War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [305]
XX
One morning Colonel Adolf Berg, whom Pierre knew, as he knew everyone in Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him in a spanking-new uniform and with his side-whiskers brushed and pomaded forward, as the sovereign Alexander Pavlovich wore them.
“I just called on the countess, your spouse, and was so unlucky as to have my request go unfulfilled; I hope that with you, Count, I shall have more luck,” he said, smiling.
“What can I do for you, Colonel? I’m at your service.”
“I am now fully settled in the new apartment, Count,” Berg informed him, obviously knowing that it could not be unpleasant to hear it, “and therefore would like to arrange a small soirée for my and my wife’s acquaintances.” (He smiled still more pleasantly.) “I wanted to ask the countess and you to do me the honor of joining us for a cup of tea and…supper.”
Only Countess Elena Vassilievna, considering the company of some sort of Bergs humiliating to her, could be so cruel as to refuse such an invitation. Berg explained so clearly why he wished to gather a small and good company at his place, and why this would be a pleasure for him, and why he would be sorry to spend money on cards or on something bad, but on good company he was ready to suffer the expense, that Pierre could not refuse and promised to come.
“Only not late, Count, if I may ask; around ten minutes to eight, if I may ask. We’ll have a game of cards. Our general will join us. He’s very kind to me. We’ll have supper, Count. So do me the favor.”
Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre came to the Bergs’ that day at a quarter to eight, instead of ten minutes to eight.
The Bergs, having prepared everything necessary for the soirée, were ready to receive their guests.
In the new, clean, bright study, decorated with little busts, and little pictures, and new furniture, sat Berg and his wife. Berg, in a brand new, buttoned-up uniform, sat beside his wife, explaining to her that one can and must have acquaintances among people above oneself, because only then can one find pleasure in one’s acquaintances.
“You can imitate something, you can ask for something. Just look how I’ve fared since the lower ranks.” (Berg reckoned up his life not in years but in imperial rewards.) “My comrades are still nobodies now, but I already occupy the post of a regimental commander, and I have the happiness of being your husband” (he got up and kissed Vera’s hand, but on his way straightened the turned-back corner of the carpet). “And how have I acquired it all? Mainly by knowing how to choose my acquaintances. It goes without saying that one must be virtuous and precise.”
Berg smiled with a consciousness of his superiority over a weak woman and fell silent, thinking that all the same this sweet wife of his was a weak woman, who could not comprehend all that made up the dignity of a man—ein Mann zu sein.*349 At the same time, Vera also smiled with a consciousness of her superiority over her virtuous, good husband, who all the same understood life wrongly, as, in Vera’s view, all men did. Berg, judging by his wife, considered all women weak and stupid. Vera, judging by her husband alone and extending the observation to everyone, supposed that all men ascribed reason only to themselves, and at the same time understood nothing, were proud and egoistic.
Berg got up and, embracing his wife carefully, so as not to rumple her lace pelerine, for which he had paid dearly, kissed her in the middle of the lips.
“Only we shouldn’t have children too soon,” he said, following an unconscious association of ideas.
“Yes,” replied Vera, “I don’t want that at all. One must live for society.”
“That’s exactly the same as Princess Yusupov wore,” said Berg with a happy and kindly