War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [290]
XI
The financial affairs of the Rostovs did not improve during the two years they spent in the country.
Though Nikolai Rostov, keeping firmly to his intention, went on serving in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little money, the way of life at Otradnoe was such, and Mitenka in particular so conducted business, that the debts mounted irresistibly every year. The only help the old count could evidently envisage was government service, and he went to Petersburg to seek a post; to seek a post and at the same time, as he said, to amuse the girls for the last time.
Soon after the Rostovs came to Petersburg, Berg proposed to Vera, and his proposal was accepted.
Despite the fact that in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to high society without knowing or thinking what society they belonged to, in Petersburg their society was mixed and indefinite. In Petersburg they were provincials to whom the very people that the Rostovs fed in Moscow without asking what society they belonged to would not lower themselves.
In Petersburg the Rostovs lived as hospitably as in Moscow, and the most diverse people came together at their suppers: their neighbor in Otradnoe, a poor, elderly landowner with daughters, and the maid of honor Peronsky; Pierre Bezukhov, and the son of a provincial postmaster who served in Petersburg. Among the men who very soon became familiars of the Rostovs’ house in Petersburg were Boris, Pierre, whom the old count met in the street and dragged home, and Berg, who spent whole days at the Rostovs’ and showed the eldest daughter, Countess Vera, such attention as can only be shown by a young man who intends to propose.
Not in vain had Berg displayed to everyone his right arm wounded at Austerlitz and held his utterly useless sword in his left hand. He recounted the incident to everyone so persistently and with such importance that they all believed in the expediency and merit of this action—and Berg received two decorations for Austerlitz.
He had also managed to distinguish himself in the Finnish war.14 He had picked up a shell splinter that had killed an adjutant standing next to the commander in chief and offered this splinter to his superior. Just as after Austerlitz, he recounted this incident to everyone at such length and with such persistence that they all also believed it had to have been done—and Berg received two decorations for the Finnish war. In 1809 he was a beribboned captain of the guards and occupied some sort of especially profitable posts in Petersburg.
Though some freethinkers smiled when told of Berg’s virtues, it was impossible not to admit that Berg was a good, brave officer, highly regarded by his superiors, and a modest, moral young man with a brilliant career ahead of him and even a solid position in society.
Four years earlier, having met a German friend in the stalls of a Moscow theater, Berg had pointed Vera Rostov out to him and said in German: “Das soll mein Weib werden”*344 —and from that moment on had determined to marry her. Now, in Petersburg, having figured out the Rostovs’ situation, he decided that the time had come and proposed.
Berg’s proposal was received at first with a perplexity unflattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure Livonian nobleman should propose to Countess Rostov; but Berg’s chief quality was such naïve and good-natured egoism that the Rostovs involuntarily thought it would be a good thing, since he himself was so firmly convinced that it would be good and even very good. What was more, the Rostovs’ affairs were in great disorder, which the suitor could not help knowing, and, above all, Vera was twenty-four, she had come out everywhere,