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After Prince Andrews engagement to Natasha, Pierre without
any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living
as before. Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to
him by his benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting
his inner man, to which he had devoted himself with such ardor-
all the zest of such a life vanished after the engagement of Andrew
and Natasha and the death of Joseph Alexeevich, the news of which
reached him almost at the same time. Only the skeleton of life
remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now enjoyed the favors
of a very important personage, acquaintance with all Petersburg,
and his court service with its dull formalities. And this life
suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping
a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the
Club again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with
the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Helene
thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it. Pierre
felt that she right, and to avoid compromising her went away to
Moscow.
In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the
faded and fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue;
as soon as, driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine
with innumerable tapers burning before the golden covers of the
icons, the Kremlin Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles,
the sleigh drivers and hovels of the Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old
Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried nowhere, and were ending
their days leisurely; when he saw those old Moscow ladies, the
Moscow balls, and the English Club, he felt himself at home in
a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and dirty
as in an old dressing gown.
Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received
Pierre like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready
awaiting him. For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest,
most intellectual, merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a
heedless, genial nobleman of the old Russian type. His purse was
always empty because it was open to everyone.
Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,
gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,
churches, and books- no one and nothing met with a refusal from
him, and had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large
sums from him and taken him under their protection, he would have
given everything away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the
Club without him. As soon as he sank into his place on the sofa
after two bottles of Margaux he was surrounded, and talking, disputing,
and joking began. When there were quarrels, his kindly smile and
well-timed jests reconciled the antagonists. The Masonic dinners
were dull and dreary when he was not there.
When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and
kindly smile, yielding to the entreaties of the festive company
to drive off somewhere with them, shouts of delight and triumph
arose among the young men. At balls he danced if a partner was
needed. Young ladies, married and unmarried, liked him because
without making love to any of them, he was equally amiable to
all, especially after supper. "Il est charmant; il n'a pas
de sexe,"* they said of him.
*"He is charming; he has no sex."
Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom
there were hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.
How horrified he would have been seven years before, when
he first arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was
no need for him to seek or plan anything, that his rut had long
been shaped, eternally predetermined, and that wriggle as he might,
he would be what all in his position were. He could not have believed
it! Had he not at one time longed with all his heart to establish
a republic in Russia; then himself to be a Napoleon; then to be
a philosopher; and then a strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon?
Had he not seen the possibility of, and passionately desired,
the regeneration of the sinful human race, and his own progress
to the highest degree of perfection? Had he not established schools
and hospitals and liberated his serfs?
But instead of all that- here he was, the wealthy husband
of an unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of
eating and drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing
the government a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and
a universal favorite in Moscow society. For a long time he could
not reconcile himself to the idea that he was one of those same
retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting he had so despised seven years
before.
Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was
only living this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by
the thought of how many, like himself, had entered that life and
that Club temporarily, with all their teeth and hair, and had
only left it when not a single tooth or hair remained.
In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed
to him that he was quite different and distinct from those other
retired gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were
empty, stupid, contented fellows, satisfied with their position,
"while I am still discontented and want to do something for
mankind. But perhaps all these comrades of mine struggled just
like me and sought something new, a path in life of their own,
and like me were brought by force of circumstances, society, and
race- by that elemental force against which man is powerless-
to the condition I am in," said he to himself in moments
of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer
despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his
comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.
Pierre longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and
disgust with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression
in such acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for
a moment. "What for? Why? What is going on in the world?"
he would ask himself in perplexity several times a day, involuntarily
beginning to reflect anew on the meaning of the phenomena of life;
but knowing by experience that there were no answers to these
questions he made haste to turn away from them, and took up a
book, or hurried of to the Club or to Apollon Nikolaevich's, to
exchange the gossip of the town.
"Helene, who has never cared for anything but her own
body and is one of the stupidest women in the world," thought
Pierre, "is regarded by people as the acme of intelligence
and refinement, and they pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte
was despised by all as long as he was great, but now that he has
become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants to offer
him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through
the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over
the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through
the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth
of June they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear by
the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their
neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections
for the poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the
Manna Seekers, and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a
charter that nobody needs, and the meaning of which the very man
who wrote it does not understand. We all profess the Christian
law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors, the
law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty
churches- but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a
minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave
the soldier a cross to kiss before his execution." So thought
Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone
accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him each time
as if it were something new. "I understand the deception
and confusion," he thought, "but how am I to tell them
all that I see? I have tried, and have always found that they
too in the depths of their souls understand it as I do, and only
try not to see it. So it appears that it must be so! But I- what
is to become of me?" thought he. He had the unfortunate capacity
many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and believing in
the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil
and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take a serious
part in it. Every sphere of work was connected, in his eyes, with
evil and deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged
in, the evil and falsehood of it repulsed him and blocked every
path of activity. Yet he had to live and to find occupation. It
was too dreadful to be under the burden of these insoluble problems,
so he abandoned himself to any distraction in order to forget
them. He frequented every kind of society, drank much, bought
pictures, engaged in building, and above all- read.
He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming
home, while his valets were still taking off his things, he picked
up a book and began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping,
from sleeping to gossip in drawing rooms of the Club, from gossip
to carousals and women; from carousals back to gossip, reading,
and wine. Drinking became more and more a physical and also a
moral necessity. Though the doctors warned him that with his corpulence
wine was dangerous for him, he drank a great deal. He was only
quite at ease when having poured several glasses of wine mechanically
into his large mouth he felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an
amiability toward all his fellows, and a readiness to respond
superficially to every idea without probing it deeply. Only after
emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the terribly tangled
skein of life which previously had terrified him was not as dreadful
as he had thought. He was always conscious of some aspect of that
skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or supper he
chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the influence
of wine he said to himself: "It doesn't matter. I'll get
it unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now- I'll
think it all out later on!" But the later on never came.
In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions
appeared as insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily
picked up a book, and if anyone came to see him he was glad.
Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in
war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing
to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear
the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking
refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing
laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics,
some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs.
"Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the
same- only to save oneself from it as best one can," thought
Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!"
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