War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [248]
Pierre was struck by the modesty of this small though clean house, after those magnificent conditions in which he had last seen his friend in Petersburg. He went quickly into the little reception room, unplastered and still smelling of pine, and wanted to go further, but Anton ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked on the door.
“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
“A visitor,” replied Anton.
“Ask him to wait,” and there was the sound of a chair being moved. Pierre went up to the door with quick steps and ran face-to-face into the frowning and aged Prince Andrei, who was coming out to him. Pierre embraced him and, raising his spectacles, kissed him on the cheeks and looked at him close up.
“How unexpected, I’m very glad,” said Prince Andrei. Pierre said nothing; he looked at his friend in astonishment and could not take his eyes off him. He was struck by the change that had taken place in Prince Andrei. His words were affectionate, there was a smile on Prince Andrei’s lips and face, but his gaze was extinguished, dead, and despite his obvious desire, Prince Andrei could not give it a joyful and merry luster. It was not that his friend had grown thinner, paler, more mature; it was this gaze and the wrinkle on his forehead, expressive of a long concentration on some one thing, which struck and alienated Pierre, until he got used to them.
In this meeting after a long separation, as always happens, the conversation could not settle on anything for a long time; they asked and gave brief replies about things they knew should have been discussed at length. At last the conversation gradually began to dwell on what had previously been said in fragments, on questions of past life, on plans for the future, on Pierre’s journey, on his occupations, on the war, and so on. The concentration and dejection Pierre had noticed in Prince Andrei’s eyes were now expressed still more strongly in the smile with which he listened to Pierre, especially when Pierre spoke with animated joy about his past or future. It was as if Prince Andrei would have liked to enter into what he was saying, but could not. Pierre was beginning to feel that raptures, dreams, hopes for happiness and the good were improper in front of Prince Andrei. He was ashamed to voice all his new Masonic thoughts, especially renewed and stirred up in him by his last journey. He restrained himself, he was afraid of being naïve; along with that he had an irrepressible desire to show his friend the more quickly that he was now quite a different, better Pierre than the one he had been in Petersburg.
“I can’t tell you how much I’ve lived through in this time. I wouldn’t recognize myself.”
“Yes, we’ve changed very much, very much, since then,” said Prince Andrei.
“Well, and you?” asked Pierre. “What are your plans?”
“Plans?” Prince Andrei repeated ironically. “My plans?” he repeated, as if astonished at the meaning of such a word. “As you see, I’m building, by next year I want to have moved completely…”
Pierre peered silently and intently into Andrei’s aged face.
“No, I’m asking…” said Pierre, but Prince Andrei interrupted him:
“Why talk about myself…you tell me, tell me about your journey and all you did there on your estates.”
Pierre began telling about what he had done on his estates, trying as far as possible to hide his own share in the improvements he had made. Prince Andrei prompted