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Volume I, Part One, Chapter VI

In the next room a woman's dress rustled. As if waking up, Prince Andréi shook himself, and his face assumed the same expression it had worn in Anna Pávlovna's drawing room. Pierre lowered his legs from the sofa. The princess came in. She was already in a different, indoor, but equally elegant and fresh dress. Prince Andréi stood up, politely offering her a chair.

— Why is it, I often think, — she began, as always in French, hastily and fussily settling into the chair, — why is it Annette has not married? How stupid you all are, messieurs, not to have married her. You must excuse me, but you understand nothing about women. What an arguer you are, Monsieur Pierre!

— I am always arguing with your husband too; I don't understand why he wants to go to war, — said Pierre, addressing the princess without any of the restraint (so usual in the relations of a young man to a young woman).

The princess started. Evidently, Pierre's words had touched her to the quick.

— Ah, that is just what I say! — she said. — I don't understand, I absolutely don't understand why men cannot live without war? Why is it that we women want nothing and need nothing? Now, you be the judge. I keep telling him: here he is aide-de-camp to his uncle, a most brilliant position. Everyone knows him so well and appreciates him so much. The other day at the Apráksins' I heard a lady asking: c'est èa le fameux prince André? Ma parole d'honneur! — She laughed. — He is received so well everywhere. He could very easily be a flügel-adjutant too. You know, the Emperor spoke to him very graciously. Annette and I were talking, it would be very easy to arrange. What do you think?

Pierre looked at Prince Andréi and, noticing that his friend did not like this conversation, made no reply.

— When do you leave? — he asked.

— Ah! ne me parlez pas de ce départ, ne m'en parlez pas. Je ne veux pas en entendre parler, — the princess began to speak in that capriciously playful tone in which she had spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room, and which was so evidently unsuited to the family circle where Pierre was like a member. — Today, when I thought that we must break off all these dear relations... And then, do you know, André? — She winked significantly at her husband. — J'ai peur, j'ai peur! — she whispered, shuddering with her back.

Her husband looked at her as if he were surprised to notice that anyone else besides himself and Pierre was in the room: however, he addressed his wife inquiringly with cold politeness:

— What are you afraid of, Lise? I cannot understand, — he said.

— See how all men are egoists; all, all egoists! He himself, out of his own whims, God knows why, leaves me, locks me up alone in the country.

— With my father and sister, don't forget, — Prince Andréi said quietly.

— All the same alone, without my friends... And he wants me not to be afraid.

Her tone was already grumbling, her little lip went up, giving her face not a joyful, but a bestial, squirrel-like expression. She fell silent, as if finding it improper to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, whereas that was the essence of the matter.

— I still have not understood de quoi vous avez peur, — Prince Andréi pronounced slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.

The princess blushed and waved her arms despairingly.

— Non, André, je dis que vous avez tellement, tellement changé...

— Your doctor orders you to go to bed earlier, — said Prince Andréi. — You had better go to sleep.

The princess said nothing, and suddenly her short downy lip trembled; Prince Andréi, rising and shrugging his shoulders, walked across the room.

Pierre looked with naive surprise through his spectacles now at him, now at the princess, and stirred as if he too wished to rise, but changed his mind again.

— What does it matter to me that Monsieur Pierre is here, — the little princess suddenly said, and her pretty face suddenly broke into a tearful grimace. — I have long wanted to tell you, André: why have you changed so towards me? What have I done to you? You are going to the army, you have no pity for me. Why?

— Lise! — was all Prince Andréi said; but in that word there was an entreaty, a threat, and above all an assurance that she herself would repent of her words; but she went on hurriedly:

— You treat me like a sick person or a child. I see it all. Were you like this six months ago?

— Lise, I beg you to stop, — said Prince Andréi still more expressively.

Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated during this conversation, got up and went to the princess. He seemed unable to bear the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.

— Calm yourself, Princess. It only seems so to you, because I assure you, I myself have experienced... why... because... No, excuse me, a stranger is out of place here... No, calm yourself... Goodbye...

Prince Andréi stopped him by the arm.

— No, stay, Pierre. The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of the pleasure of spending the evening with you.

— No, he thinks only of himself, — the princess muttered, not restraining her angry tears.

— Lise, — said Prince Andréi dryly, raising his tone to that pitch which indicates that patience is exhausted.

Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess's pretty little face was replaced by an attractive and pity-arousing expression of fear; she looked from under her brows with her beautiful eyes at her husband, and on her face appeared that timid and confessing expression which a dog has when it rapidly but feebly wags its drooping tail.

— Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! — the princess muttered, and gathering up a fold of her dress with one hand, she went to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.

— Bonsoir, Lise, — said Prince Andréi, rising and politely, as to a stranger, kissing her hand. ————

The friends were silent. Neither the one nor the other began to speak. Pierre glanced at Prince Andréi, Prince Andréi rubbed his forehead with his small hand.

— Let us go to supper, — he said with a sigh, rising and going to the door.

They entered the elegantly, newly, and richly decorated dining room. Everything, from the napkins to the silver, china, and crystal, bore that peculiar stamp of newness that is found in the household of young married couples. In the middle of supper Prince Andréi leaned on his elbow and, like a man who has long had something on his heart and suddenly decides to speak out, with an expression of nervous irritation such as Pierre had never yet seen on his friend's face, began to speak:

— Never, never marry, my friend; here is my advice to you: do not marry until you can say to yourself that you have done all you could, and until you have ceased to love the woman you have chosen, until you see her clearly; otherwise you will make a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry when you are an old man, good for nothing... Otherwise all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be frittered away on trifles. Yes, yes, yes! Do not look at me with such surprise. If you expect anything of yourself in the future, at every step you will feel that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you will be on the same level as a court footman and an idiot... Why!..

He waved his hand energetically.

Pierre took off his spectacles, which altered his face, making it look even more good-natured, and gazed in surprise at his friend.

— My wife, — continued Prince Andréi, — is an excellent woman. She is one of those rare women with whom one can feel secure about one's honor; but, my God, what would I not give now not to be married! You are the first and only one to whom I say this, because I love you.

Prince Andréi, as he said this, was even less like than before to that Bolkónsky who had lounged in Anna Pávlovna's armchairs and through his teeth, screwing up his eyes, muttered French phrases. His dry face was all quivering with the nervous animation of every muscle; his eyes, in which the fire of life had seemed extinguished before, now gleamed with a radiant, bright luster. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more energetic he became in moments of irritation.

— You do not understand why I say this, — he continued. — Why, it is the whole story of life. You speak of Bonaparte and his career, — he said, though Pierre had not spoken of Bonaparte. — You speak of Bonaparte; but Bonaparte, when he worked, went step by step to his goal, he was free, he had nothing but his goal — and he reached it. But tie yourself to a woman — and like a chained convict, you lose all freedom. And all the hopes and strength you have only weigh you down and torment you with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, triviality — these are the enchanted circle from which I cannot escape. I am now going to the war, the greatest war there has ever been, and I know nothing and am fit for nothing. Je suis très aimable et très caustique, — continued Prince Andréi, — and at Anna Pávlovna's they listen to me. And this stupid society, without which my wife cannot live, and these women... If you only knew what toutes les femmes distinguées and women in general are! My father is right. Egoism, vanity, stupidity, triviality in everything — that is what women are when they show themselves as they are. You look at them in society and think there is something to them, but there is nothing, nothing, nothing! Yes, do not marry, my dear fellow, do not marry, — concluded Prince Andréi.

— It seems ridiculous to me, — said Pierre, — that you, you should consider yourself incapable, your life a ruined life. You have everything, everything before you. And you...

He did not say what you, but his tone already showed how highly he valued his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.

"How can he say this!" thought Pierre. Pierre considered Prince Andréi a model of all perfections precisely because Prince Andréi combined in the highest degree all those qualities that Pierre lacked, and which might best be expressed by the concept of strength of will. Pierre was always amazed by Prince Andréi's ability to deal calmly with all sorts of people, his extraordinary memory, his wide reading (he had read everything, knew everything, had an idea of everything), and most of all his capacity for work and study. If Pierre was often struck in Andréi by a lack of capacity for dreamy philosophizing (to which Pierre was particularly prone), he saw even in this not a defect but a strength.

In the very best, friendly, and simple relations, flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to make wheels turn.

— Je suis un homme fini, — said Prince Andréi. — What is there to say about me? Let us talk about you, — he said, after a pause, smiling at his own comforting thoughts.

That smile was instantly reflected on Pierre's face.

— And what is there to say about me? — said Pierre, relaxing his mouth into a careless, merry smile. — What am I? Je suis un bâtard! — And he suddenly blushed crimson. It was evident that he had made a great effort to say this. — Sans nom, sans fortune... And really, what does it... — But he did not say what really. — I am free for the present, and I am well off. I only do not know at all what I am to begin. I wanted to consult you seriously.

Prince Andréi looked at him with kind eyes. But in his glance, friendly and affectionate as it was, there was nevertheless an expression of consciousness of his own superiority.

— You are dear to me, especially because you are the one living man in all our society. You are well off. Choose what you will; it is all the same. You will do well everywhere, but one thing: stop going to those Kurágins, leading this life. It does not suit you at all: all those carousals, and hussar tricks, and all that...

— Que voulez-vous, mon cher, — said Pierre, shrugging his shoulders, — les femmes, mon cher, les femmes!

— I do not understand, — answered Andréi. — Les femmes comme il faut, that is another matter; but Kurágin's les femmes, les femmes et le vin, I do not understand!

Pierre lived with Prince Vasíli Kurágin and shared the dissipated life of his son Anatole, the very one they were planning to marry to Prince Andréi's sister for the sake of reforming him.

— Do you know what! — said Pierre, as if a happy thought had unexpectedly struck him, — seriously, I have long been thinking this. With this life I can neither decide nor consider anything. My head aches, I have no money. He invited me today, but I will not go.

— Give me your word of honor that you will stop going?

— Word of honor! ————

It was already past one o'clock in the night when Pierre left his friend. It was a June night in Petersburg, a night without darkness. Pierre got into a hired carriage with the intention of going home. But the nearer he drew, the more he felt the impossibility of falling asleep on this night, which was more like evening or morning. One could see far down the empty streets. On the way Pierre remembered that the usual gambling company was to assemble at Anatole Kurágin's this evening, after which there was usually a drinking bout, ending with one of Pierre's favorite amusements.

"It would be good to go to Kurágin's," he thought. But he immediately recalled the word of honor he had given Prince Andréi not to visit Kurágin.

But immediately, as happens with people called weak-willed, he felt such a passionate desire to experience once more that dissipated life, so familiar to him, that he decided to go. And immediately the thought came into his head that his word of honor meant nothing, because even before Prince Andréi, he had also given Prince Anatole his word to be with him; finally, he thought that all these words of honor were such conventional things, having no definite meaning, especially if one considers that perhaps tomorrow he will either die or something so extraordinary will happen to him that there will no longer be anything honorable or dishonorable. Reasonings of this kind, destroying all his resolutions and intentions, often came to Pierre. He drove to Kurágin's.

Having driven up to the porch of a large house near the Horse Guards barracks, in which Anatole lived, he went up the lighted porch and the stairs, and entered the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty bottles, cloaks, and galoshes were lying about; it smelled of wine, and distant talking and shouting could be heard.

The play and supper were already over, but the guests were not yet leaving. Pierre threw off his cloak and went into the first room, where the remains of supper stood and a single footman, thinking no one saw him, was stealthily finishing the unfinished glasses. From the third room came sounds of scuffling, laughter, the shouts of familiar voices, and the roar of a bear. Some eight young men were crowding anxiously round an open window. Three were struggling with a young bear, which one was dragging by a chain, frightening another with it.

— I bet a hundred on Stevens! — shouted one.

— Mind you don't support him! — shouted another.

— I'm for Dólokhov! — shouted a third. — Separate them, Kurágin.

— Come, leave Míshka alone, there's a bet on here.

— At one draught, or else you lose, — shouted a fourth.

— Yákov! bring a bottle, Yákov! — shouted the host himself, a tall handsome fellow, standing in the middle of the crowd in nothing but a fine shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. — Wait, gentlemen. Here is Petrúsha, my dear friend, — he addressed Pierre.

Another voice, of a rather short man with clear blue eyes, striking particularly among all those drunken voices for its sober expression, shouted from the window: — Come here — judge the bet! — This was Dólokhov, a Semënov officer, a notorious gambler and duelist, who lived with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking merrily around him.

— I don't understand anything. What's the matter? — he asked.

— Wait, he is not drunk. Give me a bottle, — said Anatole, and taking a glass from the table, he went up to Pierre.

— First of all, drink.

Pierre began to drink glass after glass, looking from under his brows at the drunken guests, who had again crowded round the window, and listening to their talk. Anatole poured him wine and told him that Dólokhov was betting with the Englishman Stevens, a sailor who was there, that he, Dólokhov, would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the window-sill of the third floor with his legs hanging outside.

— Come, drink it all! — said Anatole, handing Pierre the last glass, — or I won't let you go!

— No, I don't want to, — said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and went up to the window.

Dólokhov was holding the Englishman by the hand and clearly, distinctly stating the terms of the bet, addressing himself principally to Anatole and Pierre.

Dólokhov was a man of medium height, curly-haired and with light blue eyes. He was about twenty-five. He wore no mustache, as did all infantry officers, and his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was fully visible. The lines of this mouth were remarkably finely curved. In the middle the upper lip descended energetically on the firm lower one in a sharp wedge, and in the corners something like two smiles was constantly forming, one on each side; and all together, and especially in conjunction with his firm, insolent, intelligent gaze, produced an impression such that it was impossible not to notice this face. Dólokhov was a man of little means, without any connections. And despite the fact that Anatole squandered tens of thousands, Dólokhov lived with him and had managed to position himself so that Anatole and all who knew them respected Dólokhov more than Anatole. Dólokhov played all games and almost always won. However much he drank, he never lost his clear head. Both Kurágin and Dólokhov were at that time celebrities in the rake and spendthrift world of Petersburg.

The bottle of rum was brought; the frame, which prevented sitting on the outer slope of the window, was broken out by two footmen, who were evidently hurrying and intimidated by the advice and shouts of the gentlemen around them.

Anatole, with his victorious air, went up to the window. He wanted to break something. He pushed the footmen aside and tugged at the frame, but the frame would not yield. He broke a pane of glass.

— Come now, you strong man, — he turned to Pierre.

Pierre took hold of the crossbars, pulled, and with a crash broke the oak frame in one place and wrenched it out in another.

— Take it all out, or they will think I am holding on, — said Dólokhov.

— Is the Englishman boasting... eh?... is it good?... — Anatole was saying.

— Good, — said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who, taking the bottle of rum in his hands, approached the window, from which could be seen the light of the sky and the morning and evening twilight merging on it.

Dólokhov jumped onto the window-sill with the bottle of rum in his hand.

— Listen! — he shouted, standing on the sill and addressing the room. Everyone fell silent.

— I bet (he spoke in French so that the Englishman should understand him, and spoke that language none too well). — I bet fifty imperials, do you want a hundred? — he added, turning to the Englishman.

— No, fifty, — said the Englishman.

— Very well, for fifty imperials, — that I will drink a whole bottle of rum without taking it from my mouth, drink it sitting outside the window, on this spot (he bent down and pointed to the sloping ledge of the wall outside the window) and not holding on to anything... Is that so?...

— Very good, — said the Englishman.

Anatole turned to the Englishman and, taking him by the button of his coat and looking down at him (the Englishman was short), began repeating the terms of the bet to him in English.

— Wait! — cried Dólokhov, tapping the bottle on the window to attract attention. — Wait, Kurágin; listen. If anyone does the same, I pay a hundred imperials. Do you understand?

The Englishman nodded his head, without giving any indication whether he intended to accept this new bet or not. Anatole would not let the Englishman go, and although he, nodding, gave to understand that he had understood everything, Anatole translated Dólokhov's words into English for him. A young, thin boy, a Life Hussar, who had lost at cards that evening, climbed onto the window, leaned out and looked down.

— Ooh!... ooh!... ooh!... — he uttered, looking out the window at the stone pavement.

— Quiet! — shouted Dólokhov, and pulled the officer down from the window, who, getting tangled in his spurs, jumped awkwardly into the room.

Placing the bottle on the window-sill so that it should be easy to reach, Dólokhov cautiously and quietly climbed into the window. Letting his legs down and bracing both hands against the sides of the window, he measured himself, sat down, let go of his hands, moved to the right, to the left, and reached the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and set them on the window-sill, though it was already quite light. Dólokhov's back in his white shirt and his curly head were illuminated from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window. The Englishman stood in front. Pierre smiled and said nothing. One of those present, older than the rest, with a frightened and angry face, suddenly pushed forward and tried to seize Dólokhov by his shirt.

— Gentlemen, this is nonsense; he will kill himself to death, — said this more prudent man.

Anatole stopped him.

— Don't touch him, you will frighten him, he will be killed. Eh?... What then?... Eh?...

Dólokhov turned round, adjusting himself and again bracing his hands.

— If anyone else pokes his nose in, — he said, uttering the words sparsely through his clenched and thin lips, — I will throw him down right here. Well!...

Having said "well!", he turned again, let go his hands, took the bottle and raised it to his mouth, threw back his head, and flung his free arm upward for balance. One of the footmen, who had begun to pick up the glass, stopped in a bent position, not taking his eyes off the window and Dólokhov's back. Anatole stood upright, his eyes wide open. The Englishman, thrusting his lips forward, watched from the side. The one who had tried to stop him ran into the corner of the room and lay face to the wall on the sofa. Pierre covered his face, and a faint smile, forgotten, remained on his face, though it now expressed horror and fear. Everyone was silent. Pierre took his hands from his eyes. Dólokhov sat in the same position, only his head had tilted back so that the curly hair at the nape of his neck touched his shirt collar, and his arm holding the bottle was rising higher and higher, shuddering and making an effort. The bottle was evidently emptying and rising with it, tilting his head back. "Why is it taking so long?" thought Pierre. It seemed to him that more than half an hour had passed. Suddenly Dólokhov made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm shuddered nervously; this shudder was enough to shift his whole body as he sat on the sloping ledge. He shifted all over, and his arm and head shuddered still more violently, making an effort. One hand rose to grasp the window-sill, but sank again. Pierre closed his eyes again and said to himself that he would never open them again. Suddenly he felt that everything around had begun to stir. He looked: Dólokhov stood on the window-sill, his face pale and cheerful.

— Empty!

He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it deftly. Dólokhov jumped down from the window. He smelled strongly of rum.

— Excellent! Splendid! That's a bet for you! The devil take you entirely! — people shouted from all sides.

The Englishman, having taken out his purse, was counting out the money. Dólokhov frowned and remained silent. Pierre jumped onto the window.

— Gentlemen! Who will bet with me? I will do the same, — he suddenly shouted. — And there is no need for a bet, either. Tell them to give me a bottle. I will do it... tell them to give me one.

— Let him, let him! — said Dólokhov, smiling.

— What is the matter with you? Are you crazy? Who will let you? You get dizzy even on a staircase, — people began to say from all sides.

— I will drink it, give me a bottle of rum! — shouted Pierre, striking a chair with a resolute and drunken gesture, and climbed into the window.

They seized him by the arms; but he was so strong that he pushed far away the one who approached him.

— No, you will never persuade him that way, — said Anatole, — wait, I will deceive him. Listen, I take your bet, but tomorrow; and now we are all going to ***'s.

— Let's go, — shouted Pierre, — let's go!... And we will take Míshka with us...

And he caught the bear, and embracing and lifting him, began to whirl round the room with him.