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As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several
perfectly distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole,
though each retained its own peculiarities and made concessions
to the others. Every event, joyful or sad, that took place in
that house was important to all these worlds, but each had its
own special reasons to rejoice or grieve over that occurrence
independently of the others.
For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event
and they all felt it to be so.
The servants- the most reliable judges of their masters because
they judge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling
but by their acts and way of life- were glad of Pierre's return
because they knew that when he was there Count Nicholas would
cease going every day attend to the estate, and would would be
in better spirits and temper, and also because they would all
receive handsome presents for the holidays.
The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return
because no one else drew them into the social life of the household
as he did. He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise
(his only piece) to which, as he said, all possible dances could
be danced, and they felt sure he had brought presents for them
all.
Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,
with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted
because Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous
and passionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love
for Pierre whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had
brought him up had done her utmost to make him love her husband
as she loved him, and little Nicholas did love his uncle, but
loved him with just a shade of contempt. Pierre, however, he adored.
He did not want to be an hussar or a Knight of St. George like
his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned, wise, and kind like
Pierre. In Pierre's presence his face always shone with pleasure
and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to him. He
did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards, with
Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of
everything Pierre had said. Pierre's past life and his unhappiness
prior to 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic
picture from some words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow,
his captivity, Platon Karataev (of whom he had heard from Pierre),
his love for Natasha (of whom the lad was also particularly fond),
and especially Pierre's friendship with the father whom Nicholas
could not remember- all this made Pierre in his eyes a hero and
a saint.
From broken remarks about Natasha and his father, from the
emotion with which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from
the careful, reverent tenderness with which Natasha spoke of him,
the boy, who was only just beginning to guess what love is, derived
the notion that his father had loved Natasha and when dying had
left her to his friend. But the father whom the boy did not remember
appeared to him a divinity who could not be pictured, and of whom
he never thought without a swelling heart and tears of sadness
and rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had arrived.
The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven
and unite any company he was in.
The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife,
were pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run
more smoothly and peacefully.
The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them,
and especially that Natasha would now be herself again.
Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds
and made haste to satisfy all their expectations.
Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre,
with the aid of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything,
not forgetting his mother- and brother-in-law's commissions, nor
the dress material for a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's
nephews. In the early days of his marriage it had seemed strange
to him that his wife should expect him not to forget to procure
all the things he undertook to buy, and he had been taken aback
by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he forgot everything.
But in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that Natasha
asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others
only when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found
an unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents
for everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now
incurred Natasha's censure it was only for buying too many and
too expensive things. To her other defects (as most people thought
them, but which to Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect
of herself, she now added stinginess.
From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a
footing entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise
that he spent only half as much as before, and that his affairs-
which had been in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first
wife's debts- had begun to improve.
Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive
luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was
no longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of
life had now been settled once for all till death and that to
change it was not in his power, and so that way of life proved
economical.
With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.
"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling
a piece of stuff like a shopman.
Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter
on her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband
to the things he showed her.
"That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality
of the material. "It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?"
Pierre told her the price.
"Too dear!" Natasha remarked. "How pleased
the children will be and Mamma too! Only you need not have bought
me this," she added, unable to suppress a smile as she gazed
admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls, of a kind then just
coming into fashion.
"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it,"
returned Pierre.
"When am I to wear it?" and Natasha stuck it in
her coil of hair. "When I take little Masha into society?
Perhaps they will be fashionable again by then. Well, let's go
now."
And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery
and then to the old countess' rooms.
The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing
grand-patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the
drawing room with parcels under their arms.
The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore
a cap with a frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled,
her upper lip had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.
After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession,
she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world
and left without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank,
slept, or kept awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions.
She wanted nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity
only death could give her. But until death came she had to go
on living, that is, to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one
sees in very young children and very old people was particularly
evident in her. Her life had no external aims- only a need to
exercise her various functions and inclinations was apparent.
She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, work, give vent to
her anger, and so on, merely because she had a stomach, a brain,
muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not under any
external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when
behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their
functions remains unnoticed. She talked only because she physically
needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child
does, because her nose had to be cleared, and so on. What for
people in their full vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely
a pretext.
Thus in the morning- especially if she had eaten anything
rich the day before- she felt a need of being angry and would
choose as the handiest pretext Belova's deafness.
She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from
the other end of the room.
"It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would
murmur.
And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come,"
she would mutter angrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she
is!"
Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry
or too damp or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability
her face would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms
when Belova would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess'
face yellow. Just as she needed to work off her spleen so she
had sometimes to exercise her still-existing faculty of thinking-
and the pretext for that was a game of patience. When she needed
to cry, the deceased count would be the pretext. When she wanted
to be agitated, Nicholas and his health would be the pretext,
and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the pretext would
be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise, which
was usually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner
rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of
the same stories over and over again to the same audience.
The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household
though no one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible
effort to satisfy her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with
a sad smile between Nicholas, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary
was the common understanding of her condition expressed.
But those glances expressed something more: they said that
she had played her part in life, that what they now saw was not
her whole self, that we must all become like her, and that they
were glad to yield to her, to restrain themselves for this once
precious being formerly as full of life as themselves, but now
so much to be pitied. "Memento mori," said these glances.
Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household,
and the little children failed to understand this and avoided
her.
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