps of the waiters. At one end of the table sat the countess at the head. On the right was Máriya Dmítriyevna, on the left Anna Mikháylovna and other lady guests. At the other end sat the count, on the left the hussar colonel, on the right Shinshín and other male guests. On one side of the long table was the older youth: Véra beside Berg, Pierre beside Borís; on the other side were the children, the tutors and governesses. The count from behind the crystal, bottles and vases of fruit kept glancing at his wife and her high cap with its light-blue ribbons, and assiduously poured out wine for his neighbors, not forgetting himself. The countess also, from behind the pineapples, without forgetting her duties as a hostess, cast significant glances at her husband, whose bald patch and face seemed to her, by their redness, to stand out more sharply from his gray hair. At the ladies' end there was an even babble; at the men's end the voices were heard louder and louder, especially that of the hussar colonel, who ate and drank so much, growing redder and redder, that the count already set him up as an example to the other guests. Berg with a tender smile was telling Véra that love is a feeling not of earth, but of heaven. Borís was naming the guests present at table to his new friend Pierre, and exchanged glances with Natásha, who sat opposite him. Pierre spoke little, looked round at the new faces, and ate a great deal. Starting from the two soups, of which he chose à la tortue, and the coulibiac, down to the hazel-grouse, he did not miss a single dish, nor a single wine, which the butler in a napkin-wrapped bottle thrust mysteriously forward from behind his neighbor's shoulder, saying: "dry Madeira," or "Hungarian," or "Rhine wine." He held out the first he came across of the four crystal glasses, with the count's monogram, that stood before each place, and drank with pleasure, looking round at the guests with a more and more agreeable expression. Natásha, sitting opposite him, looked at Borís as thirteen-year-old girls look at the boy with whom they have just kissed for the first time and with whom they are in love. This same look of hers sometimes turned on Pierre, and under the look of this funny, animated little girl he wanted to laugh himself, without knowing why.

Nikoláy sat far from Sonya, beside Julie Karágina, and again with that same involuntary smile was saying something to her. Sonya smiled formally, but was evidently suffering from jealousy: now growing pale, now blushing, and listening with all her might to what Nikoláy and Julie were saying to one another. The governess looked round uneasily, as if preparing to rebuff anyone who should take it into his head to offend the children. The German tutor tried to remember all the kinds of dishes, desserts and wines, with the object of describing it all in detail in a letter to his people at home in Germany, and was much offended that the butler, with the bottle wrapped in a napkin, passed him by. The German frowned, tried to look as if he did not even wish to have this wine, but was offended because nobody would understand that he needed the wine not in order to quench his thirst, not out of greed, but out of conscientious curiosity.