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

excites in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that’s why he was sent away. Ippolit is her brother⁠ ⁠… Prince Vasíli is her father⁠ ⁠… It’s bad.⁠ ⁠…” he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she would love him and become quite different, and how all he had thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter of Prince Vasíli, but visualized her whole body only veiled by its gray dress. “But no! Why did this thought never occur to me before?” and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words and looks of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna Pávlovna’s words and looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasíli and others, and was seized by terror lest he had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty. II

In November, 1805, Prince Vasíli had to go on a tour of inspection in four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nikoláy Andréevich Bolkónski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs, Prince Vasíli had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasíli’s house where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in Elèn’s presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to her.

“This is all very fine, but things must be settled,” said Prince Vasíli to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who was under such obligations to him (“But never mind that”) was not behaving very well in this matter. “Youth, frivolity⁠ ⁠… well, God be with him,” thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, “but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lëlya’s name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair⁠—yes, my affair. I am her father.”

Six weeks after Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” and after the sleepless night when he had decided that to marry Elèn would be a calamity and that he ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not left Prince Vasíli’s and felt with terror that in people’s eyes he was every day more and more connected with her, that it was impossible for him to return to his former conception of her, that he could not break away from her, and that though it would be a terrible thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have been able to free himself but that Prince Vasíli (who had rarely before given receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening party at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general pleasure and disappoint everyone’s expectation. Prince Vasíli, in the rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre’s hand in passing and draw it downwards, or absentmindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: “Till tomorrow,” or, “Be in to dinner or I shall not see you,” or, “I am staying in for your sake,” and so on. And though Prince Vasíli, when he stayed in (as he said) for Pierre’s sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him, Pierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one and the same thing: “It is time I understood her and made up my mind what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she is not stupid, she is an excellent girl,” he sometimes said to himself “she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She says little, but what she does say is always clear and simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!” He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her company, and she had always answered him either by a brief but appropriate remark⁠—showing that it did not interest her⁠—or by a silent look and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.

She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: “What am I doing? I