War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [719]
The most cunning person could not have wormed himself into the princess’s confidence more skillfully, calling up memories in her of the better time of her youth and showing sympathy for them. And yet Pierre’s whole cunning consisted in his seeking his own pleasure in calling up human feelings in the embittered, dry, and, in her own way, proud princess.
“Yes, he’s a very, very kind man, when he’s under the influence, not of bad people, but of such people as I,” the princess said to herself.
The change that had taken place in Pierre was also noticed, in their own way, by his servants, Terenty and Vaska. They found that he had become much simpler. Often Terenty, having undressed his master, with his boots and clothes in his hands, having wished him a good night, was slow to leave, waiting for his master to get into conversation. And most often Pierre would stop Terenty, noticing that he wanted to talk.
“Well, so tell me…how did you get food for yourself?” he would ask. And Terenty would begin a story about the devastation of Moscow, about the late count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes, talking and sometimes listening to Pierre’s stories, and, with a pleasant awareness of his closeness to the master and of friendliness for him, would go to the front hall.
The doctor who treated Pierre and visited him every day, though, as all doctors feel they must do, he considered it his duty to have the look of a man whose every moment is precious to suffering mankind, sat for hours with Pierre, telling his favorite stories and observations on the ways of the sick in general and of ladies in particular.
“Yes, it’s pleasant to talk with such a man, not like what we have here in our province,” he said.
Several captured officers of the French army were living in Orel, and the doctor brought one of them along, a young Italian officer.
This officer started visiting Pierre, and the princess laughed at the tender feelings the Italian expressed for him.
The Italian was evidently happy only when he could come to Pierre and talk and tell him of his past and his life at home, of his love, and pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially against Napoleon.
“If all Russians are at least a little like you,” he said to Pierre, “c’est un sacrilège que de faire la guerre à un peuple comme le vôtre.*746 You, who have suffered so much from the French, you don’t even have any anger against them.”
And Pierre had earned the Italian’s passionate love only by calling up the best sides of his soul and admiring them.
At the end of Pierre’s stay in Orel, his old acquaintance, the Mason Count Willarski, came to visit him, the one who had introduced him into the lodge in 1807. Willarski was married to a rich Russian woman who had large estates in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary position in that town in the provision sector.
Learning that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though he had never been closely acquainted with him, came to him with declarations of friendship and intimacy, such as people usually express to each other when they meet in the desert. Willarski was bored in Orel and was happy to meet a man of his circle and, as he supposed, with similar