War And Peace: Book 15 - CHAPTER XIII

Description

PIERRE was hardly changed in his external habits. In appearance he was just

the same as before. He was, as he had always been, absent-minded, and seemed

preoccupied with something of his own, something apart from what was before his

eyes. The difference was that in old days, when he was unconscious of what was

before his eyes, or what was being said to him, he would seem with painfully

knitted brows to be striving unsuccessfully to discern something far away from

him. He was just as unconscious now of what was said to him, or of what was

before him. But now with a faint, apparently ironical smile, he gazed at what

was before him, or listened to what was said, though he was obviously seeing and

hearing something quite different. In old days he had seemed a good-hearted man,

but unhappy. And so people had unconsciously held a little aloof from him. Now a

smile of joy in life was continually playing about his mouth, and his eyes were

bright with sympathy for others, and the question: Were they all as happy as he?

And people felt at ease in his presence.

In old days he had talked a great deal, and had got hot when he talked, and

he had listened very little. Now he was rarely carried away in conversation, and

knew how to listen, so that people were very ready to tell him the inmost

secrets of their hearts.

The princess, who had never liked Pierre, and had cherished a particularly

hostile feeling towards him, since after the old count's death she had felt

herself under obligation to him, had come to Orel with the intention of proving

to him that in spite of his ingratitude she felt it her duty to nurse him, but

after a short time she felt, to her own surprise and annoyance, that she was

growing fond of him. Pierre did nothing to try and win his cousin's favour; he

simply looked at her with curiosity. In old days she had felt that there was

mockery and indifference in his eyes, and she had shrunk into herself before

him, as she did before other people, and had shown him only her aggressive side.

Now she felt on the contrary as though he were delving into the most secret

recesses of her life. It was at first mistrustfully, and then with gratitude,

that she let him see now the latent good side of her character.

The most artful person could not have stolen into the princess's confidence

more cunningly, by arousing her recollections of the best time of her youth, and

showing sympathy with them. And yet all Pierre's artfulness consisted in seeking

to please himself by drawing out human qualities in the bitter, hard, and, in

her own way, proud princess.

“Yes, he is a very, very good-hearted fellow when he is not under bad

influence, but under the influence of people like me,” thought the

princess.

The change that had taken place in Pierre was noticed in their own way by his

servants too—Terenty and Vaska. They considered that he had grown much more

good-natured. Often after undressing his master, and wishing him good night,

Terenty would linger with his boots and his clothes in his hand, in the hope

that his master would begin a conversation with him. And as a rule Pierre kept

Terenty, seeing he was longing for a chat.

“Come, tell me, then … how did you manage to get anything to eat?” he would

ask. And Terenty would begin his tales of the destruction of Moscow and of the

late count, and would stand a long while with the clothes, talking away or

listening to Pierre; and it was with a pleasant sense of his master's close

intimacy with him and affection for him that he finally withdrew.

The doctor, who was attending Pierre, and came to see him every day, though

he thought it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man every minute of whose time

is of value for suffering humanity, used to sit on with him for hours together,

repeating his favourite anecdotes and observations on the peculiarities of

patients in general, and of ladies in particular.

“Yes, it's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; it's not what we are used

to in the provinces,” he would say.

In Orel there happened to be several French prisoners, and the doctor brought

one of them, a young Italian officer, to see Pierre.

This officer became a frequent visitor, and the princess used to laugh at the

tender feelings the Italian expressed for Pierre.

It was obvious that the Italian was never happy but when he could see Pierre,

and talk to him, and tell him all about his own past, his home life, and his

love, and pour out his indignation against the French, and especially against

Napoleon.

“If all Russians are the least bit like you,” he used to say to Pierre, “it

is sacrilege to make war on a people like yours. You who have suffered so much

at the hands of the French, have not even a grudge against them.”

And Pierre had won the Italian's passionate devotion simply by drawing out

what was best in his soul and admiring it.

During the latter part of Pierre's stay in Orel, he received a visit from an

old acquaintance, Count Villarsky, the freemason, who had introduced him to the

lodge in 1807. Villarsky had married a Russian heiress, who had great estates in

the Orel province, and he was filling a temporary post in the commissariat

department in the town.

Though Villarsky had never been very intimately acquainted with Bezuhov, on

hearing that he was in Orel, he called upon him with those demonstrations of

friendliness and intimacy that men commonly display on meeting one another in

the desert. Villarsky was dull in Orel, and was delighted to meet a man of his

own circle, who had, as he supposed, the same interests as he had.

But to his surprise, Villarsky noticed soon that Pierre had quite dropped

behind the times, and had, as he defined it himself to Pierre, sunk into apathy

and egoism.

“You are stagnating,” he said to him.

But in spite of that, Villarsky felt much more at home with Pierre now than

he had done in the past, and came every day to see him. As Pierre watched

Villarsky, and listened to him now, it seemed strange and incredible to him to

think that he had very lately been the same sort of person himself.

Villarsky was a married man with a family, whose time was taken up in

managing his wife's property, in performing his official duties, and in looking

after his family. He regarded all these duties as a drawback in his life, and

looked on them all with contempt, because they were all directed to securing his

own personal welfare and that of his family. Military, administrative,

political, and masonic questions were continually engrossing his attention. And

without criticising this view or attempting to change it, Pierre watched this

phenomenon—so strange, yet so familiar to him—with the smile of gentle,

delighted irony that was now habitual with him.

In Pierre's relations with Villarsky, with his cousin, with the doctor, and

with all the people he met now, there was a new feature that gained him the

good-will of all. This was the recognition of the freedom of every man to think,

to feel, and to look at things in his own way; the recognition of the

impossibility of altering a man's conviction by words. This legitimate

individuality of every man's views, which had in old days troubled and irritated

Pierre, now formed the basis of the sympathetic interest he felt in people. The

inconsistency, sometimes the complete antagonism of men's views with their own

lives or with one another, delighted Pierre, and drew from him a gentle and

mocking smile.

In practical affairs Pierre suddenly felt now that he had the centre of

gravity that he had lacked in former days. In the past every money question,

especially requests for money, to which as a very wealthy man he was

particularly liable, had reduced him to a state of helpless agitation and

perplexity. “Ought I to give or not to give?” he used to ask himself. “I have

money and he needs it. But some one else needs it more. Who needs it more? And

perhaps both are impostors?” And of all these suppositions he had in old days

found no satisfactory solution, and gave to all as long as he had anything to

give. In old days he had been in the same perplexity over every question

relating to his property when one person told him he ought to act in one way and

another advised something else.

Now to his own surprise he found that he had no more doubt or hesitation on

all such questions. Now there was a judge within him settling what he must do

and what he must not, by some laws of which he was himself unaware.

He was just as unconcerned about money matters as before; but now he

unhesitatingly knew what he ought to do and what he ought not to do. The first

application of that new power within him was in the case of a prisoner, a French

colonel, who called on him, talked very freely of his own great exploits, and

finally delivered himself of a request that was more like a demand, that he

should give him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre

refused to do so without the slightest difficulty or effort, and wondered

himself afterwards that it had been so easy and simple to do what had in old

days seemed so hopelessly difficult. At the same time as he refused the French

colonel, he made up his mind that he must certainly resort to some stratagem

when he left Orel to induce the Italian officer to accept assistance, of which

he stood in evident need. A fresh proof to Pierre of his greater certainty in

regard to practical matters was the settlement of the question of his wife's

debts, and of the rebuilding of his Moscow house and villas in the

suburbs.

His head steward came to him in Orel, and with him Pierre went into a general

review of his financial position. The fire of Moscow had cost Pierre, by the

steward's account, about two millions.

The chief steward to console him for these losses presented a calculation he

had made, that Pierre's income, far from being diminished, would be positively

increased if he were to refuse to pay the debts left by the countess—which he

could not be forced to pay—and if he were not to restore his Moscow houses and

the villa near Moscow, which had cost him eight thousand to keep up, and brought

in nothing.

“Yes, yes, that's true,” said Pierre, with a beaming smile.

“Yes, yes, I don't need any of them. I have been made much richer by the

destruction of the city.”

But in January Savelitch came from Moscow, talked to him of the position of

the city, of the estimate the architect had sent in for restoring the house, and

the villa in the suburbs, speaking of it as a settled matter. At the same time

Pierre received letters from Prince Vassily and other acquaintances in

Petersburg, in which his wife's debts were mentioned. And Pierre decided that

the steward's plan that he had liked so much was not the right one, and that he

must go to Petersburg to wind up his wife's affairs, and must rebuild in Moscow.

Why he ought to do so, he could not have said; but he was convinced that he

ought. His income was diminished by one-fourth owing to this decision. But it

had to be so; he felt that.

Villarsky was going to Moscow, and they agreed to make the journey

together.

During the whole period of his convalescence in Orel, Pierre had enjoyed the

feeling of joyful freedom and life. But when he found himself on this journey on

the open road, and saw hundreds of new faces, that feeling was intensified.

During the journey he felt like a schoolboy in the holidays. All the people he

saw—the driver, the overseer of the posting station, the peasants on the road,

or in the village—all had a new significance for him. The presence and the

observations of Villarsky, who was continually deploring the poverty and the

ignorance and the backwardness of Russia, compared with Europe, only heightened

Pierre's pleasure in it. Where Villarsky saw deadness, Pierre saw the

extraordinary mighty force of vitality, the force which sustained the life of

that homogeneous, original, and unique people over that immense expanse of snow.

He did not contest Villarsky's opinions, and smiled gleefully, as he listened,

appearing to agree with him as the easiest means of avoiding arguments which

could lead to nothing.

$$ Buy "War And Peace: Book 15 - CHAPTER XIII" on Amazon $$

Please check the description for download links if any or do a search to find alternative books.

Can't Download?
Please search mirrors if you can't find download links for "War And Peace: Book 15 - CHAPTER XIII" in "Description" and someone else may update the links. Check the comments when back to find any updates.

Search Mirrors
Maybe some mirror pages will be helpful, search this book at top of this page or click here to find more info.

1. Ebooks list page : 85
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER XIII
3. War And Peace: Book 8 - CHAPTER XIII
4. War And Peace: Book 11 - CHAPTER XIII
5. War And Peace: Book 12 - CHAPTER XIII
6. War And Peace: Book 9 - CHAPTER XIII
7. War And Peace: Book 5 - CHAPTER XIII
8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIII
9. War And Peace: Book 13 - CHAPTER XIII
10. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIII
11. War And Peace: Book 10 - CHAPTER XIII
12. War And Peace: Book 6 - CHAPTER XIII
13. War And Peace: Book 14 - CHAPTER XIII
14. War And Peace: Book 7 - CHAPTER XIII
15. War And Peace: Book 1 - CHAPTER XIII
16. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XIII