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After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went
to Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to
meet Anatole Kuragin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On
reaching Petersburg he inquired for Kuragin but the latter had
already left the city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that
Prince Andrew was on his track. Anatole Kuragin promptly obtained
an appointment from the Minister of War and went to join the army
in Moldavia. While in Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutuzov, his
former commander who was always well disposed toward him, and
Kutuzov suggested that he should accompany him to the army in
Moldavia, to which the old general had been appointed commander
in chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an appointment on
the headquarters staff, left for Turkey.
Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge
Kuragin. He thought that if he challenged him without some fresh
cause it might compromise the young Countess Rostova and so he
wanted to meet Kuragin personally in order to find a fresh pretext
for a duel. But he again failed to meet Kuragin in Turkey, for
soon after Prince Andrew arrived, the latter returned to Russia.
In a new country, amid new conditions, Prince Andrew found life
easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken faith with him-
which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to conceal its
effects- the surroundings in which he had been happy became trying
to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized so
highly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the
thoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky
on the field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre,
and which had filled his solitude at Bogucharovo and then in Switzerland
and Rome, but he even dreaded to recall them and them and the
bright and boundless horizons they had revealed. He was now concerned
only with the nearest practical matters unrelated to his past
interests, and he seized on these the more eagerly the more those
past interests were closed to him. It was as if that lofty, infinite
canopy of heaven that had once towered above him had suddenly
turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in which
all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.
Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service
was the simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutuzov's
staff, he applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance
and surprised Kutuzov by his willingness and accuracy in work.
Not having found Kuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think
it necessary to rush back to Russia after him, but all the same
he knew that however long it might be before he met Kuragin, despite
his contempt for him and despite all the proofs he deduced to
convince himself that it was not worth stooping to a conflict
with him- he knew that when he did meet him he would not be able
to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help
snatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not
yet avenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his
heart and poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed
to obtain in Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather
vainglorious and ambitious activity.
In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached
Bucharest- where Kutuzov had been living for two months, passing
his days and nights with a Wallachian woman- Prince Andrew asked
Kutuzov to transfer him to the Western Army. Kutuzov, who was
already weary of Bolkonski's activity which seemed to reproach
his own idleness, very readily let him go and gave him a mission
to Barclay de Tolly.
Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped
at Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly
on his way, being only two miles off the Smolensk highroad. During
the last three years there had been so many changes in his life,
he had thought, felt, and seen so much (having traveled both in
the east and the west), that on reaching Bald Hills it struck
him as strange and unexpected to find the way of life there unchanged
and still the same in every detail. He entered through the gates
with their stone pillars and drove up the avenue leading to the
house as if he were entering an enchanted, sleeping castle. The
same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the same stillness
reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture, the same
walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only somewhat
older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden getting
on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of
her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne
was the same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment
of her existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She
had merely become more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought.
Dessalles, the tutor he had brought from Switzerland, was wearing
a coat of Russian cut and talking broken Russian to the servants,
but was still the same narrowly intelligent, conscientious, and
pedantic preceptor. The old prince had changed in appearance only
by the loss of a tooth, which left a noticeable gap on one side
of his mouth; in character he was the same as ever, only showing
still more irritability and skepticism as to what was happening
in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown,
become rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing,
quite unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little
mouth just as the little princess used to do. He alone did not
obey the law of immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle.
But though externally all remained as of old, the inner relations
of all these people had changed since Prince Andrew had seen them
last. The household was divided into two alien and hostile camps,
who changed their habits for his sake and only met because he
was there. To the one camp belonged the old prince, Madmoiselle
Bourienne, and the architect; to the other Princess Mary, Dessalles,
little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and maids.
During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together,
but they were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a
visitor for whose sake an exception was being made and that his
presence made them all feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this
at dinner on the first day, he was taciturn, and the old prince
noticing this also became morosely dumb and retired to his apartments
directly after dinner. In the evening, when Prince Andrew went
to him and, trying to rouse him, began to tell him of the young
Count Kamensky's campaign, the old prince began unexpectedly to
talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her superstitions and
her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said, was the only
person really attached to him.
The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because
of Princess Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him,
and that by indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little
Prince Nicholas. The old prince knew very well that he tormented
his daughter and that her life was very hard, but he also knew
that he could not help tormenting her and that she deserved it.
"Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this, say nothing to me
about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an old fool
who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance
and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn't understand,
so I must explain it, and he must hear me out," thought the
old prince. And he began explaining why he could not put up with
his daughter's unreasonable character.
"If you ask me," said Prince Andrew, without looking
up (he was censuring his father for the first time in his life),
"I did not wish to speak about it, but as you ask me I will
give you my frank opinion. If there is any misunderstanding and
discord between you and Mary, I can't blame her for it at all.
I know how she loves and respects you. Since you ask me,"
continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable- as he was always
liable to do of late- "I can only say that if there are any
misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who
is not fit to be my sister's companion."
The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural
smile disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince
Andrew could not get accustomed.
"What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You've already been
talking it over! Eh?"
"Father, I did not want to judge," said Prince Andrew,
in a hard and bitter tone, "but you challenged me, and I
have said, and always shall say, that Mary is not to blame, but
those to blame- the one to blame- is that Frenchwoman."
"Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!"
said the old man in a low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew,
with some embarrassment, but then he suddenly jumped up and cried:
"Be off, be off! Let not a trace of you remain here!..."
Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded
him to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who
did not leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne
and Tikhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone.
Next day, before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son's rooms.
The boy, curly-headed like his mother and glowing with health,
sat on his knee, and Prince Andrew began telling him the story
of Bluebeard, but fell into a reverie without finishing the story.
He thought not of this pretty child, his son whom he held on his
knee, but of himself. He sought in himself either remorse for
having angered his father or regret at leaving home for the first
time in his life on bad terms with him, and was horrified to find
neither. What meant still more to him was that he sought and did
not find in himself the former tenderness for his son which he
had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on his
knee.
"Well, go on!" said his son.
Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee
and went out of the room.
As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations,
and especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid
which he had been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its
former intensity, and he hastened to escape from these memories
and to find some work as soon as possible.
"So you've decided to go, Andrew?" asked his sister.
"Thank God that I can," replied Prince Andrew. "I
am very sorry you can't."
"Why do you say that?" replied Princess Mary. "Why
do you say that, when you are going to this terrible war, and
he is so old? Mademoiselle Bourienne says he has been asking about
you...."
As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and
her tears began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing
the room.
"Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what- what
trash- can cause people misery!" he said with a malignity
that alarmed Princess Mary.
She understood that when speaking of "trash" he
referred not only to Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her
misery, but also to the man who had ruined his own happiness.
"Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!" she
said, touching his elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone
through her tears. "I understand you" (she looked down).
"Don't imagine that sorrow is the work of men. Men are His
tools." She looked a little above Prince Andrew's head with
the confident, accustomed look with which one looks at the place
where a familiar portrait hangs. "Sorrow is sent by Him,
not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If
you think someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have
no right to punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving."
"If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman's
virtue. But a man should not and cannot forgive and forget,"
he replied, and though till that moment he had not been thinking
of Kuragin, all his unexpended anger suddenly swelled up in his
heart.
"If Mary is already persuading me forgive, it means that
I ought long ago to have punished him," he thought. And giving
her no further reply, he began thinking of the glad vindictive
moment when he would meet Kuragin who he knew was now in the army.
Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that
she knew how unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without
being reconciled to him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would
probably soon be back again from the army and would certainly
write to his father, but that the longer he stayed now the more
embittered their differences would become.
"Good-by, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from
God, and men are never to blame," were the last words he
heard from his sister when he took leave of her.
"Then it must be so!" thought Prince Andrew as he
drove out of the avenue from the house at Bald Hills. "She,
poor innocent creature, is left to be victimized by an old man
who has outlived his wits. The old man feels he is guilty, but
cannot change himself. My boy is growing up and rejoices in life,
in which like everybody else he will deceive or be deceived. And
I am off to the army. Why? I myself don't know. I want to meet
that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and
laugh at me!
These conditions of life had been the same before, but then
they were all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces.
Only senseless things, lacking coherence, presented themselves
one after another to Prince Andrew's mind.
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