War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [23]
He waved his hand energetically.
Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face change, expressing still more kindness, and looked at his friend in astonishment.
“My wife,” Prince Andrei went on, “is a wonderful woman. She’s one of those rare women with whom one can be at ease regarding one’s own honor; but, my God, what wouldn’t I give now not to be married! You’re the first and only one I’m saying this to, because I love you.”
Prince Andrei, in saying this, was less than ever like that Bolkonsky who sat sprawled in Anna Pavlovna’s armchair and, narrowing his eyes, uttered French phrases through his teeth. His dry face was all aquiver with the nervous animation of every muscle; his eyes, in which the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now shone with a bright, radiant brilliance. One could see that, the more lifeless he seemed in ordinary times, the more energetic he was in moments of irritation.
“You don’t understand why I’m saying this,” he went on. “Yet it’s a whole life’s story. You talk of Bonaparte and his career,” he said, though Pierre had not talked of Bonaparte. “You talk of Bonaparte; but Bonaparte, when he was working, went step by step towards his goal, he was free, he had nothing except his goal—and he reached it. But bind yourself to a woman—and, like a prisoner in irons, you lose all freedom. And whatever hope and strength you have in you, it all only burdens and torments you with remorse. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, triviality—that is the vicious circle I can’t get out of. I’m now going to the war, to the greatest war that has ever been, yet I know nothing and am good for nothing. Je suis très aimable et très caustique,”*77 Prince Andrei went on, “and they listen to me at Anna Pavlovna’s. And this stupid society, without which my wife cannot live, and these women…If you only knew what toutes les femmes distinguées†78 and women in general really are! My father is right. Egoism, vanity, dull-wittedness, triviality in everything—that’s women, when they show themselves as they are. Looking at them in society, it seems there’s something there, but there’s nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don’t marry, dear heart, don’t marry,” Prince Andrei concluded.
“I find it funny,” said Pierre, “that you, you yourself, consider that you have no ability and that your life is a ruined life. You have everything, everything ahead of you. And you…”
He did not say you what, but his tone already showed how highly he valued his friend and how much he expected from him in the future.
“How can he say that!” thought Pierre. Pierre considered Prince Andrei the model of all perfections, precisely because Prince Andrei united in the highest degree all those qualities which Pierre did not possess and which could be most nearly expressed by the notion of strength of will. Pierre always marveled at Prince Andrei’s ability to deal calmly with all sorts of people, at his extraordinary memory, his erudition (he had read everything, knew everything, had notions about everything), and most of all at his ability to work and learn. If Pierre had often been struck by Andrei’s lack of ability for dreamy philosophizing (for which Pierre had a particular inclination), he saw it not as a defect, but as a strength.
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations, flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
“Je suis un homme fini,”*79 said Prince Andrei. “Why talk about me? Let’s talk about you,” he said, pausing and smiling at his comforting thoughts. This smile