War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [137]
She always addressed him with a joyful, trusting smile, meant for him alone, in which there was something more significant than what was in the general smile that always adorned her face. Pierre knew that everyone was only waiting for him finally to say one word, to cross a certain line, and he knew that sooner or later he would cross it; but some incomprehensible terror seized him at the mere thought of that frightful step. A thousand times in the course of that month and a half, all the while feeling himself drawn more and more into that frightening abyss, Pierre had said to himself: “But what is it? I need resolve. Don’t I have any?”
He wanted to resolve it, but felt with terror that in this case he lacked the resolve that he knew he had and that indeed was in him. Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly pure. And since the day when he had been possessed by that feeling of desire which he had experienced over the snuffbox at Anna Pavlovna’s, an unconscious feeling of guilt on account of that attraction had paralyzed his resolve.
On Hélène’s name day a small company of friends and relations—the closest people, as the princess put it—had supper at Prince Vassily’s. All these friends and relations had been given the feeling that the name-day girl’s lot was to be decided that day. The guests were sitting over supper. Princess Kuragin, a massive, once-beautiful, imposing woman, presided as mistress of the house. On either side of her sat the guests of honor—an old general, his wife, and Anna Pavlovna Scherer; at the end of the table sat the less old and honored guests, and there also, as part of the household, sat Pierre and Hélène—next to each other. Prince Vassily did not eat: he strolled around the table in a merry state of mind, sitting down now with one, now with another of the guests. To each he spoke a casual and agreeable word, except for Pierre and Hélène, whose presence he seemed not to notice. Prince Vassily enlivened everyone. The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal, the ladies’ gowns, and the gold and silver epaulettes shone; servants in red kaftans scurried around the table; the sounds of knives, glasses, plates were heard, and the sounds of animated talk in several conversations around that table. An old chamberlain was heard at one end assuring a little old baroness of his ardent love for her, and so, too, was her laughter; at the other end, the story of the unsuccess of some Marya Viktorovna. At the middle of the table Prince Vassily concentrated listeners around himself. He was telling the ladies, with a jocular smile on his lips, about the latest session—on Wednesday—of the state council, at which Sergei Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had received and read the then-famous rescript of the sovereign Alexander Pavlovich from the army, in which the sovereign, addressing Sergei Kuzmich, said that he had received declarations of the people’s devotion from all sides, and that the declaration from Petersburg was especially pleasing to him, that he was proud of the honor of being the head of such a nation and would try to prove worthy of it. The rescript began with the words: “Sergei Kuzmich! From all sides rumors reach me,” and so on.
“So it never went further than ‘Sergei Kuzmich’?” one lady asked.
“No, no, not a hair’s breadth,” Prince Vassily replied, laughing. “‘Sergei Kuzmich…from all sides. From all sides, Sergei Kuzmich.’ Poor Vyazmitinov just couldn’t get any further. He took up the letter several more times, but as soon as he said ‘Sergei’…sobs…‘Ku…zmi…ch’—tears…and ‘from all sides’ was drowned in weeping, and he couldn’t go on. And again his handkerchief, and again ‘Sergei Kuzmich, from all sides,’ and tears…so that they finally asked someone else to read it.”
“‘Kuzmich…from all sides…’ and tears,” someone repeated, laughing.
“Don’t be wicked,” Anna Pavlovna said from the other end of the table, shaking her finger, “c’est un si brave et excellent