War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [199]
The count was delighted that Anna Mikhailovna was taking on part of his errands, and he ordered the smaller carriage readied for her.
“Tell Bezukhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is he with his wife?” he asked.
Anna Mikhailovna raised her eyes, and her face expressed deep sorrow…
“Ah, my friend, he’s very unfortunate,” she said. “If what we’ve heard is true, it’s terrible. And could we have thought of it when we rejoiced over his happiness? And such a lofty, heavenly soul, this young Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him with all my soul, and I’ll try to give him comfort, as far as it depends on me.”
“But what is it?” asked both Rostovs, old and young.
Anna Mikhailovna sighed deeply.
“Dolokhov, Marya Ivanovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “they say he has totally compromised her. He introduced him, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now…She has come here, and that daredevil after her,” said Anna Mikhailovna, wishing to express her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile expressing her sympathy for the daredevil, as she called Dolokhov. “They say Pierre is totally crushed by his grief.”
“Well, all the same, tell him to come to the club—it will distract him. There’ll be a sumptuous feast.”
The next day, the third of March, between one and two in the afternoon, the two hundred and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting at dinner the dear guest and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration. At first, when news of the battle of Austerlitz was received, Moscow was thrown into perplexity. At that time the Russians were so used to victories that, on receiving news of the defeat, some simply did not believe it, others sought to explain such a strange occurrence by some extraordinary causes. In the English Club, where all that was elite, had accurate information, and carried weight used to gather, nothing was said in December, when news began to come in about the war and the last battle, as if there was a general agreement to keep silent about it. People who guided conversation, such as Count Rastopchin, Prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, Valuev, Count Markov, and Prince Vyazemsky did not appear at the club, but gathered in people’s houses, in their intimate circles, and those Muscovites who spoke with the voices of others (to whom Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov also belonged), were left for a short time without any definite opinion on the matter of the war and without guidance. The Muscovites felt that something was wrong, and that to discuss this bad news was difficult, and therefore it was better to be silent. But after a while, just as the jurors emerge from the conference room, so the aces appeared again, creating opinion in the club, and all began speaking clearly and definitely. The causes had been found for that unbelievable, unheard-of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, and everything became clear, and in all corners of Moscow the same things were said. These causes were: the treachery of the Austrians, the bad provisioning of the troops, the treachery of the Pole Przebyszewski and the Frenchman Langeron,3 the inability of Kutuzov, and (in a low voice) the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had trusted bad and worthless people. But the troops, the Russian troops, everyone said, were extraordinary and had performed miracles of courage. The soldiers, the officers, and the generals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, who won fame for his action at Schöngraben and for the retreat from Austerlitz, in which he alone had led his column in order and for a whole day had beaten back a twice-stronger enemy. What contributed to the choice of Bagration as hero in Moscow was that he had no Moscow connections and was an outsider. In his person, honor was paid to the simple Russian fighting soldier, without connections or intrigues, and still associated through memories