War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [442]
Pierre, squeezed since morning into an uncomfortable nobleman’s uniform which had become too tight for him, was there in the halls. He was excited: the extraordinary assembly not only of noblemen but of merchants as well—of estates, états généraux—called up in him a whole series of thoughts, long abandoned but deeply imprinted in his soul, about the Contrat social36 and the French revolution. The words he had noticed in the appeal, that the sovereign would come to the capital for consultations with his people, confirmed him in this view. And, supposing that something important in that sense was approaching, something he had long awaited, he walked about, observed, listened to what was said, but did not find anywhere an expression of those thoughts that interested him.
The sovereign’s manifesto was read, evoked raptures, and then everyone wandered about, talking. Besides ordinary interests, Pierre heard talk of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when the sovereign entered, when to give the ball for the sovereign, whether it should be done by districts or by the whole province…and so on; but as soon as things touched on the war and what the nobility had assembled for, the talk became indecisive and indefinite. Everyone wished more to listen than to speak.
A middle-aged man, manly, handsome, in the uniform of a retired naval officer, spoke in one of the halls, and a crowd formed around him. Pierre went over to the circle around the speaker and began to listen. Count Ilya Andreich, in his kaftan of a governor from Catherine’s time, who was strolling with a pleasant smile among the crowd, with all of whom he was acquainted, also went over to this group and began listening with his kindly smile, as he always did, nodding approvingly to indicate his agreement with the speaker. The retired naval officer was speaking very boldly; that was evident from the expression of the faces of his listeners, and from the fact that people known to Pierre as most submissive and quiet objected or walked away from him disapprovingly. Pierre pushed his way to the middle of the circle, listened, and became convinced that the man speaking was indeed a liberal, but in quite a different sense than Pierre had thought. The naval officer spoke in that especially resounding, melodious nobleman’s baritone, pleasantly swallowing his r’s and dropping consonants, that voice in which one calls out, “Youtheah, a pipe!” and the like. He spoke with a voice accustomed to both revelry and authority.
“So what if Smolensk has offered the sovn a militiah? Does Smolensk lay down the law for us? If the honable nobility of Moscow province find it necessary, they can show their devotion to the sovn emprah some othah way. We’ve not forgotten the militiah of the year seven! The only ones who profited from it were little church folk and thieving robbahs…”
Count Ilya Andreich, smiling sweetly, nodded his head approvingly.
“And was our militiah of any use to the country? None at all! It just ruined our husbandry. Conscription’s better…because when they come back, they’re not soldiers, not peasants, they’re sheer depravity. The nobility won’t spare their own lives, we’ll go ourselves to the last man, we’ll conscript more soldiers, and the sovn” (that was how he said “sovereign”) “only needs to sound the call, and we’ll all die for him,” the orator added with inspiration.
Ilya Andreich gulped with pleasure and nudged Pierre, but