Peace, war and peace

Анатолий Шигапов

Peace, war and peace

Part One

I

In the great reception hall of the Winter Palace - the very one that adjoined the state bedchamber and was filled with marble statues and tall mirrors in gilded frames - Count Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin stood by the window, watching the wet snow fall on the granite slabs of the embankment. This snow was the wettest, most unpleasant kind that only appears in a Petersburg November; it fell and immediately melted, and the count felt that along with this snow, all of his former life - Catherine's life, satisfied, understandable, where everyone knew their place and the very word "tomorrow" meant nothing frightening - was melting away, and something that had never existed before was coming to replace it. And although he, Rostopchin, could not put into words exactly what was coming, he felt with his entire being that this new thing would be the heaviest, most agonizing of anything he had ever experienced.

In the hall, despite the late hour, dignitaries, generals, and foreign ambassadors crowded together; no one slept, no one thought of sleep - they whispered, glancing at the door leading to the inner chambers, and all waited: when would the new emperor arrive from Gatchina, who would be the first to swear loyalty, who would be the first to have his head cut off. But they did not wait in the bedchamber where the body lay - only the closest, those permitted a final farewell, were allowed there - but here, in the reception room, where the candles in the heavy candelabra had long since burned down and their yellow, trembling light fell on the gilded walls, on the tall mirrors dimly reflecting the motionless figures of courtiers, and on faces pale and strained, like those of people who could lose everything in a single night.

"C'est donc fait, mon cher," said Rostopchin without turning, for he recognized the steps of Prince Dolgorukov - the very one who had enjoyed great influence under Catherine and now, like everyone else, did not know if he would remain at court even until morning. "She is dead, and here we are left with this man who spent forty years waiting, and I ask you, prince, frankly, in all honesty: do you believe we will survive this reign? I confess, I do not. He is strange, very strange, and moreover convinced of his own rightness, and that, as we know, is more dangerous than any madness. He thinks that order, discipline, and the parade step will save Russia, but Russia, forgive me, does not need saving from the Prussians, and he does not understand that."

Prince Dolgorukov, an old grandee with gray sideburns and dim eyes, slowly approached the window and also stared at the snow that kept falling and melting, leaving murky streaks on the glass. He was silent for a long time - so long that Rostopchin began to think the old man had fallen asleep standing - but finally the prince spoke, quietly and reluctantly:

"You are too harsh, Count. He is unhappy. And unhappiness, you know, makes people cruel, but in time he may soften."

"We shall see," Rostopchin smiled bitterly - the bitter smile he wore when speaking truths no one wanted to hear. "I do not believe in miracles. And worst of all, he hates everyone close to his mother, everyone without exception. For me, for you, for anyone who wore Catherine's ribbon, there is only either to adapt or to perish. No third option."

He walked away from the window and paced the hall, mechanically glancing at the doors from which adjutants kept emerging with pale faces - pale not from grief but from fear, the very fear that makes people both submissive and cruel simultaneously. At the far end of the hall, by a pillar upholstered in dark green cloth, stood old Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov, leaning on a cane - he was ill and could barely stand - and beside him, holding onto the tail of his coat, a boy of about eleven shifted from foot to foot: chubby, clumsy, with huge thoughtful eyes that looked at everything around him with an expression as if he saw not what others saw, but something of his own, understandable only to him. This was Pierre, the count's illegitimate son, whom the old man, it was said, intended to declare his heir. Rostopchin, looking at this boy, thought that children probably did not understand what was happening, and thank God they did not, because if they did, they would surely die of fear or pity.

He remembered that below, at the servants' entrance, wives and children of those admitted to the halls waited in carriages. It was said that Countess Rostova had brought her three children - ten-year-old Nikolai, four-year-old Natasha, and eight-year-old Vera - and now they all sat in the dark, wrapped in greatcoats and shawls, not understanding why they were not allowed into the warm rooms. The eldest, Nikolai, was probably teasing his sisters, while little Natasha was likely asleep, lulled by the steady patter of raindrops on the carriage roof. "And let them be," thought Rostopchin. "They do not need to see what is happening here. They do not need to know how fear makes adults look like trembling hares."

A doctor came out of the bedchamber, wiping his hands, and whispered something to the court marshal. He crossed himself and, without looking at anyone, walked toward the exit with quick, short steps. Rostopchin understood it was over. He approached Prince Dolgorukov and said quietly, almost into his ear, so that no one else could hear:

"She is dead. Now we shall see what Paul does. But I tell you, Prince, this is the beginning of the end, and mark my words: before a year passes, many of us will regret being born."

Dolgorukov said nothing, only sighed and straightened his order ribbon, which had slipped slightly askew. The gesture was so old, so habitual, that Rostopchin suddenly felt pity for the old man - that hopeless pity one feels before a person whose time has already passed, though he himself has not yet realized it.

He went out into the corridor, descended the wide marble staircase where guardsmen with rifles stood on every step, and found himself at the main entrance. Here, in the vestibule, it was cold and smelled of dampness and horses, and doormen in red livery, constantly opening and closing the heavy oak doors, let in and out couriers who brought and took various packages. Rostopchin paused for a moment, looking out into the street. The night was dark and windy; the snow mixed with rain that an hour ago had seemed endless had already stopped, and in the gaps between clouds a black, starry sky appeared here and there. Carriages crowded at the entrance - dozens of them, black with lit lanterns - and in one, the one closest to the porch, a child's face flashed in the window - round, with a turned-up nose - and immediately disappeared as someone drew the curtain.

"The Rostovs," thought Rostopchin. "The boy is ten. He does not yet know what awaits him. And thank God he does not."

He put on his greatcoat, took his tricorne from the doorman, and stepped onto the porch. The wet snow immediately began to melt on his face, mixing with sweat, and it was unpleasant, but he did not wipe his face because he suddenly wanted to feel this cold, sticky moisture as something real, the only real thing left in this world where everything else - ranks, ribbons, positions, hopes - was deceit and dust. The coachman brought the carriage; Rostopchin got in, slammed the door, and said, "To Liteynaya."

The carriage moved, its wheels clattering on the wet cobblestones. The sound was so steady, so familiar, that the count involuntarily closed his eyes and began to think. He thought about what had been and what would be, and how strangely life was arranged: the smartest man could not foresee what would happen to him in a week. Only yesterday he, Rostopchin, was in power; Catherine called him "mon ami" and entrusted him with important affairs; today he was nobody; and if Paul merely frowned, tomorrow he, Rostopchin, would be taken to Shlisselburg, and no one would intercede, no one would remember. And from that fear he had felt for hours, something suddenly lifted, and instead of fear came a calm, almost indifferent curiosity: what would happen next?

He opened his eyes and looked out the window. The sky was low and murky, but here and there stars were breaking through; the wind was scattering the clouds; it seemed that the whole sky, this entire endless cold vault, pressed down on Petersburg, that this oppression would never end, and that the people living under this sky could no longer breathe freely because they had grown accustomed to fear. And Rostopchin thought that human history was not what tsars and ministers did, nor what was written in decrees and treaties, but something else that happened by itself, beyond human will, and people only thought they were leading it, whereas in fact it was leading them, as the wind leads an autumn leaf - and no one knew where or why. Catherine died. Paul became tsar. He, Rostopchin, sat in a carriage driving over wet pavement, and all of it together was something that could neither be stopped nor changed nor even fully understood; one could only watch and marvel, as one watches a swift river in which chips of wood spin and drown.

The carriage stopped at his house on Liteynaya. Rostopchin got out, paid the coachman, and unhurriedly went up to his study. A single candle burned in the study, its yellow circle of light falling on the writing desk piled with papers - reports, dispatches, drafts of decrees that now were probably of no use to anyone. He sat in his armchair, took a pen, dipped it in ink, and sat for a long time not knowing what to write. He wanted to write a request for resignation, but his hand would not rise, because deep down he still hoped that everything would work out, that Paul would come to his senses, that the fear would pass and life would fall back into its rut. He laid down the pen, pushed aside the papers, and looked at the portrait of Catherine that hung above the desk in a gilded frame - young, with an aquiline profile, in a guards uniform - and it seemed to him that she looked at him reproachfully, as if asking: "What is it, Fyodor? Afraid?"

"What can I do, little mother?" he said aloud. "Your time is over. Another is beginning."

Outside the wind howled, and the snow no longer melted because frost had struck. Rostopchin went to the window, drew back the curtain, and saw that the sky had cleared completely, and on that black, endless sky, stars had lit - small, frequent, as cold and indifferent as they had always been, under Catherine, under Peter, under Rurik, and would continue to be long after neither Rostopchin, nor Paul, nor Petersburg itself remained. He stood there a minute, then extinguished the candle, lay down on the sofa without undressing, and closed his eyes. He did not sleep - he listened as somewhere far away, probably in the Winter Palace, the clock struck, and he counted the strokes. Twelve. A new night had begun, a new reign, a new life, and no one - neither wise nor foolish, neither noble nor common - knew what it would bring.

II

Countess Varvara Nikolaevna Golovina sat in the small drawing room of Empress Maria Feodorovna, in that very place by the window from which the snow-covered palace garden was visible - a garden where, in summer under Catherine, people had walked freely and laughed, and now, in December, sentries in Prussian uniforms stood and marched so evenly and resoundingly that it seemed the very earth was beating out the step. On the table before the countess lay unfinished embroidery - an intricate monogram she was embroidering at the empress's request - but the needle had frozen in her fingers, and she had not made a stitch for a quarter of an hour because she was listening. She listened to that strange, unfamiliar noise coming from the next hall: not loud talk, not happy laughter, as Catherine's evenings had been, but half-whispers, fearful, with long pauses when everyone fell silent because somewhere at the end of the corridor steps could be heard - the heavy, quick steps of Emperor Paul, who, it was said, might enter at any moment and say something that made even the most experienced courtiers' legs buckle.

Prince Vasily Kuragin appeared in the doorway. He looked around, as everyone did in those days - a short, quick glance that took in all those present, the doors, the windows, and whether anyone stood behind the curtain - and, approaching Countess Golovina, bent so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath and whispered:

"Well, my dear, what do you say about the new decrees? They ban round hats, frock coats, the waltz. C'est ridicule, n'est-ce pas?"

The countess, without raising her eyes from her sewing but also without making a stitch, answered in the same quiet, nearly inaudible whisper, because she and Prince Vasily both knew that within these walls even the walls could carry an incautious word to those for whom it was not intended:

"This is worse than ridiculous, my dear. It is fear. The sovereign fears everything that reminds him of freedom - the freedom we breathed for thirty-four years. He wants us to walk the Prussian step, speak in whispers, and fear to open our mouths. Il nous rendra fous, mon cher prince, il nous rendra fous, and that will be the most terrible madness, because it will not be ours but his."

Prince Vasily sighed - a deep, meaningful sigh that signified agreement, apprehension, and a readiness to say the opposite at any moment - looked around once more, and walked to the fireplace, where other guests stood, also whispering and glancing at the door.

Countess Golovina set aside her sewing and raised her eyes to the window. The sky was low, leaden, that heavy, motionless color that appears in Petersburg in December, when snow both falls and does not fall, but hangs in the air as fine, prickly dust, and it seems that the whole sky presses on the earth, and no one can throw off that weight. "Quel temps horrible," she thought. And the people were the same: heavy, frightened, not daring to smile. She remembered Catherine's times - how freely French flowed in the drawing rooms, how people were not afraid to say too much, knowing that the empress was intelligent and would forgive foolishness, and would keep cruelty for business, not for amusement. Now any "merci" or "bonjour" was uttered with caution, and the most cautious had switched entirely to Russian, mangling it and suffering, because they were not accustomed to expressing subtle thoughts in a language that until recently had seemed to them the language of footmen and coachmen.

Young Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya entered - the very one who, despite her poverty, knew how to enter where others dared not, and how to speak to those whom others feared. By the hand she led her son, Boris, a boy of eleven, dressed in a brand-new little uniform sewn obviously for growth - the sleeves were slightly too long, and the collar stuck up. The boy, rosy-cheeked, with clear eyes not yet knowing fear, looked curiously at the portraits of emperors on the walls, at the golden candelabra, at the tall mirrors reflecting himself, his mother, and all those frightened people in their sumptuous dresses and uniforms.

Countess Golovina beckoned the boy with her finger, and Boris, glancing at his mother who gave a slight nod, stepped forward and stopped, standing at attention as he had been taught in dancing lessons.

"Come here, my child," said the countess. "You, I see, are not afraid of changes? You look at those portraits as if they were your own family."

Boris blushed - with that deep, childish blush that floods cheeks, forehead, and even ears - and answered, looking straight into the countess's eyes:

"I am not afraid, Your Excellency. Because the sovereign is a father, and a father can do nothing wrong."

Countess Golovina involuntarily smiled - that sad, weary smile that appeared on her face whenever she heard something naive and touching. "A father," she thought. "Still a child. He does not know that fathers are sometimes more terrible than enemies." She stroked Boris's head, let him go, and took up her sewing again, but the needle once more froze, for from the next hall came commands - sharp, guttural, in the German manner - and the tramp of many boots drilling the step.

Emperor Paul was conducting a parade drill right in the corridors of the Winter Palace, because, it was said, parade grounds were not enough for him; he wanted his mother's very residence to become a barracks. The countess listened. The steps drew nearer, and her heart beat faster, and like everyone in that room, she froze, afraid to move. But the steps passed by - the door to the little drawing room did not open - and everyone there exhaled almost simultaneously, and that exhalation in the silence was so audible that each recognized another's fear and was ashamed of their own.

Countess Golovina looked out the window at the low sky that still pressed down on Petersburg, and thought of those who would live after them - of ten-year-old, leggy Nikolai Rostov, who was probably now fighting with his sisters in his father's Moscow house, not knowing that soon he would be sent to military school to learn the Prussian step; of four-year-old Natasha, who must be playing with dolls and not understanding why her mother had grown so sad; of eleven-year-old Pierre Bezukhov, who, it was said, was writing some strange poetry and disobeying his tutors; of ten-year-old Hélène, already promising to be a great beauty; of thirteen-year-old Anatole, who they said had yesterday jumped out of a second-story window on a dare and remained uninjured; of nineteen-year-old Dolokhov, already sent to the guards and feared by everyone like fire.

"They still have to live under this sovereign," thought the countess, looking at Boris Drubetskoy, who had returned to his mother and was now listening to her whisper, his lips pursed. "They have to live and live. God grant that they survive."

She crossed herself - furtively, beneath her sewing, so that no one would see - and made her first stitch, then a second, then a third. The needle moved evenly, and the monogram on the fabric began to take shape. But her thoughts were still out there, beyond the window, where the low December sky hung over the palace, over the city, over all of Russia, and no one knew what it would bring.

An hour later, Countess Golovina left the palace. Outside, the frost was strengthening; snow creaked underfoot; rare stars had already lit up in the darkening sky. Her carriage stood at the entrance, and a footman gave her his hand to help her in. When the carriage moved, she leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes. She remembered Boris Drubetskoy's face - those clear, childish eyes that did not yet know fear. "Happy boy," she thought. "He does not understand what fear is. But we already understand. And that is the most terrible thing."

The carriage clattered over the icy pavement, and the countess opened the window to take a breath of fresh air. The wind struck her face, cold and sharp, and she screwed up her eyes. When she opened them, a star gleamed above the city in a break in the clouds - bright, solitary - and for a moment the countess thought that this star had seen Catherine, Peter, and all the other tsars, and would see those who came after, and that all of this - the fear, the decrees, the parade drills, the prohibitions - was for the star but a single moment, but for a person, an entire life, full of fear and hope, and no one knew what in it was most important. She closed the window, told the coachman to drive home, and all the way sat silently looking at the flickering lights of the city, which seemed to her like little helpless candles in that black, icy darkness.

III

In the study, which smelled of leather, tobacco, and old books, two candles burned in brass holders, their yellow, flickering light falling on portraits of ancestors, on shelves of papers, and on a tall Venetian mirror in a carved frame, before which stood Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky. He was already dressed for the road - in an old-fashioned dark-green woolen coat of the kind still worn under Catherine, and a powdered wig he put on only for the most solemn occasions - and now, his head slightly tilted, he was fastening his orders, one after another. His fingers, dry and sinewy, with long, slightly crooked nails yellowed by age, moved with that habitual, almost mechanical precision that only years of daily ritual can give.

Beside him, eyes downcast, stood nineteen-year-old Andrei - tall, lean, with fine features on which was fixed an expression of restrained, almost stern deference, such as one sees in young men who have already left childhood but not yet achieved full independence and are therefore forced to be silent and listen when their elders speak. His face was pale, his lips tightly pressed, and only his eyes - gray, lively, intelligent - betrayed the inner agitation he tried to hide from his father.

"So then, my son," said the old prince without turning, continuing to fuss with his orders, "I am going to Petersburg. To kiss the hand of the sovereign, who, they say, hates all us old Catherine's dogs. Very well, he has a right to that, because his mother, may she rest in peace, did not much favor her son. But an old man like me is used to it. C'est une absurdité, mais que faire?" And he grunted with annoyance because the order would not fasten.

Andrei was silent. He knew that no answer was required of him, and in general he knew that at moments when his father spoke in this tone - grumbling but not ill-natured - it was better to remain silent and not interrupt, because the old prince loved to talk by himself and only pretended to ask his son's opinion.

"But you," the old man continued, finally managing with the orders and turning to Andrei so that the skirts of his coat flew open, revealing his waistcoat, buttoned to the last button, "you stay here, in Bald Hills. Look after the estate, after Marya. And remember one thing, and remember it well, because your life may depend on it: Paul is mad, but his madness is not the madness of weakness - no, it is the madness of power, and therefore doubly dangerous. Be silent, don't meddle, don't stick out. A wise man under a tyrant either keeps quiet or flees. You cannot flee - you have your estate, debts, a sister - so be silent. And don't even think of arguing, don't think of proving, don't think of showing that you are smarter than he is. He does not forgive that."

Andrei raised his eyes to his father - and in those gray, deep eyes something like bitterness flashed, but it disappeared at once, replaced by the habitual expression of respectful submission.

"Oui, mon père," he answered, his voice steady, without a tremor, though inside everything tightened at the thought that life, real life - with dangers, deeds, great achievements - was passing him by, while he, Andrei Bolkonsky, must sit in this backwater and wait for something real to begin. "I will do everything as you say."

"See that you do," said the old prince, with something between satisfaction and regret in his voice. "And if anything - write. But no more than once a month, because I am a busy man and you are not to burden me with every trifle."

He went to the table, took from it a heavy cane with a silver knob, which he used more for show than for need, and, leaning on it, headed for the door. Prokofy had been standing by the door, his arms crossed over his stomach, watching. He saw how the old prince, passing the mirror, glanced at his reflection and gave a slight smirk - the smirk that meant: "Never mind, we'll yet see which of us lives longer." Then the old prince went out into the vestibule, and Prokofy hurried after him to help his master dress for the road - to put on the heavy bearskin coat he detested for its immoderate weight but wore on account of the frost, and the high boots, and the cap with earflaps that made him look like an old, ruffled bear.

Andrei walked behind, not lagging a step but not overtaking. On the porch, where the frost nipped at his cheeks and breathing became difficult because the air was prickly, dry, and smelled of snow, stood an old carriage - leather-covered, with high springs - into which the old prince always climbed with difficulty, grumbling each time that it was time to buy a new one but a pity to spend the money. The horses, gray dapples, impatiently stamped their feet, and steam poured from their nostrils.