War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “I am very sorry, ma’am,” answered the maid.

      “Ask the count to come to me.”

      The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as usual.

      “Well, little countess? What a sauté of game au madère we are to have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Tarás were not ill-spent. He is worth it!”

      He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling his gray hair.

      “What are your commands, little countess?”

      “You see, my dear... What’s that mess?” she said, pointing to his waistcoat. “It’s the sauté, most likely,” she added with a smile. “Well, you see, Count, I want some money.”

      Her face became sad.

      “Oh, little countess!” ... and the count began bustling to get out his pocketbook.

      “I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles,” and taking out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband’s waistcoat.

      “Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who’s there?” he called out in a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush to obey the summons. “Send Dmítri to me!”

      Dmítri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count’s house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.

      “This is what I want, my dear fellow,” said the count to the deferential young man who had entered. “Bring me...” he reflected a moment, “yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don’t bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for the countess.”

      “Yes, Dmítri, clean ones, please,” said the countess, sighing deeply.

      “When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmítri. “Allow me to inform you... But, don’t be uneasy,” he added, noticing that the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of approaching anger. “I was forgetting... Do you wish it brought at once?”

      “Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess.”

      “What a treasure that Dmítri is,” added the count with a smile when the young man had departed. “There is never any ‘impossible’ with him. That’s a thing I hate! Everything is possible.”

      “Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world,” said the countess. “But I am in great need of this sum.”

      “You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,” said the count, and having kissed his wife’s hand he went back to his study.

      When Anna Mikháylovna returned from Count Bezúkhov’s the money, all in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess’ little table, and Anna Mikháylovna noticed that something was agitating her.

      “Well, my dear?” asked the countess.

      “Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word...”

      “Annette, for heaven’s sake don’t refuse me,” the countess began, with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief.

      Anna Mikháylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.

      “This is for Borís from me, for his outfit.”

      Anna Mikháylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were kindhearted, and because they—friends from childhood—had to think about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over.... But those tears were pleasant to them both.

Chapter 18

      Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From time to time he went out to ask: “Hasn’t she come yet?” They were expecting Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, known in society as le terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for common sense and frank plainness of speech. Márya Dmítrievna was known to the Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both cities wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told good stories about her, while none the less all without exception respected and feared her.

      In the count’s room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of the war that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting. None of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had appeared. The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on against each other.

      One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and, having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor, Shinshín, a cousin of the countess’, a man with “a sharp tongue” as they said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to his companion. The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards, irreproachably washed, brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the middle of his mouth and with red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting it escape from his handsome mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semënov regiment with whom Borís was to travel to join the army, and about whom Natásha had teased her elder sister Véra, speaking of Berg as her “intended.” The count sat between them and listened attentively. His favorite occupation when not playing boston, a card game he was very fond of, was that of listener, especially when he succeeded in setting two loquacious talkers at one another.

      “Well, then, old chap, mon très honorable Alphonse Kárlovich,” said Shinshín, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity of his speech. “Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l’état; * you want to make something out of your company?”

      “No, Peter Nikoláevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own position now, Peter Nikoláevich...”

      Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.

      “Consider my position, Peter Nikoláevich. Were I in the cavalry I should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty,” said he, looking at Shinshín and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as if it were obvious to him that his success must always СКАЧАТЬ