War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

in Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in the Semënovsk regiment, then about Arakchéev, and then about the Bible Society. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of these things, but Nikoláy and Natásha always brought him back to the health of Prince Iván and Countess Márya Antónovna.

“Well, and all this idiocy⁠—Gossner and Tatáwinova?” Denísov asked. “Is that weally still going on?”

“Going on?” Pierre exclaimed. “Why more than ever! The Bible Society is the whole government now!”

“What is that, mon cher ami?” asked the countess, who had finished her tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. “What are you saying about the government? I don’t understand.”

“Well, you know, Maman,” Nikoláy interposed, knowing how to translate things into his mother’s language, “Prince Alexander Nikoláevich Golítsyn has founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say.”

“Arakchéev and Golítsyn,” incautiously remarked Pierre, “are now the whole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and are afraid of everything.”

“Well, and how is Prince Alexander Nikoláevich to blame? He is a most estimable man. I used to meet him at Márya Antónovna’s,” said the countess in an offended tone; and still more offended that they all remained silent, she went on: “Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and what harm is there in that?” and she rose (everybody else got up too) and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting room.

The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the children’s voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some jolly excitement was going on there.

“Finished, finished!” little Natásha’s gleeful yell rose above them all.

Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Márya and Nikoláy (Natásha he never lost sight of) and smiled happily.

“That’s delightful music!” said he.

“It means that Anna Makárovna has finished her stocking,” said Countess Márya.

“Oh, I’ll go and see,” said Pierre, jumping up. “You know,” he added, stopping at the door, “why I’m especially fond of that music? It is always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving here today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I entered the anteroom I heard Andrúsha’s peals of laughter and that meant that all was well.”

“I know! I know that feeling,” said Nikoláy. “But I mustn’t go there⁠—those stockings are to be a surprise for me.”

Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still louder.

“Come, Anna Makárovna,” Pierre’s voice was heard saying, “come here into the middle of the room and at the word of command, ‘One, two,’ and when I say ‘three’⁠ ⁠… You stand here, and you in my arms⁠—well now! One, two!⁠ ⁠…” said Pierre, and a silence followed: “three!” and a rapturously breathless cry of children’s voices filled the room. “Two, two!” they shouted.

This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to herself Anna Makárovna used to knit at the same time on the same needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew, one out of the other, in the children’s presence.

XIV

Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out. Only young Nikólenka and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the boy to come downstairs.

“No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay,” replied Nikólenka Bolkónski also in a whisper.

“Ma tante, please let me stay,” said he, going up to his aunt.

His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Márya glanced at him and turned to Pierre.

“When you are here he can’t tear himself away,” she said.

“I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!” said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to Nikólenka with a smile. “You and I haven’t seen anything of one another yet.⁠ ⁠… How like he is growing, Márya!” he added, addressing Countess Márya.

“Like my father?” asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.

Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the children had interrupted. Countess Márya sat down doing woolwork; Natásha did not take her eyes off her husband. Nikoláy and Denísov rose, asked for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sónya⁠—who sat weary but resolute at the samovar⁠—and questioned Pierre. The curly-headed, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, starting every now and then and muttering something to himself, and evidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly head, with his thin neck exposed by his turndown collar, toward the place where Pierre sat.

The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power, in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denísov, dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what Pierre told them.

“One used to have to be a German⁠—now one must dance with Tatáwinova and Madame Kwüdener, and wead Ecka’tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose⁠—he’d knock all this nonsense out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semënov wegiment to a fellow like that Schwa’tz!” he cried.

Nikoláy, though free from Denísov’s readiness to find fault with everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the conversation from changing its ordinary