|
At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered
the dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and
Mademoiselle Bourienne were already awaiting him together with
his architect, who by a strange caprice of his employer's was
admitted to table though the position of that insignificant individual
was such as could certainly not have caused him to expect that
honor. The prince, who generally kept very strictly to social
distinctions and rarely admitted even important government officials
to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael Ivanovich (who
always went into a corner to blow his nose on his checked handkerchief)
to illustrate the theory that all men are equals, and had more
than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivanovich was
"not a whit worse than you or I." At dinner the prince
usually spoke to the taciturn Michael Ivanovich more often than
to anyone else.
In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house
was exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen-
one behind each chair- stood waiting for the prince to enter.
The head butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the
table, making signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from
the clock to the door by which the prince was to enter. Prince
Andrew was looking at a large gilt frame, new to him, containing
the genealogical tree of the Princes Bolkonski, opposite which
hung another such frame with a badly painted portrait (evidently
by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate) of a ruling
prince, in a crown- an alleged descendant of Rurik and ancestor
of the Bolkonskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that genealogical
tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at a
portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.
"How thoroughly like him that is!" he said to Princess
Mary, who had come up to him.
Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not
understand what he was laughing at. Everything her father did
inspired her with reverence and was beyond question.
"Everyone has his Achilles' heel," continued Prince
Andrew. "Fancy, with his powerful mind, indulging in such
nonsense!"
Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother's
criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps
were heard coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly
and jauntily as was his wont, as if intentionally contrasting
the briskness of his manners with the strict formality of his
house. At that moment the great clock struck two and another with
a shrill tone joined in from the drawing room. The prince stood
still; his lively glittering eyes from under their thick, bushy
eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on the little
princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the
sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all
around him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly
on the back of her neck.
"I'm glad, glad, to see you," he said, looking attentively
into her eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down.
"Sit down, sit down! Sit down, Michael Ianovich!"
He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A
footman moved the chair for her.
"Ho, ho!" said the old man, casting his eyes on
her rounded figure. "You've been in a hurry. That's bad!"
He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his
lips only and not with his eyes.
"You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as
possible," he said.
The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his
words. She was silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her
about her father, and she began to smile and talk. He asked about
mutual acquaintances, and she became still more animated and chattered
away giving him greetings from various people and retailing the
town gossip.
"Countess Apraksina, poor thing, has lost her husband
and she has cried her eyes out," she said, growing more and
more lively.
As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more
sternly, and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and
had formed a definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed
Michael Ivanovich.
"Well, Michael Ivanovich, our Bonaparte will be having
a bad time of it. Prince Andrew" (he always spoke thus of
his son) "has been telling me what forces are being collected
against him! While you and I never thought much of him."
Michael Ivanovich did not at all know when "you and I"
had said such things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he
was wanted as a peg on which to hang the prince's favorite topic,
he looked inquiringly at the young prince, wondering what would
follow.
"He is a great tactician!" said the prince to his
son, pointing to the architect.
And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte,
and the generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed
convinced not only that all the men of the day were mere babies
who did not know the A B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte
was an insignificant little Frenchy, successful only because there
were no longer any Potemkins or Suvorovs left to oppose him; but
he was also convinced that there were no political difficulties
in Europe and no real war, but only a sort of puppet show at which
the men of the day were playing, pretending to do something real.
Prince Andrew gaily bore with his father's ridicule of the new
men, and drew him on and listened to him with evident pleasure.
"The past always seems good," said he, "but
did not Suvorov himself fall into a trap Moreau set him, and from
which he did not know how to escape?"
"Who told you that? Who?" cried the prince. "Suvorov!"
And he jerked away his plate, which Tikhon briskly caught. "Suvorov!...
Consider, Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvorov; Moreau!...
Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvorov had had a free hand;
but he had the Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It
would have puzzled the devil himself! When you get there you'll
find out what those Hofs-kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvorov couldn't
manage them so what chance has Michael Kutuzov? No, my dear boy,"
he continued, "you and your generals won't get on against
Buonaparte; you'll have to call in the French, so that birds of
a feather may fight together. The German, Pahlen, has been sent
to New York in America, to fetch the Frenchman, Moreau,"
he said, alluding to the invitation made that year to Moreau to
enter the Russian service.... "Wonderful!... Were the Potemkins,
Suvorovs, and Orlovs Germans? No, lad, either you fellows have
all lost your wits, or I have outlived mine. May God help you,
but we'll see what will happen. Buonaparte has become a great
commander among them! Hm!..."
"I don't at all say that all the plans are good,"
said Prince Andrew, "I am only surprised at your opinion
of Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as you like, but all the same
Bonaparte is a great generall"
"Michael Ivanovich!" cried the old prince to the
architect who, busy with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten:
"Didn't I tell you Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here,
he says same thing."
"To be sure, your excellency." replied the architect.
The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.
"Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
He has got splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans.
And only idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world
began everybody has beaten the Germans. They beat no one- except
one another. He made his reputation fighting them."
And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according
to him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics.
His son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments
were presented he was as little able as his father to change his
opinion. He listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily
wondered how this old man, living alone in the country for so
many years, could know and discuss so minutely and acutely all
the recent European military and political events.
"You think I'm an old man and don't understand the present
state of affairs?" concluded his father. "But it troubles
me. I don't sleep at night. Come now, where has this great commander
of yours shown his skill?" he concluded.
"That would take too long to tell," answered the
son.
"Well, then go to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne,
here's another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours,"
he exclaimed in excellent French.
"You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!"
"Dieu sait quand reviendra"... hummed the prince
out of tune and, with a laugh still more so, he quitted the table.
The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest
of the dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now
at her father-in-law and now at Princess Mary. When they left
the table she took her sister-in-law's arm and drew her into another
room.
"What a clever man your father is," said she; "perhaps
that is why I am afraid of him."
"Oh, he is so kind!" answered Princess Mary.
|
