War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [387]
Marya Dmitrievna had told Natasha that Anatole was married. Natasha refused to believe her and demanded that Pierre himself confirm it. Sonya told that to Pierre as she was bringing him down the corridor to Natasha’s room.
Natasha, pale, stern, was sitting next to Marya Dmitrievna, and her feverishly glittering, questioning gaze met Pierre just at the door. She did not smile, did not nod to him, she only looked at him fixedly, and her gaze asked him only this: was he a friend, or, like everybody else, an enemy in relation to Anatole? Pierre himself evidently did not exist for her.
“He knows everything,” said Marya Dmitrievna, pointing to Pierre and addressing Natasha. “Let him tell you whether I’ve spoken the truth.”
As a wounded animal at bay looks at the approaching dogs and hunters, Natasha looked from one to the other.
“Natalya Ilyinichna,” Pierre began, lowering his eyes and feeling pity for her and loathing for the operation he had to perform, “it should make no difference to you whether it’s true or not, because…”
“So it’s not true that he’s married?”
“No, it’s true.”
“He was married, and long ago?” she asked. “Word of honor.”
Pierre gave her his word of honor.
“Is he still here?” she asked quickly.
“Yes, I just saw him.”
She was obviously unable to speak and made signs with her hands that they should leave her.
XX
Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room at once and drove off. He drove around town looking for Anatole Kuragin, at the thought of whom now all the blood rushed to his heart and he found it difficult to catch his breath. He was not at the ice hills, not at the Gypsies’, not at Comoneno’s. Pierre drove to the club. In the club everything was going on in its usual order: the guests who had come for dinner were sitting in groups and greeted Pierre and talked about town news. The footman, having greeted him, told him, knowing his circle and his habits, that a place had been reserved for him in the small dining room, that Prince Mikhail Zakharych was in the library, and that Pavel Timofeich had not arrived yet. One of Pierre’s acquaintances, in the middle of talking about the weather, asked him whether he had heard about Kuragin’s abduction of Miss Rostov, of which there was talk in town, and whether it was true. Pierre laughed and said it was nonsense, because he had just been at the Rostovs’. He asked everyone about Anatole; one man told him that he had not come yet, another that he would be dining there that evening. Pierre found it strange to look at this calm, indifferent crowd of people who did not know what was happening in his soul. He paced about, waiting until everyone had come, and, having waited in vain for Anatole, did not stay for dinner but drove home.
Anatole, whom he had been seeking, dined that day at Dolokhov’s and discussed with him how to mend the spoiled affair. It seemed necessary to him that he see Miss Rostov. In the evening, he went to his sister’s, to discuss with her the means of arranging this meeting. When Pierre, having driven in vain all over Moscow, returned home, the valet told him that Prince Anatole Vassilievich was with the countess. The countess’s drawing room was filled with guests.
Pierre, without greeting his wife, whom he had not seen since his arrival (she was more hateful to him than ever at that moment), entered the drawing room and, seeing Anatole, went up to him.
“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess, going to her husband. “You don’t know what position our Anatole…” She stopped, seeing in her husband’s lowered head, his face, his flashing eyes, his resolute stride, that terrible expression of rage and strength which she knew and had experienced personally after his duel with Dolokhov.
“Wherever you are, there is depravity and evil,” Pierre said to his wife. “Anatole, come, I must have a talk with you,” he said in French.
Anatole glanced at his sister and got up obediently, ready to follow Pierre.
Pierre, having taken him by the arm, pulled him to himself and started out of the room.
“Si vous vous permettez