War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [133]
“Tomorrow we’re off, I’m giving you a place in my carriage. I’m very glad. We’ve finished everything that matters here. I should have left long ago. I have received this from the chancellor. I solicited him on your behalf, and you’ve been enrolled in the diplomatic corps and made a gentleman of the bedchamber. Now the diplomatic path is open to you.”
Despite all the force of the weary and assured tone in which these words were uttered, Pierre, who had been thinking for so long about his career, was about to object. But Prince Vassily interrupted him in that cooing, bass-voiced tone which precluded the possibility of interrupting his speech and which he made use of in cases requiring extreme persuasiveness.
“Mais, mon cher, I did it for myself, for my conscience, and there’s nothing to thank me for. No one ever complained about being loved too much; and besides, you’re free, you can drop it tomorrow. You’ll see everything for yourself in Petersburg. And it’s long since time that you distanced yourself from these terrible memories.” Prince Vassily sighed. “Yes, yes, dear heart. And let my valet ride in your carriage. Ah, I nearly forgot,” Prince Vassily added, “you know, mon cher, I had some accounts with the deceased, so I’ll keep what I received from Ryazan: you don’t need it. We’ll work it out later.”
What Prince Vassily referred to as “received from Ryazan” was several thousand in quitrent, which Prince Vassily kept for himself.
In Petersburg, just as in Moscow, an atmosphere of affectionate, loving people surrounded Pierre. He could not refuse the post or, rather, the rank (because he did nothing) that Prince Vassily had provided him with, and the acquaintances, invitations, social occupations were so many that Pierre experienced, even more than in Moscow, a feeling of fogginess, hurriedness, and some ever approaching but never attained good.
Of his former bachelor company, many were not in Petersburg. The guards had left on campaign, Dolokhov had been demoted, Anatole was in the army in the provinces, Prince Andrei was abroad, and therefore Pierre had no chance either to spend the nights as he had liked to spend them before, or to ease his heart in a friendly conversation with an older, respected friend. All his time was spent on dinners, balls, and mostly at Prince Vassily’s—in the company of the old, fat princess, his wife, and the beautiful Hélène.
Anna Pavlovna Scherer, like the others, manifested to Pierre the change that had occurred in society’s view of him.
Formerly, in Anna Pavlovna’s presence, Pierre had constantly felt that what he said was improper, tactless, out of place; that his remarks, which seemed clever to him while he was preparing them in his imagination, became stupid as soon as he spoke them aloud, and that, on the contrary, the dullest remarks of Ippolit came out as clever and pleasing. Now everything he said came out as charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say it, he could see that she wanted to say it and only restrained herself out of respect for his modesty.
In the beginning of the winter of 1805–1806, Pierre received the customary pink note from Anna Pavlovna with an invitation, to which was added: “Vous trouverez chez moi la belle Hélène, qu’on ne se lasse jamais voir.”*225
Reading this passage, Pierre felt for the first time that between him and Hélène some sort of connection had been formed, recognized by other people, and this thought at the same time frightened him, as if an obligation had been laid upon him which he could not fulfill, and also pleased him as an amusing supposition.
The soirée at Anna Pavlovna’s was the same as the first, only the novelty that Anna Pavlovna was now treating her guests to was not Mortemart, but a diplomat who had come from Berlin and brought the freshest details about the emperor Alexander’s visit to Potsdam and the two august friends swearing an indissoluble union in defending the right cause against the enemy of the human race.1 Pierre was received by Anna Pavlovna