War and Peace: Original Version. Лев Толстой

      “Who told you that? Who told you?” cried the prince. “Suvorov!” And he swept aside his plate, which Tikhon deftly caught. “Suvorov!… Two of them, Friedrich and Suvorov … Moreau! Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvorov had had a free hand, but he had the Hofskriegswurstschnappsrat sitting on his hands. You go and you’ll recognise those Hofskriegswurstrats soon enough. Suvorov couldn’t best them, so how will Mikhailo Kutuzov cope? No, my friend,” he continued, “you and your generals can’t manage against Bonaparte, you have to get in a Frenchman, you set a thief to catch a thief. They’ve sent the German Pahlen to New York, to America, to get the Frenchman Moreau,” he said, alluding to the invitation that had been sent that year to Moreau to enter service with the Russians. “Wonderful! Tell me, were the Potemkins, Suvorovs and Orlovs all Germans, then? I tell you, brother, either all of you up there have lost your minds or I’m so old that I’ve lost mine. May God be with you, but we shall see. Bonaparte’s a great general for them now! Hm!

      “Mikhail Ivanych!” the old prince cried to the architect, who was setting about his entrée in the hope they had forgotten about him. “Didn’t I tell you that Bonaparte was a great tactician? He says so too.”

      “But of course, your excellency,” replied the architect.

      The prince laughed his cold laugh once again.

      “Bonaparte was born under a lucky star. He has excellent soldiers. That’s all.”

      And the prince began analysing all the mistakes which, in his opinion, Bonaparte had made in all his wars, and even in affairs of state. His son did not object, but it was clear that, no matter what arguments might be presented to him, he was as little capable of changing his opinion as the old prince. Prince Andrei listened, suppressing his objections and marvelling, despite himself, at how this old man who had spent all these years alone out in the countryside could know all the military and political affairs of Europe in recent years in such great detail, and discuss them with such subtlety.

      “Do you think I am an old man and do not understand the present state of affairs?” said the prince in conclusion. “I have it all right here. I don’t sleep for nights at a time. Well, where is this great general of yours, where has he shown his mastery?”

      “That would be a long story,” his son replied.

      “Off you go to your Buonoparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here is one more admirer of your lackey-emperor,” he shouted in excellent French.

      “You know, prince, that I am not a Bonapartist.”

      “‘God knows when he’ll be back …’,” the prince sang out of tune, and laughed on an even falser note as he got up from the table.

      Throughout the argument and the rest of dinner the little princess said nothing, but from time to time she glanced in fright, now at Princess Marya, now at her father-in-law. When they got up from the table, she took her sister-in-law by the hand and drew her into the next room.

      “What a clever man your father is,” she said. “Perhaps that is why I am afraid of him.”

      “Ah, but he is so kind!” said Princess Marya.

      XXXVII

      Prince Andrei was leaving in the evening of the next day. The old prince, not deviating from his routine, had gone to his own quarters after dinner. The little princess was with her sister-in-law. Prince Andrei, wearing a travelling frock coat without epaulettes, had packed with his valet in the rooms allocated to him. Having personally inspected the carriage and the packing of the trunks, he ordered them to be loaded. The only things left in the room were those that Prince Andrei always carried with him: a travelling casket, a large silver wine-case, two Turkish pistols and a sabre, a present from his father that had been brought from the Ochakov campaign. Prince Andrei’s travelling accessories were all in excellent order: everything was new and clean, packed in cloth covers and carefully tied with string.

      At moments of departure and change in their lives, people who are capable of reflecting on their actions are usually plunged into a serious state of mind. At such moments the past is usually reviewed and plans for the future are made. Prince Andrei’s expression was very pensive and tender. With his hands set behind his back, swinging round each time in a natural gesture untypical of him, he was striding quickly back and forth from corner to corner across the room, gazing straight ahead and shaking his head thoughtfully. Was he afraid of going to war, or sad at leaving his wife? Perhaps both? However, clearly not wishing to be seen in such a state, he halted when he heard footsteps in the passage, hastily unclasped his hands and stood by the table, as if he were tying on the lid of his casket, and assumed his perennial calm and impenetrable expression. They were the heavy footsteps of Princess Marya.

      “They told me you had ordered the luggage to be loaded,” she said, panting (she had evidently been running), “and I wanted so much to have another talk with you alone. God only knows for how long we are parting yet again. You are not angry with me for coming? You have changed so greatly, Andriusha,” she added, as though in explanation of her question.

      She smiled as she pronounced the word “Andriusha”. She clearly found it strange to think that this stern, handsome man was the same little boy Andriusha, the curly-headed, mischievous companion of her childhood.

      “But where is Lise?” he asked.

      “She was so tired, she fell asleep on the sofa in my room. Andrei! What a treasure your wife is,” she said, sitting on the divan facing her brother. “She is a perfect child, such a darling, cheerful child. I have quite fallen in love with her.”

      Prince Andrei said nothing, but the princess noticed the ironic and disdainful expression that appeared on his face.

      “But one must be tolerant of little weaknesses; who does not have them, Andrei? Do not forget that she was educated and grew up in high society. And then her present situation now is far from rosy. One must always put oneself in the other person’s place. To understand all is to forgive all. How do you think the poor thing feels, after the life to which she is accustomed, parting with her husband and being left alone in the country, and in her condition? It is very hard.”

      Prince Andrei smiled, looking at his sister, as we smile when listening to people whom we think we can see through.

      “You live in the country and you do not find this life so terrible,” he said.

      “I am a different case. What is the point of talking about me? I do not want any other life, I cannot want it, because I do not know any other life. But Andrei, think what it means for a young society woman to be buried in the country for the best years of her life, alone, because dear papa is always occupied and I … you know me … how meagre my interests are for a woman accustomed to the best society. Madame Bourienne is the only …”

      “I greatly dislike her, your Bourienne,” said Prince Andrei.

      “Oh no, she is very good and kind and, above all, to be pitied. She has no one, no one at all. To tell the truth, not only do I not need her, she is an inconvenience. You know I have always been solitary, and now more so than ever. I like to be alone … Father likes her very much. She and Mikhail Ivanich are the two people with whom he is always kind and gentle, because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says: ‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.’ Father found her as an orphan in the street, and she is very good-natured. Father loves the way she reads, and she reads aloud to him in the evenings. She reads beautifully.”

      “But tell me truly, Marya, I think you must sometimes find father’s character hard to bear?”

      “I? I? What should I wish for?” she said, evidently speaking from the heart.

      “He has always been brusque, and now he is becoming rather difficult, I think,” said Prince Andrei, clearly in order to bewilder or test his sister by speaking of their father so lightly.