War and Peace: Original Version. Лев Толстой

Pyotr Nikolaevich, having transferred to the Guards, I’ll be more easily noticed,” Berg continued, “and there are openings in the Guards infantry far more often. And then, imagine for yourself how well I can get by on two hundred and thirty roubles.”

      He paused and then continued triumphantly:

      “I can put money away and send some to my father as well,” he said and blew out a smoke ring.

      “The accounts are balanced. As the proverb says, a German can thresh grain on the head of an axe,” said Shinshin, moving the amber mouthpiece to the other side of his mouth and winking at the count.

      The count burst out laughing. The other guests, seeing Shinshin making conversation, came over to listen. Berg, failing to notice either mockery or indifference, related at length and in precise detail how, by moving to the Guards, he had already gained one rank’s advantage over his corps comrades, and how in wartime the company commander might well be killed so that he, as the remaining senior officer, could very easily become company commander, and how everybody in the regiment loved him, and how pleased his papa was with him. The listeners all waited with the count, hoping for something funny, but nothing funny came. Berg was clearly relishing telling them all this, and had not the slightest suspicion that other people might have their own reasons for listening. But everything he told them was so nice and proper, the naïvety of his young egotism was so transparent, that he quite disarmed his listeners and even Shinshin stopped laughing at him. He thought Berg not worth talking to.

      “Well, old man, whether you are in the infantry or the cavalry, you will always get ahead anywhere, that I prophesy. I predict a brilliant career for you,” he said, patting Berg’s shoulder and lowering his legs from the ottoman. Berg smiled in delight. The count, followed by the guests, went out into the drawing room.

      XXIII

      It was that moment before a formal dinner when the guests, all assembled in their finery and anticipating the summons to the hors d’oeuvres, refrain from starting long conversations yet feel they ought to keep moving about and not remain silent, lest they show impatience to take their seats at the table. The hosts keep glancing at the door and occasionally exchange glances with each other. The guests try to guess from these glances for whom or for what they are still waiting: an important relative who is late or the food which, according to the information from the kitchen, is not yet ready. In the servants’ room the servants have not yet been able to start discussing the ladies and gentlemen, because they keep having to get up for new arrivals.

      In the kitchen meanwhile the cooks are growing fierce and ill-tempered, moving in their white hats and aprons between the stove, the spit and the oven and shouting at the kitchen boys, who at such moments become especially timid. The coachmen at the entrance draw up in lines and, having settled down comfortably on their coachboxes, chat among themselves or drop into the coachmen’s room to smoke a pipe.

      Pierre arrived and sat awkwardly in the middle of the drawing room, on the first armchair he came across, blocking everybody’s way. The countess tried to induce him to speak, but he gazed naïvely around through his spectacles, as though searching for someone, replying in monosyllables to all the countess’s questions. He was in people’s way, and he was the only one who was unaware of it. A large number of the guests, knowing about the incident with the bear, looked at this big, fat, meek man with curiosity, wondering how such an unassuming duffer could possibly have played such a trick on a policeman.

      “Did you arrive recently?” the countess asked him.

      “Oui, madame,” he replied, looking around the room.

      “Have you not seen my husband?”

      “Non, madame,” he said, smiling quite inappropriately.

      “I believe you were in Paris recently? How very interesting.”

      “It was very interesting,” he replied, debating with himself where that Boris, to whom he had taken such a liking, could have got to.

      The countess exchanged glances with Princess Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna realised that she was being asked to entertain this young man and, seating herself beside him, began to talk about his father, but he answered her as he had the countess, in words of a single syllable. The guests were all occupied with each other. The sound of dresses rustling could be heard on every side. “The Razumovskys … It was quite exquisite … You are most kind … Countess Apraksina … Apraksina …”

      The countess rose and went out to the entrance hall.

      “Marya Dmitrievna?” her voice said in the hall.

      “The very same,” replied a gruff woman’s voice, and then into the room came Marya Dmitrievna, who had arrived with her daughter.

      All the young and even the older ladies, apart from the most elderly, stood up. Marya Dmitrievna halted in the doorway, and from the height of her corpulent frame, holding high her beautiful fifty-year-old head with its grey ringlets, she ran her eye over the guests. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian.

      “Dear name-day girl and children,” she said in her loud, rich voice that subdued all other sounds. “I would have paid you a visit this morning, but I don’t like roaming about in the mornings. I suppose, you old sinner,” she said to the count, who was kissing her hand, “you are probably bored in Moscow? Nowhere to run the dogs? But what’s to be done, old man, when these little chicks grow up …” She indicated her daughter, who was quite unlike her mother, a rather attractive young lady who appeared as tender and sweet as her mother appeared coarse. “Like it or not, you have to look for suitors for them. There are yours, now, and all of them of age.” She pointed to Natasha and Sonya, who had come into the drawing room.

      When Marya Dmitrievna arrived, everyone had gathered in the drawing room, anticipating the exodus to the dinner table. Boris came in as well, and Pierre immediately attached himself to him.

      “Well now, my Cossack.” (Marya Dmitrievna always called Natasha a Cossack.) “What a winner this girl’s become!” she said, stroking Natasha, who had approached her hand fearlessly and happily. “I know she’s a little scallywag, and she ought to be whipped, but I adore her.”

      From out of her vast reticule (Marya Dmitrievna’s reticule was known to everyone for the abundance and variety of its contents) she extracted a pair of sapphire drop earrings and, after handing them to the glowing, ruddy-cheeked name-day girl, instantly turned away from her and, catching sight of Pierre, said to him:

      “Hey, hey, my dear fellow! Here, come over here.” She spoke with a deliberately quiet, modulated voice, the way people speak to a dog that they want to scold. “Here, my dear fellow …”

      Pierre, somewhat alarmed, went over, gazing at her through his spectacles naïvely and merrily, like a schoolboy, as though he fully intended to enjoy the forthcoming amusement as much as everyone else.

      “Come here, come here, dear fellow! I was the only one to tell your father the truth when he got into a predicament and it’s God’s own will that I should tell you too.”

      She paused. Nobody said a word, waiting for what would happen next and sensing this was only the preamble.

      “A fine boy, what can I say! What a fine boy! His father’s on his deathbed, but he’s having fun, mounting a policeman on a bear. For shame, my good fellow, for shame! You’d do better to go off to the war.”

      She turned away and proffered her hand to the count, who could barely restrain his laughter. Pierre simply winked at Boris.

      “Well then, to table, I think it’s probably time,” said Marya Dmitrievna. The count and Marya Dmitrievna went in first, followed by the countess, who was escorted by the colonel of the hussars, an important man, for he would be taking Nikolai to his regiment; then came Anna Mikhailovna and Shinshin. Berg lent his arm to Vera. Marya Dmitrievna’s daughter Julie, who constantly smiled and rolled her eyes and had not let Nikolai get