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Natasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was
the last happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya
Rostov died that same year and, as always happens, after the father's
death the family group broke up.
The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and
the flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair,
Petya's death, and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow
on the old count's head. He seemed to be unable to understand
the meaning of all these events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual
sense as if expecting and inviting further blows which would finish
him. He seemed now frightened and distraught and now unnaturally
animated and enterprising.
The arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a
while. He ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear
cheerful, but his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to
be: on the contrary it evoked the compassion of those who knew
and liked him.
When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and
began to complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill
and took to his bed. He realized from the first that he would
not get up again, despite the doctor's encouragement. The countess
passed a fortnight in an armchair by his pillow without undressing.
Every time she gave him his medicine he sobbed and silently kissed
her hand. On his last day, sobbing, he asked her and his absent
son to forgive him for having dissipated their property- that
being the chief fault of which he was conscious. After receiving
communion and unction he quietly died; and next day a throng of
acquaintances who came to pay their last respects to the deceased
filled the house rented by the Rostovs. All these acquaintances,
who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so often
laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach
and emotion, as if justifying themselves: "Well, whatever
he may have been he was a most worthy man. You don't meet such
men nowadays.... And which of us has not weaknesses of his own?"
It was just when the count's affairs had become so involved
that it was impossible to say what would happen if he lived another
year that he unexpectedly died.
Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news
of his father's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission,
and without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence
and went to Moscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite
obvious a month after his death, surprising everyone by the immense
total of small debts the existence of which no one had suspected.
The debts amounted to double the value of the property.
Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance.
But he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory,
which he held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing
and accepted the inheritance together with the obligation to pay
the debts.
The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a
vague but powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by
the count's careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their
claims at once. As always happens in such cases rivalry sprang
up as to which should get paid first, and those who like Mitenka
held promissory notes given them as presents now became the most
exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was allowed no respite and
no peace, and those who had seemed to pity the old man- the cause
of their losses (if they were losses)- now remorselessly pursued
the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the debts and was
obviously not guilty of contracting them.
Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate
was sold by auction for half its value, and half the debts still
remained unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered
him by his brother-in-law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded
as genuinely due for value received. And to avoid being imprisoned
for the remainder, as the creditors threatened, he re-entered
the government service.
He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made
colonel at the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as
her one hold on life; and so despite his reluctant to remain in
Moscow among people who had known him before, and despite his
abhorrence of the civil service, he accepted a post in Moscow
in that service, doffed the uniform of which he was so fond, and
moved with his mother and Sonya to a small house on the Sivtsev
Vrazhek.
Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and
had no clear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed
money from his brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched
condition from him. His position was the more difficult because
with his salary of twelve hundred rubles he had not only to keep
himself, his mother, and Sonya, but had to shield his mother from
knowledge of their poverty. The countess could not conceive of
life without the luxurious conditions she had been used to from
childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was for her son,
kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to send
for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself,
or wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for
Natasha or Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.
Sonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up
with her whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal
their poverty from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably
indebted to Sonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly
admired her patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from
her.
He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect,
and because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all
that people are valued for, but little that could have made him
love her. He felt that the more he valued her the less he loved
her. He had taken her at her word when she wrote giving him his
freedom and now behaved as if all that had passed between them
had been long forgotten and could never in any case be renewed.
Nicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting
something aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did
he not save anything, but to comply with his mother's demands
he even incurred some small debts. He could see no way out of
this situation. The idea of marrying some rich woman, which was
suggested to him by his female relations, was repugnant to him.
The other way out- his mother's death- never entered his head.
He wished for nothing and hoped for nothing, and deep in his heart
experienced a gloomy and stern satisfaction in an uncomplaining
endurance of his position. He tried to avoid his old acquaintances
with their commiseration and offensive offers of assistance; he
avoided all distraction and recreation, and even at home did nothing
but play cards with his mother, pace silently up and down the
room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed carefully to
cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled him
to endure his position.
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