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The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies,
but turned on the subject Nicholas liked best- recollections of
1812. Denisov started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable
and amusing about them. The family separated on the most friendly
terms.
After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given
instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went
to the bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still
at her table, writing.
"What are you writing, Mary?" Nicholas asked.
Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing
would not be understood or approved by her husband.
She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but
at the same time was glad he had surprised her at it and that
she would now have to tell him.
"A diary, Nicholas," she replied, handing him a
blue exercise book filled with her firm, bold writing.
"A diary?" Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony,
and he took up the book.
It was in French.
December 4. Today when Andrusha (her eldest boy) woke up he
did not wish to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He
was naughty and obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier.
Then I took the matter in hand: I left him alone and began with
nurse's help to get the other children up, telling him that I
did not love him. For a long time he was silent, as if astonished,
then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in his shirt, and sobbed
so that I could not calm him for a long time. It was plain that
what troubled him most was that he had grieved me. Afterwards
in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began crying
piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by tenderness.
"What is a 'ticket'?" Nicholas inquired.
"I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening,
showing how they have behaved."
Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at
him, and continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary
was set down everything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy
to their mother as showing their characters or suggesting general
reflections on educational methods. They were for the most part
quite insignificant trifles, but did not seem so to the mother
or to the father either, now that he read this diary about his
children for the first time.
Under the date "5" was entered:
Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding.
He had none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others
while they were eating! I think that punishment by depriving children
of sweets only develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.
Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant
eyes gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove
of her diary? There could be no doubt not only of his approval
but also of his admiration for his wife.
Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas,
or even done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort
of which the sole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted
him. Had Nicholas been able to analyze his feelings he would have
found that his steady, tender, and proud love of his wife rested
on his feeling of wonder at her spirituality and at the lofty
moral world, almost beyond his reach, in which she had her being.
He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized
his own insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and
rejoiced all the more that she with such a soul not only belonged
to him but was part of himself.
"I quite, quite approve, my dearest!" said he with
a significant look, and after a short pause he added: "And
I behaved badly today. You weren't in the study. We began disputing-
Pierre and I- and I lost my temper. But he is impossible: such
a child! I don't know what would become of him if Natasha didn't
keep him in hand.... Have you any idea why he went to Petersburg?
They have formed..."
"Yes, I know," said Countess Mary. "Natasha
told me."
"Well, then, you know," Nicholas went on, growing
hot at the mere recollection of their discussion, "he wanted
to convince me that it is every honest man's duty to go against
the government, and that the oath of allegiance and duty... I
am sorry you weren't there. They all fell on me- Denisov and Natasha...
Natasha is absurd. How she rules over him! And yet there need
only be a discussion and she has no words of her own but only
repeats his sayings..." added Nicholas, yielding to that
irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest
and dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natasha
could have been applied word for word to himself in relation to
his wife.
"Yes, I have noticed that," said Countess Mary.
"When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything,
he started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there-
what would you have said?"
"As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natasha
so. Pierre says everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted,
and that it is our duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is
right there," said Countess Mary, "but he forgets that
we have other duties nearer to us, duties indicated to us by God
Himself, and that though we might expose ourselves to risks we
must not risk our children."
"Yes, that's it! That's just what I said to him,"
put in Nicholas, who fancied he really had said it. "But
they insisted on their own view: love of one's neighbor and Christianity-
and all this in the presence of young Nicholas, who had gone into
my study and broke all my things."
"Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about
little Nicholas," said Countess Mary. "He is such an
exceptional boy. I am afraid I neglect him in favor of my own:
we all have children and relations while he has no one. He is
constantly alone with his thoughts."
"Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his
account. All that the fondest mother could do for her son you
have done and are doing for him, and of course I am glad of it.
He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This evening he listened to Pierre
in a sort of trance, and fancy- as we were going in to supper
I looked and he had broken everything on my table to bits, and
he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an
untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!" repeated Nicholas, who
at heart was not fond of Nicholas Bolkonski but was always anxious
to recognize that he was a fine lad.
"Still, I am not the same as his own mother," said
Countess Mary. "I feel I am not the same and it troubles
me. A wonderful boy, but I am dreadfully afraid for him. It would
be good for him to have companions."
"Well it won't be for long. Next summer I'll take him
to Petersburg," said Nicholas. "Yes, Pierre always was
a dreamer and always will be," he continued, returning to
the talk in the study which had evidently disturbed him. "Well,
what business is it of mine what goes on there- whether Arakcheev
is bad, and all that? What business was it of mine when I married
and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with prison, and
had a mother who could not see or understand it? And then there
are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own pleasure
that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night?
No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you,
and not to leave the children such beggars as I was."
Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by
bread alone and that he attached too much importance to these
matters. But she knew she must not say this and that it would
be useless to do so. She only took his hand and kissed it. He
took this as a sign of approval and a confirmation of his thoughts,
and after a few minutes' reflection continued to think aloud.
"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych" (this
was his overseer) "came back from the Tambov estate and told
me they are already offering eighty thousand rubles for the forest."
And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility
of repurchasing Otradnoe before long, and added: "Another
ten years of life and I shall leave the children... in an excellent
position."
Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that
he told her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he
would sometimes ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed
if he noticed that she had been thinking about something else.
But she had to force herself to attend, for what he was saying
did not interest her at all. She looked at him and did not think,
but felt, about something different. She felt a submissive tender
love for this man who would never understand all that she understood,
and this seemed to make her love for him still stronger and added
a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this feeling which absorbed
her altogether and hindered her from following the details of
her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with what
he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew.
Her husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was
speaking struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle,
sensitive character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of
her nephew she thought also of her own children. She did not compare
them with him, but compared her feeling for them with her feeling
for him, and felt with regret that there was something lacking
in her feeling for young Nicholas.
Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from
the difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward
him and promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the
impossible- in this life to love her husband, her children, little
Nicholas, and all her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess
Mary's soul always strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and
the absolute, and could therefore never be at peace. A stern expression
of the lofty, secret suffering of a soul burdened by the body
appeared on her face. Nicholas gazed at her. "O God! What
will become of us if she dies, as I always fear when her face
is like that?" thought he, and placing himself before the
icon he began to say his evening prayers.
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