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Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest
state of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had
of visiting his friend Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two
years.
Bogucharovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country
among fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut
down. The house lay behind a newly dug pond filled with water
to the brink and with banks still bare of grass. It was at the
end of a village that stretched along the highroad in the midst
of a young copse in which were a few fir trees.
The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables,
a bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular
facade still in course of construction. Round the house was a
garden newly laid out. The fences and gates were new and solid;
two fire pumps and a water cart, painted green, stood in a shed;
the paths were straight, the bridges were strong and had handrails.
Everything bore an impress of tidiness and good management. Some
domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply to inquiries as to where the
prince lived, pointed out a small newly built lodge close to the
pond. Anton, a man who had looked after Prince Andrew in his boyhood,
helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the prince was at
home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.
Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean
house after the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met
his friend in Petersburg.
He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered
wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but
Anton ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
"A visitor," answered Anton.
"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a
chair being pushed back.
Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came
face to face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking
old. Pierre embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his
friend on the cheek and looked at him closely.
"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said
Prince Andrew.
Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with
surprise. He was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly
and there was a smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were
dull and lifeless and in spite of his evident wish to do so he
could not give them a joyous and glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had
grown thinner, paler, and more manly-looking, but what amazed
and estranged Pierre till he got used to it were his inertia and
a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged concentration on some
one thought.
As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged
separation, it was long before their conversation could settle
on anything. They put questions and gave brief replies about things
they knew ought to be talked over at length. At last the conversation
gradually settled on some of the topics at first lightly touched
on: their past life, plans for the future, Pierre's journeys and
occupations, the war, and so on. The preoccupation and despondency
which Pierre had noticed in his friend's look was now still more
clearly expressed in the smile with which he listened to Pierre,
especially when he spoke with joyful animation of the past or
the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would have liked to sympathize
with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The latter began to
feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his enthusiasms, dreams,
and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince Andrew's presence.
He was ashamed to express his new Masonic views, which had been
particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour. He checked
himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he felt an irresistible desire
to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite
different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.
"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since
then. I hardly know myself again."
"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then,"
said Prince Andrew.
"Well, and you? What are your plans?"
"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My
plans?" he said, as if astonished at the word. "Well,
you see, I'm building. I mean to settle here altogether next year...."
Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's
face, which had grown much older.
"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince
Andrew interrupted him.
"But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about
your travels and all you have been doing on your estates."
Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying
as far as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements
that had been made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's
story of what he had been doing, as though it were all an old-time
story, and he listened not only without interest but even as if
ashamed of what Pierre was telling him.
Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's
company and at last became silent.
"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince
Andrew, who evidently also felt depressed and constrained with
his visitor, "I am only bivouacking here and have just come
to look round. I am going back to my sister today. I will introduce
you to her. But of course you know her already," he said,
evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he now found
nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And would you
now like to look round my place?"
They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of
the political news and common acquaintances like people who do
not know each other intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some
animation and interest only of the new homestead he was constructing
and its buildings, but even here, while on the scaffolding, in
the midst of a talk explaining the future arrangements of the
house, he interrupted himself:
"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have
dinner, and then we'll set off."
At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.
"I was very much surprised when I heard of it,"
said Prince Andrew.
Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and
said hurriedly: "I will tell you some time how it all happened.
But you know it is all over, and forever."
"Forever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's forever."
"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard
of the duel?"
"And so you had to go through that too!"
"One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that
man," said Pierre.
"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious
dog is a very good thing really."
"No, to kill a man is bad- wrong."
"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It
is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men
always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what
they consider right and wrong."
"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre,
feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival
Prince Andrew was roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express
what had brought him to his present state.
"And who has told you what is bad for another man?"
he asked.
"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know
what is bad for ourselves."
"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in
myself is something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince
Andrew, growing more and more animated and evidently wishing to
express his new outlook to Pierre. He spoke in French. "I
only know two very real evils in life: remorse and illness. The
only good is the absence of those evils. To live for myself avoiding
those two evils is my whole philosophy now."
"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacrifice?"
began Pierre. "No, I can't agree with you! To live only so
as not to do evil and not to have to repent is not enough. I lived
like that, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now
when I am living, or at least trying" (Pierre's modesty made
him correct himself) "to live for others, only now have I
understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree with
you, and you do not really believe what you are saying."
Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.
"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on
with her," he said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself,"
he added after a short pause, "but everyone lives in his
own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your
life and only found happiness when you began living for others.
I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.- And after
all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do something
for them, a desire for their approval.- So I lived for others,
and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer
since I began to live only for myself."
"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?"
asked Pierre, growing excited. "What about your son, your
sister, and your father?"
"But that's just the same as myself- they are not others,"
explained Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbors, le
prochain, as you and Princess Mary call it, are the chief source
of all error and evil. Le prochain- your Kiev peasants to whom
you want to do good."
And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression.
He evidently wished to draw him on.
"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and
more excited. "What error or evil can there be in my wishing
to do good, and even doing a little- though I did very little
and did it very badly? What evil can there be in it if unfortunate
people, our serfs, people like ourselves, were growing up and
dying with no idea of God and truth beyond ceremonies and meaningless
prayers and are now instructed in a comforting belief in future
life, retribution, recompense, and consolation? What evil and
error are there in it, if people were dying of disease without
help while material assistance could so easily be rendered, and
I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum for the
aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a peasant,
or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give them
rest and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And
I have done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have
done something toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was
not a good action, and more than that, you can't make me believe
that you do not think so yourself. And the main thing is,"
he continued, "that I know, and know for certain, that the
enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness in life."
"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different
matter," said Prince Andrew. "I build a house and lay
out a garden, and you build hospitals. The one and the other may
serve as a pastime. But what's right and what's good must be judged
by one who knows all, but not by us. Well, you want an argument,"
he added, come on then."
They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch
which served as a veranda.
"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew, "You
talk of schools," he went on, crooking a finger, "education
and so forth; that is, you want to raise him" (pointing to
a peasant who passed by them taking off his cap) "from his
animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while it seems
to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and
that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but
you want to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then
you say, 'lighten his toil.' But as I see it, physical labor is
as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as
mental activity is to you or me. You can't help thinking. I go
to bed after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can't sleep
but toss about till dawn, because I think and can't help thinking,
just as he can't help plowing and mowing; if he didn't, he would
go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his
terrible physical labor but should die of it in a week, so he
could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die.
The third thing- what else was it you talked about?" and
Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals,
medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and bleed him
and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to
everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler
for him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of
them as it is. It would be different if you grudged losing a laborer-
that's how I regard him- but you want to cure him from love of
him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a notion that
medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!" said he, frowning
angrily and turning away from Pierre.
Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly
that it was evident he had reflected on this subject more than
once, and he spoke readily and rapidly like a man who has not
talked for a long time. His glance became more animated as his
conclusions became more hopeless.
"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I
don't understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such
moments myself not long ago, in Moscow and when traveling, but
at such times I collapsed so that I don't live at all- everything
seems hateful to me... myself most of all. Then I don't eat, don't
wash... and how is it with you?..."
"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince
Andrew; "on the contrary one must try to make one's life
as pleasant as possible. I'm alive, that is not my fault, so I
must live out my life as best I can without hurting others."
"But with such ideas what motive have you for living?
One would sit without moving, undertaking nothing...."
"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful
to do nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have
done me the honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all
I could do to get out of it. They could not understand that I
have not the necessary qualifications for it- the kind of good-natured,
fussy shallowness necessary for the position. Then there's this
house, which must be built in order to have a nook of one's own
in which to be quiet. And now there's this recruiting."
"Why aren't you serving in the army?"
"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily.
"No, thank you very much! I have promised myself not to serve
again in the active Russian army. And I won't- not even if Bonaparte
were here at Smolensk threatening Bald Hills- even then I wouldn't
serve in the Russian army! Well, as I was saying," he continued,
recovering his composure, "now there's this recruiting. My
father is chief in command of the Third District, and my only
way of avoiding active service is to serve under him."
"Then you are serving?"
"I am."
He paused a little while.
"And why do you serve?"
"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable
men of his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly
cruel he has too energetic a character. He is so accustomed to
unlimited power that he is terrible, and now he has this authority
of a commander in chief of the recruiting, granted by the Emperor.
If I had been two hours late a fortnight ago he would have had
a paymaster's clerk at Yukhnovna hanged," said Prince Andrew
with a smile. "So I am serving because I alone have any influence
with my father, and now and then can save him from actions which
would torment him afterwards."
"Well, there you see!"
"Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew
continued. "I did not, and do not, in the least care about
that scoundrel of a clerk who had stolen some boots from the recruits;
I should even have been very glad to see him hanged, but I was
sorry for my father- that again is for myself."
Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered
feverishly while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions
there was no desire to do good to his neighbor.
"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he
continued; "that is a very good thing, but not for you- I
don't suppose you ever had anyone flogged or sent to Siberia-
and still less for your serfs. If they are beaten, flogged, or
sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the worse off. In
Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on their
bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing
for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves,
stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able
to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people
I pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs.
You may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up
in those traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow
more irritable, become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but
cannot restrain themselves and grow more and more miserable."
Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help
thinking that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew
by his father's case.
He did not reply.
"So that's what I'm sorry for- human dignity, peace of
mind, purity, and not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat
and shave as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads."
"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with
you," said Pierre.
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