War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [57]
“He would like to be turned on that side,” whispered the servant, and he got up to turn the count’s heavy body face to the wall.
Pierre stood up to help the servant.
As the count was being turned, one of his arms was left hanging helplessly, and he made a vain attempt to drag it over. Either the count noticed the horror with which Pierre looked at this lifeless arm, or some other thought flashed in his dying head at that moment, but he looked at the disobedient arm, at the expression of horror on Pierre’s face, at the arm again, and on his face there appeared—so incongruous with his features—a faint, suffering smile, as if expressing mockery at his own strengthlessness. Unexpectedly, at the sight of this smile, Pierre felt a shuddering in his breast, a tickling in his nose, and tears blurred his vision. The sick man was turned on his side to the wall. He sighed.
“Il est assoupi,” said Anna Mikhailovna, noticing the princess coming to replace them. “Allons.”*136
Pierre went out.
XXI
There was no one in the reception room now except Prince Vassily and the elder princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine having a lively talk. As soon as they saw Pierre with his guide, they fell silent. The princess hid something, as it seemed to Pierre, and whispered:
“I can’t bear that woman.”
“Catiche a fait donner du thé dans le petit salon,” Prince Vassily said to Anna Mikhailovna. “Allez, ma pauvre Anna Mikhailovna, prenez quelque chose, autrement vous ne suffirez pas.”†137
He said nothing to Pierre, only squeezed his upper arm feelingly. Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna moved on to the small drawing room.
“Il n’y a rien qui restaure, comme une tasse de cet excellent thé Russe après une nuit blanche,”‡138 said Lorrain, with an expression of restrained animation, sipping from a fine china cup without a handle, standing in the small, round drawing room in front of a table on which a tea service and a cold supper had been laid. Everyone who was in Count Bezukhov’s house that night gathered around the table to fortify themselves. Pierre remembered very well this small, round drawing room with its mirrors and little tables. During balls at the count’s house, Pierre, who danced poorly, liked to sit in this little room of mirrors and watch how ladies in ball gowns, with diamonds and pearls on their bare shoulders, passing through this room, looked at themselves in the brightly lit mirrors, which repeated their reflections several times. Now the same room was barely lit with two candles, and in the middle of the night a tea service and some dishes lay in disorder on one of the little tables, and various non-festive people, exchanging whispers, were sitting in it, showing with each movement, each word, that none of them had forgotten what was going on and was yet to be consummated in the bedroom. Pierre did not eat, though he very much wanted to. He glanced questioningly at his guide and saw her going out on tiptoe, back to the reception room, where Prince Vassily had remained with the elder princess. Pierre supposed that it had to be so, lingered a little, and followed her. Anna Mikhailovna was standing by the princess, and the two women were speaking simultaneously in agitated whispers.
“Allow me, Princess, to know what is and what is not necessary,” the younger woman was saying, evidently in the same agitated state she had been in when