Book 1, Chapter 18
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18691869

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Author : Leo Tolstoy

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Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was
 already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into his
 study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From time to
 time he went out to ask: “Hasn’t she come yet?” They were
 expecting Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, known in society as le terrible
 dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for common sense and
 frank plainness of speech. Márya Dmítrievna was known to the Imperial family as
 well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both cities wondered at her,
 laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told good stories about her,
 while none the less all without exception respected and feared her.

In the count’s room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of the war
 that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting. None of
 them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had appeared. The
 count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and talking. He
 neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one side and then
 to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and listened to the
 conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on against each other.

One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled
 face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable
 young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,
 having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the
 smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,
 Shinshín, a cousin of the countess’, a man with “a sharp tongue” as they
 said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to his companion.
 The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards, irreproachably washed,
 brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the middle of his mouth and with
 red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting it escape from his handsome
 mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semënov
 regiment with whom Borís was to travel to join the army, and about whom
 Natásha had teased her elder sister Véra, speaking of Berg as her
 “intended.” The count sat between them and listened attentively. His
 favorite occupation when not playing boston, a card game he was very fond
 of, was that of listener, especially when he succeeded in setting two
 loquacious talkers at one another.

“Well, then, old chap, mon très honorable Alphonse Kárlovich,” said
 Shinshín, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian
 expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity
 of his speech. “Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l’état; *
 you want to make something out of your company?”
 * You expect to make an income out of the government.

 “No, Peter Nikoláevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the
 advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own
 position now, Peter Nikoláevich...”

Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His
 conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm and
 silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing on
 himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put out of
 countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon as the
 conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk circumstantially and
 with evident satisfaction.

“Consider my position, Peter Nikoláevich. Were I in the cavalry I should
 get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the rank
 of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty,” said he,
 looking at Shinshín and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as if it
 were obvious to him that his success must always be the chief desire of
 everyone else.

“Besides that, Peter Nikoláevich, by exchanging into the Guards I shall be
 in a more prominent position,” continued Berg, “and vacancies occur much
 more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think what can be done with
 two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a little aside and to
 send something to my father,” he went on, emitting a smoke ring.

“La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the
 proverb says,” remarked Shinshín, moving his pipe to the other side of his
 mouth and winking at the count.
 * So that squares matters.

 The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshín was
 talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,
 continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already
 gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime the
 company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company, might
 easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in the
 regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently
 enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others, too,
 might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily sedate,
 and the naïveté of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that he disarmed
 his hearers.

“Well, my boy, you’ll get along wherever you go—foot or horse—that
 I’ll warrant,” said Shinshín, patting him on the shoulder and taking his
 feet off the sofa.

Berg smiled joyously. The count, followed by his guests, went into
 the drawing room.

It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,
 expecting the summons to zakúska, * avoid engaging in any long
 conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order to
 show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and
 hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another, and
 the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are
 waiting for—some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a
 dish that is not yet ready.
 * Hors d’oeuvres.

 Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the middle
 of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across, blocking the
 way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk, but he went on
 naïvely looking around through his spectacles as if in search of somebody
 and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was in the way and was
 the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the guests, knowing of
 the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout, quiet
 man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow could have played such a
 prank on a policeman.

“You have only lately arrived?” the countess asked him.

“Oui, madame,” replied he, looking around him.

“You have not yet seen my husband?”

“Non, madame.” He smiled quite inappropriately.

“You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it’s very
 interesting.”

“Very interesting.”

The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikháylovna. The latter
 understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and
 sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he
 answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other
 guests were all conversing with one another. “The Razumóvskis... It was
 charming... You are very kind... Countess Apráksina...” was heard on all
 sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.

“Márya Dmítrievna?” came her voice from there.

“Herself,” came the answer in a rough voice, and Márya Dmítrievna entered
 the room.

All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very oldest
 rose. Márya Dmítrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout, holding high
 her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood surveying the
 guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if rolling them up.
 Márya Dmítrievna always spoke in Russian.

“Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her
 children,” she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all
 others. “Well, you old sinner,” she went on, turning to the count who was
 kissing her hand, “you’re feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay? Nowhere to
 hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just see how these
 nestlings are growing up,” and she pointed to the girls. “You must look
 for husbands for them whether you like it or not....”

“Well,” said she, “how’s my Cossack?” (Márya Dmítrievna always called
 Natásha a Cossack) and she stroked the child’s arm as she came up fearless
 and gay to kiss her hand. “I know she’s a scamp of a girl, but I like
 her.”

She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,
 having given them to the rosy Natásha, who beamed with the pleasure of her
 saint’s-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to Pierre.

“Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit,” said she, assuming a soft high tone of
 voice. “Come here, my friend...” and she ominously tucked up her sleeves
 still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike way through
 his spectacles.

“Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell your
 father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it’s my evident
 duty.” She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to follow, for
 this was clearly only a prelude.

“A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed and
 he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame, sir, for
 shame! It would be better if you went to the war.”

She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep from
 laughing.

“Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?” said Márya Dmítrievna.

The count went in first with Márya Dmítrievna, the countess followed on
 the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because
 Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikháylovna
 with Shinshín. Berg gave his arm to Véra. The smiling Julie Karágina went
 in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the whole
 dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses
 followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the band
 struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their places.
 Then the strains of the count’s household band were replaced by the
 clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft steps of
 the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with Márya
 Dmítrievna on her right and Anna Mikháylovna on her left, the other lady
 visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count, with the
 hussar colonel on his left and Shinshín and the other male visitors on his
 right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the grown-up young
 people: Véra beside Berg, and Pierre beside Borís; and on the other side,
 the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind the crystal decanters
 and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his wife and her tall cap with
 its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled his neighbors’ glasses, not
 neglecting his own. The countess in turn, without omitting her duties as
 hostess, threw significant glances from behind the pineapples at her
 husband whose face and bald head seemed by their redness to contrast more
 than usual with his gray hair. At the ladies’ end an even chatter of
 voices was heard all the time, at the men’s end the voices sounded louder
 and louder, especially that of the colonel of hussars who, growing more
 and more flushed, ate and drank so much that the count held him up as a
 pattern to the other guests. Berg with tender smiles was saying to Véra
 that love is not an earthly but a heavenly feeling. Borís was telling his
 new friend Pierre who the guests were and exchanging glances with Natásha,
 who was sitting opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces,
 and ate a great deal. Of the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties
 and went on to the game without omitting a single dish or one of the
 wines. These latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a
 napkin, from behind the next man’s shoulders and whispered: “Dry
 Madeira”... “Hungarian”... or “Rhine wine” as the case might be. Of the
 four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s monogram that stood before
 his plate, Pierre held out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing
 with ever-increasing amiability at the other guests. Natásha, who sat
 opposite, was looking at Borís as girls of thirteen look at the boy they
 are in love with and have just kissed for the first time. Sometimes that
 same look fell on Pierre, and that funny lively little girl’s look made
 him inclined to laugh without knowing why.

Nicholas sat at some distance from Sónya, beside Julie Karágina, to whom
 he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sónya wore a company
 smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned pale, now
 blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas and Julie were
 saying to one another. The governess kept looking round uneasily as if
 preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the children. The
 German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines, and kinds of
 dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner to his people
 in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler with a bottle
 wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to appear as if he
 did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because no one would
 understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from greediness that he
 wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for knowledge.


     From : Gutenberg.org

Events :
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     Book 1, Chapter 18 -- Publication : November 30, 1868

     Book 1, Chapter 18 -- Added : February 10, 2017

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