War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [306]
Just then the arrival of Count Bezukhov was announced. The two spouses exchanged self-satisfied smiles, each silently claiming the honor of this visit.
“That’s what it means to know how to make acquaintances,” thought Berg, “that’s what it means to know how to behave!”
“Only, please, when I’m entertaining the guests,” said Vera, “don’t interrupt me, because I know how to entertain each of them and what to say in all kinds of company.”
Berg also smiled.
“Impossible: sometimes men must have a male conversation,” he said.
Pierre was received in the nice new drawing room, in which it was impossible to sit down anywhere without violating the symmetry, cleanliness, and order, and therefore it was quite comprehensible and not strange that Berg magnanimously suggested disturbing the symmetry of an armchair or a sofa for his dear guest, and, obviously in a painful dilemma himself in this respect, left the resolving of this question to his guest’s choice. Pierre upset the symmetry by moving a chair towards him, and Berg and Vera at once began the evening, interrupting each other and entertaining the guest.
Vera, having decided in her own mind that Pierre must be entertained by a conversation about the French embassy, began this conversation at once. Berg, having decided that there was also need for a male conversation, interrupted his wife and touched upon the question of war with Austria, and involuntarily shifted the general conversation to his personal considerations about the offers made him in regard to taking part in the Austrian campaign, and to the reasons why he had not accepted them. Though the conversation was very incoherent, and Vera was angry at the interference of the male element, the two spouses felt with satisfaction that, even though there was only one guest, the soirée had begun very well, and that it was as like any other soirée, with conversation, tea, and lighted candles, as two drops of water.
Soon Boris arrived, Berg’s old comrade. He treated Berg and Vera with a certain tinge of superiority and patronage. After Boris came a lady with a colonel, then the general himself, then the Rostovs, and the soirée now became quite indisputably like all other soirées. Berg and Vera could not contain their joyful smiles at the sight of this movement about the drawing room, at the sound of this disjointed talk, the rustling of dresses and bowing. Everything was like at everyone else’s house, and especially like was the general, who praised the little apartment, patted Berg on the shoulder, and with paternal authority ordered the tables set for Boston. The general sat down to play with Count Ilya Andreevich, as the most distinguished guest after himself. The old with the old, the young with the young, the hostess by the tea table, on which there were exactly the same cakes in a silver basket as the Panins had at their soirée—everything was exactly the same as with everyone else.
XXI
Pierre, as one of the most honored guests, had to sit down to Boston with Ilya Andreevich, the general, and the colonel. At the Boston table, Pierre happened to sit facing Natasha, and he was struck by the odd change that had taken place in her since the day of the ball. Natasha was silent and not only was not as beautiful as she had been at the ball, but would even have been plain if she had not had such look of meekness and indifference to everything.
“What’s the matter with her?” Pierre wondered, glancing at her. She was sitting beside her sister at the tea table and replied reluctantly, without looking at him, to something Boris said as he sat down by her. Having gone through a whole suit and taken five tricks, much to his partner’s delight, Pierre, who heard an exchange of greetings and the sound of someone’s footsteps coming into the room as he was gathering in his tricks, looked at her again.
“What’s going on with her?” he said to himself with still greater surprise.
Prince Andrei was standing before her with a solicitously tender expression and saying something to her. She, having raised