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While these conversations were going on in the reception room
and the princess' room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had
been sent for) and Anna Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to
accompany him) was driving into the court of Count Bezukhov's
house. As the wheels rolled softly over the straw beneath the
windows, Anna Mikhaylovna, having turned with words of comfort
to her companion, realized that he was asleep in his corner and
woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre followed Anna Mikhaylovna
out of the carriage, and only then began to think of the interview
with his dying father which awaited him. He noticed that they
had not come to the front entrance but to the back door. While
he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who looked
like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in
the shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several
other men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on
both sides. But neither Anna Mikhaylovna nor the footman nor the
coachman, who could not help seeing these people, took any notice
of them. "It seems to be all right," Pierre concluded,
and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly ascended the narrow
dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was lagging
behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was necessary
for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go
by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance
and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary.
Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men
who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering.
These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna
pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.
"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?"
asked Anna Mikhaylovna of one of them.
"Yes," replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as
if anything were now permissible; "the door to the left,
ma'am."
"Perhaps the count did not ask for me," said Pierre
when he reached the landing. "I'd better go to my own room."
Anna Mikhaylovna paused and waited for him to come up.
"Ah, my friend!" she said, touching his arm as she
had done her son's when speaking to him that afternoon, "believe
me I suffer no less than you do, but be a man!"
"But really, hadn't I better go away?" he asked,
looking kindly at her over his spectacles.
"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have
been done you. Think that he is your father... perhaps in the
agony of death." She sighed. "I have loved you like
a son from the first. Trust yourself to me, Pierre. I shall not
forget your interests."
Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that
all this had to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna
Mikhaylovna who was already opening a door.
This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant
of the princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre
had never been in this part of the house and did not even know
of the existence of these rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna, addressing
a maid who was hurrying past with a decanter on a tray as "my
dear" and "my sweet," asked about the princess'
health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first door
on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with
the decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything
in the house was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna
Mikhaylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where
Prince Vasili and the eldest princess were sitting close together
talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasili drew back with obvious
impatience, while the princess jumped up and with a gesture of
desperation slammed the door with all her might.
This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear
depicted on Prince Vasili's face so out of keeping with his dignity
that Pierre stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles
at his guide. Anna Mikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled
faintly and sighed, as if to say that this was no more than she
had expected.
"Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,"
said she in reply to his look, and went still faster along the
passage.
Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still
less what "watching over his interests" meant, but he
decided that all these things had to be. From the passage they
went into a large, dimly lit room adjoining the count's reception
room. It was one of those sumptuous but cold apartments known
to Pierre only from the front approach, but even in this room
there now stood an empty bath, and water had been spilled on the
carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a servant
who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They went into
the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows
opening into the conservatory, with its large bust and full length
portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still sitting
here in almost the same positions as before, whispering to one
another. All became silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn
Anna Mikhaylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of
Pierre who, hanging his head, meekly followed her.
Anna Mikhaylovna's face expressed a consciousness that the
decisive moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg
lady she now, keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room
even more boldly than that afternoon. She felt that as she brought
with her the person the dying man wished to see, her own admission
was assured. Casting a rapid glance at all those in the room and
noticing the count's confessor there, she glided up to him with
a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet seeming to grow suddenly
smaller, and respectfully received the blessing first of one and
then of another priest.
"God be thanked that you are in time," said she
to one of the priests; "all we relatives have been in such
anxiety. This young man is the count's son," she added more
softly. "What a terrible moment!"
Having said this she went up to the doctor.
"Dear doctor," said she, "this young man is
the count's son. Is there any hope?"
The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged
his shoulders. Anna Mikhaylovna with just the same movement raised
her shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and
moved away from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly
respectful and tenderly sad voice, she said:
"Trust in His mercy!" and pointing out a small sofa
for him to sit and wait for her, she went silently toward the
door that everyone was watching and it creaked very slightly as
she disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly,
moved toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikhaylovna
had disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned
to him with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed
that they whispered to one another, casting significant looks
at him with a kind of awe and even servility. A deference such
as he had never before received was shown him. A strange lady,
the one who had been talking to the priests, rose and offered
him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up and returned a glove Pierre
had dropped; the doctors became respectfully silent as he passed
by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre wished to take
another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to pick up
the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not even
in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and
that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful
rite which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore
bound to accept their services. He took the glove in silence from
the aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady's chair, placing his
huge hands symmetrically on his knees in the naive attitude of
an Egyptian statue, and decided in his own mind that all was as
it should be, and that in order not to lose his head and do foolish
things he must not act on his own ideas tonight, but must yield
himself up entirely to the will of those who were guiding him.
Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasili with head
erect majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat
with three stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner
since the morning; his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced
round and noticed Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a
thing he never used to do), and drew it downwards as if wishing
to ascertain whether it was firmly fixed on.
"Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you.
That is well!" and he turned to go.
But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: "How is..."
and hesitated, not knowing whether it would be proper to call
the dying man "the count," yet ashamed to call him "father."
"He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage,
my friend..."
Pierre's mind was in such a confused state that the word "stroke"
suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasili
in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack
of illness. Prince Vasili said something to Lorrain in passing
and went through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on
tiptoe and his whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess
followed him, and the priests and deacons and some servants also
went in at the door. Through that door was heard a noise of things
being moved about, and at last Anna Mikhaylovna, still with the
same expression, pale but resolute in the discharge of duty, ran
out and touching Pierre lightly on the arm said:
"The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about
to be administered. Come."
Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and
noticed that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the
servants, all followed him in, as if there were now no further
need for permission to enter that room.
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