War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [845]
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*145Perhaps later on I’ll tell you, my dear, that if I hadn’t been there, God knows what would have happened. You know my uncle just the day before yesterday promised me not to forget Boris. But he had no time. I hope, my dear friend, that you will fulfill your father’s wish.
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†146It’s painful, but it does one good; it elevates the soul to see men like the old count and his worthy son.
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‡147The king of Prussia.
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*148Dear and excellent friend, what a terrible and frightening thing is absence! Though I tell myself that half of my existence and of my happiness is in you, that despite the distance which separates us, our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my own heart revolts against destiny, and despite the pleasures and distractions that surround me, I am unable to overcome a certain hidden sadness which I feel at the bottom of my heart since our separation. Why are we not reunited, as this summer in your big study on the blue couch, the couch of confidences? Why can I not, as three months ago, draw new moral strength from your look, so gentle, so calm, so penetrating, that look I loved so much and that I think I see before me as I write to you?
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*149All Moscow talks only of war. One of my two brothers is already abroad, the other is with the guards, who are starting on the march to the frontier. Our dear emperor has left Petersburg and, they claim, is intending to expose his own precious existence to the hazards of war. God grant that the Corsican monster, who is destroying the peace of Europe, be overthrown by the angel whom the Almighty, in His mercy, has given us for a sovereign. Not to mention my brothers, this war has deprived me of a relation that is one of the dearest to my heart. I am speaking of young Nikolai Rostov, who with his enthusiasm could not bear inaction and has left the university to go and enlist in the army. Well, dear Marie, I’ll admit to you that, despite his extreme youth, his leaving for the army has been a great sadness for me. The young man, of whom I spoke to you this summer, has so much nobility, so much true youthfulness, which one encounters so rarely in the age we live in among our old men of twenty. Above all he has so much candor and heart. He is so pure and poetical that my relations with him, ephemeral as they were, have been one of the sweetest joys of my poor heart, which has already suffered so much. One day I’ll tell you about our farewells and all that got said in parting. It’s all still too fresh. Ah! dear friend, you are fortunate not to know these so poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, because the latter—are usually the stronger! I know very well that Count Nikolai is too young ever to be able to be anything more than a friend to me, but this sweet friendship, these relations, so poetical and so pure, have been a need of my heart. But let us speak no more of that. The big news of the day, with which all Moscow is taken up, is the death of old Count Bezukhov and his inheritance. Imagine, the three princesses got very little, Prince Vassily nothing, and it is M. Pierre who has inherited everything, and who on top of that has been recognized as a legitimate son, consequently as Count Bezukhov and possessor of the handsomest fortune in Russia. They claim that Prince Vassily played a very nasty role in this whole story and that he has gone back quite sheepishly to Petersburg.
I confess to you that I understand very little of all these matters of legacies and wills; what I do know is that since the young man we knew simply under the name of M. Pierre has become Count Bezukhov and possessor of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I have been much amused to observe the changes of tone and manners of mamas burdened with marriageable daughters and of the young ladies themselves with regard to this individual, who, parenthetically, has always seemed a poor sort to me. Since people