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Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They
kissed everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and
they went out. Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles
whispered to the boy to come downstairs.
"No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me
stay," replied Nicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper.
"Ma tante, please let me stay," said he, going up
to his aunt.
His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess
Mary glanced at him and turned to Pierre.
"When you are here he can't tear himself away,"
she said.
"I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles.
Good night!" said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor,
and he turned to young Nicholas with a smile. "You and I
haven't seen anything of one another yet... How like he is growing,
Mary!" he added, addressing Countess Mary.
"Like my father?" asked the boy, flushing crimson
and looking up at Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.
Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when
the children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork;
Natasha did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov
rose, asked for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from
Sonya- who sat weary but resolute at the samovar- and questioned
Pierre. The curly-headed, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed
in a corner, starting every now and then and muttering something
to himself, and evidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion
as he turned his curly head, with his thin neck exposed by his
turn-down collar, toward the place where Pierre sat.
The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those
in power, in which most people see the chief interest of home
politics. Denisov, dissatisfied with the government on account
of his own disappointments in the service, heard with pleasure
of the things done in Petersburg which seemed to him stupid, and
made forcible and sharp comments on what Pierre told them.
"One used to have to be a German- now one must dance
with Tatawinova and Madame Kwudener, and wead Ecka'tshausen and
the bwethwen. Oh, they should let that fine fellow Bonaparte lose-
he'd knock all this nonsense out of them! Fancy giving the command
of the Semenov wegiment to a fellow like that Schwa'tz!"
he cried.
Nicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault
with everything, also thought that discussion of the government
was a very serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had
been appointed Minister of This and B Governor General of That,
and that the Emperor had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so,
seemed to him very important. And so he thought it necessary to
take an interest in these things and to question Pierre. The questions
put by these two kept the conversation from changing its ordinary
character of gossip about the higher government circles.
But Natasha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw
that he had long been wishing but had been unable to divert the
conversation to another channel and express his own deeply felt
idea for the sake of which he had gone to Petersburg to consult
with his new friend Prince Theodore, and she helped him by asking
how his affairs with Prince Theodore had gone.
"What was it about?" asked Nicholas.
"Always the same thing," said Pierre, looking round
at his listeners. "Everybody sees that things are going so
badly that they cannot be allowed to go on so and that it is the
duty of all decent men to counteract it as far as they can."
"What can decent men do?" Nicholas inquired, frowning
slightly. "What can be done?"
"Why, this..."
"Come into my study," said Nicholas.
Natasha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her
baby, now heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery.
Countess Mary followed her. The men went into the study and little
Nicholas Bolkonski followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat
down at the writing table in a shady corner by the window.
"Well, what would you do?" asked Denisov.
"Always some fantastic schemes," said Nicholas.
"Why this," began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing
the room, sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping:
"the position in Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not
look into anything. He has abandoned himself altogether to this
mysticism" (Pierre could not tolerate mysticism in anyone
now). "He seeks only for peace, and only these people sans
foi ni loi* can give it him- people who recklessly hack at and
strangle everything- Magnitski, Arakcheev, and tutti quanti....
You will agree that if you did not look after your estates yourself
but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the
more readily your object might be attained," he said to Nicholas.
*Without faith or law.
"Well, what does that lead up to?" said Nicholas.
"Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law
courts, in the army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military
Settlements; the people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed.
All that is young and honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this
cannot go on. Everything is strained to such a degree that it
will certainly break," said Pierre (as those who examine
the actions of any government have always said since governments
began). "I told them just one thing in Petersburg."
"Told whom?"
"Well, you know whom," said Pierre, with a meaning
glance from under his brows. "Prince Theodore and all those.
To encourage culture and philanthropy is all very well of course.
The aim is excellent but in the present circumstances something
else is needed."
At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew.
His face darkened and he went up to the boy.
"Why are you here?"
"Why? Let him be," said Pierre, taking Nicholas
by the arm and continuing. "That is not enough, I told them.
Something else is needed. When you stand expecting the overstrained
string to snap at any moment, when everyone is expecting the inevitable
catastrophe, as many as possible must join hands as closely as
they can to withstand the general calamity. Everything that is
young and strong is being enticed away and depraved. One is lured
by women, another by honors, a third by ambition or money, and
they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you or
I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let
the mot d'ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action
as well!"
Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an
armchair, sat down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly
and frowning more and more.
"But action with what aim?" he cried. "And
what position will you adopt toward the government?"
"Why, the position of assistants. The society need not
be secret if the government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile
to government, but it is a society of true conservatives- a society
of gentlemen in the full meaning of that word. It is only to prevent
some Pugachev or other from killing my children and yours, and
Arakcheev from sending me off to some Military Settlement. We
join hands only for the public welfare and the general safety."
"Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile
and harmful one which can only cause harm."
"Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe" (they
did not then venture to suggest that Russia had saved Europe)
"do any harm? The Tugendbund is an alliance of virtue: it
is love, mutual help... it is what Christ preached on the Cross."
Natasha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully
at her husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her-
that did not even interest her, for it seemed to her that was
all extremely simple and that she had known it a long time (it
seemed so to her because she knew that it sprang from Pierre's
whole soul), but it was his animated and enthusiastic appearance
that made her glad.
The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down
collar- whom everyone had forgotten- gazed at Pierre with even
greater and more rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre's burned
into his heart, and with a nervous movement of his fingers he
unconsciously broke the sealing wax and quill pens his hands came
upon on his uncle's table.
"It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what
the German Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing."
"No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the
sausage eaters, but I don't understand it and can't even pwonounce
it," interposed Denisov in a loud and resolute voice. "I
agwee that evewything here is wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund
I don't understand. If we're not satisfied, let us have a bunt
of our own. That's all wight. Je suis vot'e homme!"*
*"I'm your man."
Pierre smiled, Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted
his brows still more and began proving to Pierre that there was
no prospect of any great change and that all the danger he spoke
of existed only in his imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary,
and as his mental faculties were greater and more resourceful,
Nicholas felt himself cornered. This made him still angrier, for
he was fully convinced, not by reasoning but by something within
him stronger than reason, of the justice of his opinion.
"I will tell you this," he said, rising and trying
with nervously twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner,
but finally abandoning the attempt. "I can't prove it to
you. You say that everything here is rotten and that an overthrow
is coming: I don't see it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance
is a conditional matter, and to that I reply: 'You are my best
friend, as you know, but if you formed a secret society and began
working against the government- be it what it may- I know it is
my duty to obey the government. And if Arakcheev ordered me to
lead a squadron against you and cut you down, I should not hesitate
an instant, but should do it.' And you may argue about that as
you like!"
An awkward silence followed these words. Natasha was the first
to speak, defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her
defense was weak and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation
was resumed, and no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of
Nicholas' last remark.
When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkonski
went up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.
"Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would
he agree with you?" he asked.
And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent,
complex, and powerful process of thought and feeling must have
been going on in this boy during that conversation, and remembering
all he had said he regretted that the lad should have heard him.
He had, however, to give him an answer.
"Yes, I think so," he said reluctantly, and left
the study.
The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice
what he had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went
up to Nicholas.
"Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally,"
he said, pointing to the broken sealing wax and pens.
Nicholas started angrily.
"All right, all right," he said, throwing the bits
under the table.
And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he
turned away from the boy.
"You ought not to have been here at all," he said.
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