• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 4166 0

know of his existence, but who now would be hurt and chagrined if he did not wish to see them. All these various persons—business connections, relations, acquaintances—were equally well and benignly disposed towards the young heir; they were all obviously and indubitably convinced of Pierre’s high merits. He so constantly heard the words: “With your extraordinary kindness,” or “With your excellent heart,” or “You yourself, Count, are so pure…,” or “If he were as intelligent as you are,” and so on, that he was sincerely beginning to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence, the more so because, deep in his heart, it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and very intelligent. Even people who had formerly been wicked and obviously hostile became affectionate and loving with him. The angry older princess with the long waist and hair slicked down like a doll’s, came to Pierre’s room after the funeral. Lowering her eyes and blushing constantly, she told him that she was very sorry about the past misunderstandings between them and that she now felt she had no right to ask for anything, except permission, after the blow she had suffered, to stay on for a few weeks in the house in which she had loved so much and sacrificed so much. She could not help herself and wept at these words. Touched to see that this statue-like princess could change so much, Pierre took her by the hand and apologized, not knowing for what himself. Since that day, the princess had begun to knit a striped scarf for Pierre and was totally changed towards him.

“Do it for her, mon cher; after all, she suffered much from the deceased,” Prince Vassily said to him, handing him some paper to sign for the princess’s benefit.

Prince Vassily had decided that they had to throw this bone, a promissory note for thirty thousand, to the poor princess, so that she would not take it into her head to talk about Prince Vassily’s part in the affair of the inlaid portfolio. Pierre had signed the promissory note, and since then the princess had become still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate with him, especially the youngest, the pretty one with the little mole, who often confused Pierre with her smiles and her own confusion on seeing him.

It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should love him, it would have seemed so unnatural if someone did not love him, that he could not help believing in the sincerity of the people around him. Besides, he had no time to ask himself about the sincerity or insincerity of these people. He was constantly busy, he constantly felt himself in a state of mild and merry intoxication. He felt himself the center of some important general movement; felt that something was constantly expected of him; that if he were to fail to do this or that, he would upset many people and deprive them of what they expected, but if he were to do this or that, all would be well—and he did what was demanded of him, but this “well” always remained ahead of him.

More than anyone else during this first time, it was Prince Vassily who took possession both of Pierre’s affairs and of Pierre himself. Since the death of Count Bezukhov, he never let Pierre out of his hands. Prince Vassily had the look of a man burdened by affairs, weary, exhausted, but finally unable, out of compassion, to leave to the mercies of fate and of swindlers this helpless youth, his friend’s son, après tout, and with such an immense fortune. In those few days he spent in Moscow after Count Bezukhov’s death, he summoned Pierre to him or went to him himself and prescribed for him what was to be done, in such a tone of weariness and assurance as if he were adding each time:

“Vous savez, que je suis accablé d’affaires et que ce n’est pas que par pure charité, que je m’occupe de vous, et puis vous savez bien que ce que je vous propose est la seule chose faisable.”*224

“Well, my friend, tomorrow we’re off at last,” he said to him one day, closing his eyes, fingering Pierre’s elbow, and in such a tone as if what he said had been decided