War and Peace. Лев Толстой

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СКАЧАТЬ and burnt pastilles. The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots, cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.

      “Ah, is it you, cousin?”

      She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with varnish.

      “Has anything happened?” she asked. “I am so terrified.”

“No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business, Catiche,” [12] muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair she had just vacated. “You have made the place warm, I must say,” he remarked. “Well, sit down: let’s have a talk.”

      “I thought perhaps something had happened,” she said with her unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she prepared to listen.

      “I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can’t.”

      “Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it downwards as was his habit.

      It was plain that this “well?” referred to much that they both understood without naming.

      The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her legs, looked directly at Prince Vasíli with no sign of emotion in her prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow and devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince Vasíli understood it as an expression of weariness.

      “And I?” he said; “do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn out as a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a very serious talk.”

      Prince Vasíli said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, now on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes too seemed strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the next glanced round in alarm.

      The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasíli’s eyes evidently resolved not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till morning.

      “Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semënovna,” continued Prince Vasíli, returning to his theme, apparently not without an inner struggle; “at such a moment as this one must think of everything. One must think of the future, of all of you … I love you all, like children of my own, as you know.”

      The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same dull expression.

      “And then of course my family has also to be considered,” Prince Vasíli went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at her. “You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mámontov, and my wife—are the count’s only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it is for you to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for me; but, my dear, I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do you know I have sent for Pierre? The count,” pointing to his portrait, “definitely demanded that he should be called.”

      Prince Vasíli looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was simply looking at him.

      “There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin,” she replied, “and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow his noble soul peacefully to leave this …”

      “Yes, yes, of course,” interrupted Prince Vasíli impatiently, rubbing his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little table that he had pushed away. “But … in short, the fact is … you know yourself that last winter the count made a will by which he left all his property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre.”

      “He has made wills enough!” quietly remarked the princess. “But he cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.”

      “But, my dear,” said Prince Vasíli suddenly, clutching the little table and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: “what if a letter has been written to the emperor in which the count asks for Pierre’s legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the count’s services, his request would be granted? …”

      The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the subject under discussion than those they are talking with.

      “I can tell you more,” continued Prince Vasíli, seizing her hand, “that letter was written, though it was not sent, and the emperor knew of it. The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon as all is over,” and Prince Vasíli sighed to intimate what he meant by the words all is over, “and the count’s papers are opened, the will and letter will be delivered to the emperor, and the petition will certainly be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate son.”

      “And our share?” asked the princess smiling ironically, as if anything might happen, only not that.

      “But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the legal heir to everything and you won’t get anything. You must know, my dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you ought to know where they are, and must find them, because …”

“What next?” the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not changing the expression of her eyes. “I am a woman, and you think we are all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit … un bâtard!” [13] she added, as if supposing that this translation of the word would effectively prove to Prince Vasíli the invalidity of his contention.

“Well, really, Catiche! Can’t you understand! You are so intelligent, how is it you don’t see that if the count has written a letter to the emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it follows that Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezúkhov, and will then inherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter are not destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation of having been dutiful et tout ce qui s’en suit! [14] That’s certain.”

      “I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and you, mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool,” said the princess with the expression women assume when they suppose they are saying something witty and stinging.

      “My dear Princess Catherine Semënovna,” began Prince Vasíli impatiently, “I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about your interests as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the emperor and the will in Pierre’s favor are among the count’s papers, then, my dear girl, you and your sisters are not heiresses! If you don’t believe me, then believe an expert. I have just been talking to Dmítri Onúfrich” (the family solicitor) “and he says the same.”

      At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess’s ideas; her thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice when she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself evidently did not expect.

      “That СКАЧАТЬ