War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [762]
Nikolai set the book aside and looked at his wife. The luminous eyes gazed at him questioningly (did he approve of her diary or not?). There could be no doubt not only of Nikolai’s approval, but also of his admiration of his wife.
“Maybe it needn’t be done so pedantically; maybe it needn’t be done at all,” thought Nikolai; but this tireless, eternal inner effort, aimed only at the moral good of the children—this he admired. If Nikolai could have been conscious of his feeling, he would have found that his firm, tender, and proud love for his wife had always been based on this feeling of wonder before her inner life, before that lofty moral world, almost inaccessible to him, in which his wife lived always.
He was proud that she was so intelligent and good, being conscious of his own insignificance before her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced the more that she, with her soul, not only belonged to him, but made up a part of him.
“I approve, I approve very much, my dearest,” he said with a significant air. And after some silence, he added: “And I behaved badly today. You weren’t in the study. Pierre and I began to argue, and I got angry. It’s impossible. He’s such a child. I don’t know what would happen to him if Natasha didn’t keep him on a leash. Can you imagine why he went to Petersburg…They’re setting up…”
“I know,” said Countess Marya. “Natasha told me.”
“Well, so you know,” Nikolai went on, getting excited at the mere recollection of the argument. “He wants to convince me that it’s the duty of every honest man to go against the government, whereas my oath and my duty…I’m sorry you weren’t there. They all attacked me, Denisov and Natasha…Natasha’s killingly funny. She really keeps him under her heel, but once it comes to arguments, she has no words of her own, she just speaks his words,” Nikolai added, yielding to that irresistible impulse that makes us judge the nearest and dearest people. Nikolai forgot that what he was saying about Natasha could be said word for word about himself in relation to his wife.
“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Countess Marya.
“When I told him that my duty and oath were highest of all, he began proving God knows what. It’s a pity you weren’t there; what would you have said?”
“In my opinion, you’re completely right. And I told Natasha so. Pierre says that everybody’s suffering, tormented, becoming depraved, and that our duty is to help our neighbors. Of course, he’s right,” said Countess Marya, “but he forgets that we have other, closer responsibilities, which God himself has indicated to us, and that we can risk ourselves, but not our children.”
“Well, there, there, that’s the same thing I told him,” Nikolai picked up, fancying that he had indeed said that same thing. “But he keeps at it about love for one’s neighbor and Christianity, and all that in front of Nikolenka, who also got into the study and broke everything.”
“Ah, you know, Nicolas, I often suffer over Nikolenka,” said Countess Marya. “He’s such an extraordinary boy. And I’m afraid I forget about him because of my own. We all have children, we all have relations; but he has nobody. He’s eternally alone with his thoughts.”
“Well, I don’t think you have anything to reproach yourself with on his account. You’ve done and are doing everything for him that a most tender mother could do for her son. And, naturally, I’m glad of that. He’s a nice, nice boy. Today he was listening to Pierre in some sort of trance. And can you imagine: we go to supper; I look, and he’s broken everything on my table to bits, and he told me at once. I’ve never seen him tell a lie. A nice, nice boy!” repeated Nikolai, who in his heart did not like Nikolenka, but whom he was always ready to acknowledge as nice.
“Still, it’s not the same as a mother,” said Countess Marya. “I feel it’s not the same, and I suffer over it. A wonderful boy, but I’m terribly afraid for him. Company would do him good.”
“Well, it won’t be long; this summer I’ll take him to Petersburg,