War and Peace: Original Version

“It doesn’t matter how many wills he wrote!” the princess said calmly. “He could not leave anything to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.”

“My dear,” Prince Vasily said abruptly, hugging the little table close to him, becoming more animated and starting to speak more rapidly, “but what if a letter was written to His Majesty and the count had asked to adopt Pierre? You realise that in reward for the count’s services his request would be granted …”

The princess smiled as people smile when they think they know some matter better than those with whom they are speaking.

“I shall tell you more,” Prince Vasily continued, seizing hold of her hand, “the letter was written, although not sent, and His Majesty knew of it. It is only a question of whether it has been destroyed or not. If not, then as soon as it is all over” – Prince Vasily sighed, in this way making it clear what he meant by “all over” – “and they open the count’s documents, the will and the letter will be sent to His Majesty and his request will probably be granted. Pierre, as the legitimate son, will receive everything.”

“And our part?” the princess asked, smiling ironically, as though anything at all but that could happen.

“But, my dear Katish, it is as clear as day. He is then the sole legitimate heir to everything, and you will not receive even that much. You must know, my dear, whether the will and the letter were written and whether they have been destroyed. And if for some reason they have been forgotten, then you must know where they are, and find them, because …”

“This is just too much!” the princess interrupted him, smiling sardonically without changing the expression of her eyes. “I am a woman, you think that we are all stupid, but I know this much, that an illegitimate son cannot inherit … Un bâtard,” she added, hoping that this translation would finally demonstrate to the prince that his argument was groundless.

“But after all, why can you not understand, Katish! You are so intelligent: why can you not understand that if the count has written His Majesty a letter in which he requests him to declare his son legitimate, in that case Pierre will no longer be Pierre, but Count Bezukhov, and then under the will he will receive everything? And if the will and the letter have not been destroyed then, apart from the consolation of having been virtuous and everything that follows from that, you will be left with nothing. That is certain.”

“I know that the will was written, but I also know that it is invalid, and you seem to take me for a complete fool,” the princess said with the expression that women assume when they believe that they have said something witty and insulting.

“My dear princess, Ekaterina Semyonovna,” Prince Vasily began impatiently, “I did not come here in order to swap insults with you, but in order to speak with a dear, good, kind, truly dear friend about your own interests. I tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the sovereign and the will in favour of Pierre are among the count’s papers, then you, my dearest, and your sisters too, are not the heirs. If you do not believe me, then believe people who know these things: I have just been speaking with Dmitri Onufrievich,” (he was the family lawyer), “and he said the same.”

Something clearly suddenly changed in the princess’s thoughts: her thin lips turned pale (her eyes remained the same) and as she began to speak her voice burst out in loud tones that she herself had evidently not expected.

“That would be good,” she said. “I never wanted and I do not want a thing.” She threw her little dog off her knees and adjusted the pleats of her dress. “That is his gratitude, that is his thanks to the people who have sacrificed everything for him,” she said. “Excellent! Very good! I do not want a thing, prince.”

“Yes, but you are not alone, you have sisters,” Prince Vasily replied. But the princess would not listen to him.

“Yes, I had known this for a long time, but I had forgotten that apart from meanness, deceit and intrigues, apart from ingratitude, the blackest ingratitude, I could expect nothing in this house …”

“Do you or do you not know where this will is?” asked Prince Vasily, his cheeks twitching even more violently than before.

“Yes, I was stupid, I still believed in people, and loved them, and sacrificed myself. But the only ones who prosper are those who are base and vile. I know who is behind these intrigues.”

The princess was about to stand, but the prince held her back by the arm. The princess had the air of someone suddenly disillusioned with the whole of humankind: she glared angrily at the prince.

“There is still time, my friend. Remember, Katish, that this was all done suddenly, in a moment of anger and sickness, and then forgotten. It is our duty, my dear, to correct his mistake, to make his final minutes easier and not allow him to commit this injustice, not allow him to die with the thought that he has rendered miserable those people …”

“Those people who have sacrificed everything for him,” the princess interjected, attempting to stand once again, but the prince prevented her, “which he has never appreciated, No, cousin,” she added with a sigh, “I shall remember that in this world one must not expect any reward, that in this world there is neither honour nor justice. In this world one must be cunning and wicked.”

“Now, listen, calm yourself; I know your noble heart.”

“No, my heart is wicked.”

“I know your heart,” the prince repeated, “I value your friendship, and I should wish you to hold the same opinion of me. Calm yourself and let us talk plainly while there is still time – perhaps a day, perhaps an hour: tell me everything that you know about the will, most importantly of all, where it is, you must know. We will take it now and show it to the count. He must have forgotten about it and will wish to destroy it. You understand that my only wish is to carry out his wishes religiously; that is the only reason why I came here. I am only here in order to help him and you.”

“I understand everything now. I know who is behind these intrigues. I know,” said the princess.

“That is not the point, my dearest.”

“It is your protégée, your dear Princess Drubetskaya, Anna Mikhailovna, whom I would not wish to have as a maidservant, that loathsome, repulsive woman.”

“Let us not waste time.”

“Oh, do not speak to me! Last winter she wormed her way in here and said such vile things, such abominable things about all of us, especially about Sophia, I cannot even repeat them – that the count became ill and would not see us for two weeks. That was the time, I know, when he wrote that repulsive, loathsome document, but I thought that the paper meant nothing.”

“That is the whole point – why did you not say anything to me earlier?”

“In the mosaic document case that he keeps under his pillow! Now I know,” the princess said, not answering him. “Yes, if I have a sin to answer for, it is my hate for that horrible woman,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed now. “And why does she come worming her way in here? But I shall speak my mind to her, I shall. The time will come.”

“For God’s sake, in your righteous wrath do not forget,” said Prince Vasily, smiling faintly, “that thousand-eyed envy is following our every move. We must act, but …”

XXIX

While these conversations were taking place in the reception room and the princess’s quarters, the carriage with Pierre (who had been sent for) and Anna Mikhailovna (who had deemed it necessary to travel with him), was driving into Count Bezukhov’s courtyard. As the wheels of the carriage began crunching gently across the straw spread under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna realised, on addressing her travelling companion with words of consolation, that he was asleep in the corner of the carriage and she woke him up. Once awake, Pierre followed Anna Mikhailovna out of the carriage and only then thought about the meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they had driven up to the rear entrance, not the main one. Just as he stepped down from the footboard, two men in tradesmen’s clothes darted hastily away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Halting for a moment, Pierre made out several other similar figures in the shadow of the house on both sides. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the servant, nor the coachman, who could not have failed to see these people, took any notice of them. “Perhaps that is how things should be,” Pierre thought to himself and followed Anna Mikhailovna inside. Anna Mikhailovna walked hurriedly up the dimly lit, narrow stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was falling behind, to hurry. Not understanding why he had to go to the count, and even less why he had to go by the back staircase, he nevertheless decided that, judging from Anna Mikhailovna’s certainty and haste, it was definitely necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men with buckets who came running down towards them, clattering their boots. These people pressed themselves back against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna past, and showed not the slightest surprise at the sight of them.

“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them.

“Yes, it is,” the servant replied in a loud, bold voice, as if now everything were permitted, “the door’s on the left, ma’am.”

“Perhaps the count did not send for me,” said Pierre as he reached the landing, “I should go to my room.”

Anna Mikhailovna halted and waited for Pierre to draw level with her.

“Ah, my friend,” she said touching his arm with the very same gesture that she had used with her son that morning. “Remember that he is your father … perhaps in the final agony.” She sighed. “I loved you immediately, like a son. Trust in me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.”

Pierre did not understand anything: once again he had the feeling, even more strongly, that this was how everything ought to be, and he meekly followed after Anna Mikhailovna, who was already opening the door.

The door led into the lobby of the back entrance. The eldest princess’s old manservant was sitting in the corner, knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been in this wing of the house, he had not even suspected the existence of these apartments. Anna Mikhailovna enquired after the princesses’ health from a girl who was overtaking them with a carafe on a tray, calling her “my dear” and “darling”, and dragged Pierre further on along the stone corridor. The first door to the left from the corridor led into the princesses’ living quarters. In her haste (just as everything in that house was being done in haste at that moment) the maid with the carafe had not closed the door and, as they walked past, Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna automatically glanced into the room where the eldest princess and Prince Vasily were sitting close to each other, talking. Seeing them walking by, Prince Vasily made an impatient gesture and drew himself back, while the princess leapt to her feet and slammed the door with all her might in a furious gesture, locking it.

This gesture was so unlike the princess’s constant composure and the fear expressed on Prince Vasily’s face was so uncharacteristic of his normal pompous gravity that Pierre halted and looked enquiringly at his guide through his spectacles. Anna Mikhailovna did not express any surprise, she only smiled gently and sighed, as if indicating that she had been expecting all of this.

“Be a man, my friend, I shall look out for your interests,” she said in response to his glance and set off even more quickly along the corridor.

Pierre did not understand what was going on, and even less what it meant to look out for someone’s interests, but he did understand that all of this was as it ought to be. The corridor brought them out into the dimly lit hall adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those cold and sumptuous rooms that Pierre knew from the formal wing. But even in the middle of this room there was a bath standing empty and water had been spilled on the carpet. A servant and a junior deacon with a censer tiptoed out towards them, paying no attention to them. They entered the reception room that Pierre knew so well, with its two Italian windows, its doors to the winter garden, the large bust and the full-length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people, in almost the same places as before, were still sitting in the reception room, whispering to each other. Everyone fell silent and glanced round at Anna Mikhailovna as she entered, with her careworn, pale face, and at Pierre, big and fat, who was following her with his head meekly lowered.

Anna Mikhailovna’s face expressed the realisation that the decisive moment had arrived, and she entered the room with the bearing of a practical St. Petersburg lady, without letting Pierre away from her, even more boldly than in the morning. She evidently felt that leading after her the person whom the dying man wished to see guaranteed that she would be admitted. Casting a swift glance over everyone present in the room and noticing the count’s confessor, she glided smoothly across to him and, without exactly stooping but suddenly becoming shorter, she respectfully accepted the blessing of first one clergyman, then another.

“Thank God I am in time,” she said to one clergyman, “we relatives were all so afraid. This young man is the count’s son,” she added more quietly. “A terrible moment!”

After uttering these words, she walked up to the doctor.

“My dear doctor,” she said to him, “this young man is the count’s son … is there any hope?”

Without speaking, the doctor raised his eyes and his shoulders in a rapid movement. Anna Mikhailovna raised her eyes and shoulders in exactly the same movement, almost closing her eyes, sighed and moved away from the doctor to Pierre. She addressed Pierre in a tone of especial deference and gentle sorrow:

“Trust in His mercy,” she said to him and, having indicated a small divan for him to sit on and wait, she herself moved soundlessly towards the door at which everyone kept looking and, after a barely audible sound, this door closed behind her.

Pierre, having decided to obey his guide in all things, walked towards the divan that she had pointed out to him. As soon as Anna Mikkhailovna left the room, he noticed that the glances of everyone there were directed at him with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that everyone was whispering to each other, pointing him out with their eyes, seemingly in fear or even servility. They were showing him a respect that they had never shown him before: a lady he did not know, who had been speaking with the clergymen, got up from her seat and offered it to him; an adjutant picked up a glove that Pierre dropped and handed it to him. The doctors respectfully fell silent as he walked past them and moved aside to allow him space. Pierre at first tried to sit in a different place, in order not to inconvenience the lady, he wanted to pick up the glove himself and walk round the doctors, who were not standing in his way at all; but he suddenly sensed that it would be improper, he sensed that on this night he was an individual who was obliged to perform some terrible, universally expected ritual and that therefore he must accept services from everybody. He accepted the glove from the adjutant without a word, and sat in the lady’s place, setting his large hands on his knees, symmetrically positioned in the naïve pose of an Egyptian statue, having decided to himself that all this was exactly as it ought to be and that this evening, in order not to become confused or do anything stupid, he ought not to act according to his own understanding, but submit himself entirely to the will of those who were leading him.

Less than two minutes went by before Prince Vasily majestically entered the room in his kaftan with three starry orders, holding his head high. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning; his eyes were larger than usual when he glanced round the room and saw Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (which he had never done before) and tugged it downwards, as though he wished to test how firmly it was attached.