War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [554]
“Mais rien,”‡538 Pierre replied, still without raising his eyes or changing the expression of his pensive face.
The count frowned.
“Un conseil d’ami, mon cher. Décampez et au plutôt, c’est tout ce que je vous dis. À bon entendeur salut! Good-bye, my dear. Ah, yes,” he called to him from the doorway, “is it true that the countess has fallen into the clutches des saints pères de la Société de Jésus?”§539
Pierre made no reply and, frowning and angry as no one had ever seen him, left Rastopchin’s office.
When he reached home, it was already dusk. Some eight different people visited him that evening. The secretary of a committee, the colonel of his battalion, his steward, his butler, and various petitioners. They all had business with Pierre, which he was supposed to decide. Pierre understood nothing, was not interested in these matters, and to all questions gave such answers as would rid him of these people. Left alone at last, he opened and read his wife’s letter.
“They—the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrei killed…the old man…Simplicity is obedience to God. One must suffer…meaning of everything…must hitch together…my wife’s getting married…Must forget and understand…” And going to his bed, he collapsed on it without undressing and fell asleep at once.
When he woke up the next morning, his butler came to tell him that a specially sent police official had come from Count Rastopchin to find out whether Count Bezukhov had left or was leaving.
Some ten people of various sorts, having business with Pierre, were waiting for him in the drawing room. Pierre hurriedly dressed and, instead of going to those who were waiting for him, went to the back door and from there left through the gate.
From then on until the end of the devastation of Moscow, no one of the Bezukhov household, in spite of all their searching, saw any more of Pierre or knew where he was.
XII
The Rostovs remained in the city until the first of September, that is, until the eve of the enemy’s entrance into Moscow.
After Petya joined Obolensky’s Cossack regiment and left for Belaya Tserkov, where the regiment was being formed, the countess was overcome with fear. The thought that both of her sons were at war, that they were both no longer under her wing, that today or tomorrow either one of them, and maybe both together, like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, might be killed, now for the first time, during that summer, came to her mind with a cruel clarity. She tried to call Nikolai back, tried to go to Petya herself, or to arrange a place for him somewhere in Petersburg, but both proved impossible. Petya could not be sent back except with his regiment or by means of a transfer to another active regiment. Nikolai was somewhere with the army and, after his last letter, in which he had described in detail his meeting with Princess Marya, had not been heard from again. The countess did not sleep at night or, when she did, saw her sons killed in her dreams. After many discussions and negotiations, the count finally thought of a means to calm the countess. He transferred Petya from Obolensky’s regiment to Bezukhov’s regiment, which was being formed outside Moscow. Though Petya remained in military service, the countess, after this transfer, had the comfort of having at least one son under her wing, and hoped to arrange things for