Peace, war and peace

He took the tray to the kitchen, handed over the dirty dishes to the cook, and went into the servants' hall - a small, cramped room where the unmarried footmen slept and which smelled of kvass, vegetable oil, and old, sweat-soaked sheepskins. No other servants were there - all were busy about the house. Petrushka went to the window, drew the curtain, and looked out at the street. Water was dripping from the roofs; the snow that yesterday had lain white was now black, dirty, loose, and here and there the earth showed through - wet, brown, unattractive. The sky was low, damp, overcast, that gray, heavy color that comes before a prolonged rain or before everything finally melts and spring arrives. And in that sky, in those clouds hurrying somewhere northward, there was something that made one's soul both melancholy and light at the same time.

"Spring is coming," thought Petrushka. "The rivers will break up, the fields will emerge from under the snow. And the masters are still at it - hats, dances, French. And a little girl said the truth. Why pretend? One must live truthfully."

He stood a while longer, looking at the melting snow and the low sky, then sighed, crossed himself before the icon in the corner - an old, blackened icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which had hung there since the house was built - and went back to the dining room, because supper was not yet over, and the masters needed dessert served, and there were not enough footmen, and the count, heaven forbid, would start shouting if the wine were not poured on time.

Passing the nursery door, he heard that inside they were no longer crying but laughing - and Natasha laughing loudest of all, probably because her mother had given her a spoonful of honey to calm her. And Petrushka involuntarily smiled. "Never mind," he thought. "You'll grow up and understand everything yourself. And you'll hear worse."

He pushed the dining room door and took up the decanter again.

VI

Old coachman Yermolai, who had served in the cab trade for twenty-five years and driven generals, merchants, minor officials, and even Count Orlov-Chesmensky himself once - whom he remembered because he had sworn all the way and given a tip of a full ten rubles - sat on the box of his britzka, driving a pair of bays, lazily clicking his whip and looking around. The day was summer, warm, with a light breeze from the fields, smelling of fresh hay and something sweet, probably blooming buckwheat. The road went through a small wood, then a field, then another wood; it was that Russian summer when everything grows and blossoms, and it seems it will always be so, and no one thinks that winter will ever return and cover everything with ice and snow.

In the britzka, on threadbare leather cushions, sat a boy - fat, clumsy, with a round face and eyes too large and too bright for his age. He was twelve, but looked fourteen, and in his thoughtfulness, in the way he looked at the passing fields and forests - as if he were searching for something others did not see - he sometimes seemed an adult, sometimes a child who did not yet understand where he was being taken or why. Pierre Bezukhov - the illegitimate son of old Count Kirill Vladimirovich, whom his father, despite all the gossip, had recognized and was now sending to Paris to study, to gain wisdom, so that when he returned he would no longer disgrace the family name with his clumsiness and strange speeches.

Before his departure, at the porch of the Moscow house on Molchanovka, the old count - ill, with a yellow face and trembling hands, but still alive and still authoritative - embraced his son, crossed him, and said, trying to speak firmly, though his voice broke:

"Mon fils, apprends, deviens un homme. I am old and, surely, will not live to see your return. But you must become such that people speak of you with respect. Not as they do of me - they say I am an old sinner - but as an honest and intelligent man. C'est tout ce que je te demande."

Pierre nodded, not raising his eyes. He did not know how to say goodbye - not because he did not love his father, but because every farewell seemed to him something terrible, final, like death. He climbed into the britzka, caught the skirt of his coat on the step, nearly fell, blushed, finally sat down, and stared at the floor. Yermolai clicked his whip, the horses set off, and the britzka, swaying, drove out of the yard.

The road was long - Yermolai was ordered to take Pierre only as far as Petersburg, and there change horses, another coachman, or perhaps a carriage. But for now they traveled together, and the old coachman from time to time turned to look at the master, who remained silent and gazed into the distance at fields, forests, and passing villages where women in white headscarves worked in the fields and men in bast shoes and ragged shirts trudged along the roadside, hats off when anyone resembling a gentleman passed.

Pierre thought. He thought a great deal about many things - more than a twelve-year-old boy sent abroad to study should. He thought about why people were not equal: some born rich, others poor; some able to read and write, others not; some command, others obey. And it seemed to him unjust, and that something should be done to remedy it, and that he, Pierre, when he grew up, would certainly do something to make all people happy. But how - he did not know. And from this ignorance came melancholy, and he began to look at the clouds racing across the high summer sky and think that the clouds had it good - they floated wherever the wind blew, no one asked them, no one commanded them.

"Why do people kill people?" he suddenly asked aloud, not turning to Yermolai but as if asking the sky itself.

Yermolai heard but did not understand. He thought the master was asking about something of his own, something a coachman was not meant to understand, and so he kept silent.

"Why do some command and others obey?" Pierre continued, his voice holding not childish resentment but an adult, bitter perplexity. "Je veux comprendre le monde. But the world does not want to be understood."

He fell silent, leaned back against the cushions, and closed his eyes. The britzka was warm, smelling of leather, horses, and some grass that must have stuck to the wheels. Pierre did not sleep - he thought, and his thoughts were heavy and unwieldy, like those stones he had once seen on a riverbank - big, gray, mossy, that no one would ever move from their place.

Yermolai, turning, saw that the master was not crying but also not smiling. His face was pale and strained, and his eyes, when he opened them, looked inward at his own thoughts, unknown to the coachman.

"Master," said Yermolai, wanting at least to break the silence that was becoming as heavy as before a storm, "don't be sad. The road is long, and in Paris, they say, it is merry. Theaters, balls, all sorts of establishments for the nobility. Your count will surely not stint you - he'll give you money. You'll go out, see people, show yourself."

Pierre heard, but did not understand at once. Then he turned to Yermolai, and something like surprise flashed in his eyes - that a coachman, a simple peasant, should think of theaters and balls.

"Merry?" he repeated. "Only recently they were executing people in the squares there. Every day. Executing them for thinking differently from those in power. C'est la révolution. That's not a time for balls."

Yermolai did not understand the French words. He did not know French at all, because in their village there were no tutors or boarding schools; they were taught only to pray to God and work in the fields. But he noticed that the master's face had grown even paler, and tears were welling in his eyes - not the bitter, loud tears of a punished child, but quiet, sparse tears that flow down the cheeks by themselves, and the one who weeps does not even notice them until he tastes salt on his lips.

"What is this?" thought Yermolai. "The boy is crying. About what? That people were killed in France? Or that he is being sent alone to a foreign land?" He felt sorry for the master - with that simple, artless pity that an old man feels for a young one going where he himself will never go.

He was silent for a moment, then flicked the horses - not hard, just for order - and said, looking straight ahead:

"Never mind, master. Everywhere there are people, everywhere there is death. In Paris there are people, in Moscow as well. And don't cry. You are young, you have your whole life ahead. Perhaps it's for the best that they're sending you abroad. You'll gain wisdom, and without wisdom you're as helpless as without hands."

Pierre wiped his tears with his sleeve - clumsily, like a child - and again stared at the sky. The sky was high, summer, that pure, deep blue that appears only in June, when the earth has already warmed and the rains have not yet come. Clouds ran across the sky, and Pierre watched them, thinking that clouds knew neither grief nor joy, nor fear nor hope - they simply floated, and it was all the same to them who looked at them and what thoughts came to the head of the one lying in the britzka driving to an unknown destination.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine Paris - big, noisy, with tall houses and narrow streets where people had lately been executed. But Paris would not come to mind. Instead, Moscow came to mind - familiar, dear, with the smell of pies and the ringing of bells. And his father, the old count, who remained there on the porch, waving his hand until the britzka disappeared around the bend.

"Will I ever return?" thought Pierre. "Will I see him again?"

And there was no answer. Because no one knew the answer - not he, a twelve-year-old boy, not Yermolai, the old coachman, not Count Kirill Vladimirovich himself, who might die before his son reached the border.

Yermolai drove in silence, only occasionally shouting at the horses and clicking his whip. The road went uphill, then down; the britzka creaked, the wheels rattled over stones, the wind whistled in their ears. The coachman thought of his own - of home, of his wife, of his children left in the village, and that in autumn he would have to mow hay, and he had not yet laid in firewood for the winter. And he also thought how strangely life was arranged: here he was, a peasant, driving a master on a long journey to a foreign land, and the master was crying because people killed people. Yet the master himself, if he wished, could also kill - not with his own hands, but with others', because he had money, and whoever has money has power. And no one would ask him: why did you kill? And why this was so - neither Yermolai, nor Pierre, nor the wisest man could explain.

"Ah, life," thought Yermolai and flicked the horses. "Life is like a road: you drive and you don't know what's around the bend. Maybe a village, maybe a pit, maybe bandits. But you must keep going."

He turned to look at the master. Pierre was asleep, curled up on the threadbare cushions, and his face in sleep was calm, childish, without the thoughtfulness and pain that tormented him by day. Yermolai looked at the sky - high, blue, with swiftly running clouds - crossed himself, and drove the horses faster, because there were still fifteen versts to the night's lodging, and in summer it grows late late, but still it grows late, and he had to make it before it got completely dark and before the master woke and began again to ask questions that had no answers.

The horses broke into a trot; the britzka clattered more quickly; dust rose from under the wheels and for a moment hid the sky, the fields, the forest, and then settled again. Yermolai looked ahead and thought that all of this - dust, road, master's tears - would all pass, only memory would remain, and even that would be erased, as the first rain would erase these wheel tracks on the dusty road. And life would go on, and no one would remember that an old coachman had driven a twelve-year-old boy on a long journey to a foreign land, and that the boy had cried over what could not be mended.

VII

Old cook Karp, who had served in the Bolkonsky kitchen since the time of the late prince, the present prince's father, and remembered days when in Bald Hills they had never heard of Prussian uniforms or parade drills, and everything was done in the old way, by grandfather's custom - stood by the huge stove, built of Dutch brick, stirring sterlet soup in a cast-iron pot - a soup the old prince loved above all other dishes and demanded at table every time he returned from his travels. Karp was fat, red-faced, with gray mustaches and small, quick eyes that seemed to see everything that went on in the kitchen but nothing beyond it. Yet on this day, Karp had to see and hear more than usual, because the kitchen door to the dining room was not fully closed, and through the crack came the voices of the old prince and the young master - Prince Andrei, who had spent the whole summer in Bald Hills, overseeing the estate, and who, as the household said, was very bored and kept looking at the road as if waiting for someone who never came.

The old prince had returned from Petersburg two days earlier - angry, tired, with a face that made even the servants, who had seen all sorts, try to avoid meeting his eye. He beat no one and shouted at no one, but walked about the house, tapping his cane, and spoke in a low voice, repeating one word that Karp could not make out but that he understood was not good. And today, after dinner, the old prince summoned his son to the dining room, and Karp, having put the soup on the fire and ordered his assistant to slice the bread, went himself to listen, because the curiosity he had had since childhood had not dimmed even in old age, though he knew the master would not have liked it.

In the dining room - a large, gloomy chamber with portraits of ancestors on the walls and a long oak table around which on formal days the whole family gathered - the old prince sat in his usual place, in an armchair with a high back. Although no longer in his traveling clothes but in a house coat, he still looked as if he had just come from a parade drill: his face was red, his eyes burned with that special, unkind fire that appeared whenever he spoke of politics. Andrei stood by the window, his hands clasped behind his back, looking not at his father but into the distance, at the garden where the oak was already turning yellow, and at the low autumn sky.

"Paul is mad," said the old prince, not raising his voice but so that every word rang like a taut string. "It is not the madness that doctors treat - no, it is the madness of power, the madness of a man who suddenly realizes that everything is permitted him. C'est un fou dangereux. He wants to clothe the entire army in Prussian uniforms. The entire army, do you hear? Our Suvorov wonder-heroes will walk about in tight jackets and high boots like some Frederickian toy soldiers. And Suvorov - in disgrace. Suvorov, who made Russia famous throughout Europe - in exile. For what? For daring to have his own opinion and not fearing to say: 'Powder is not a cannon, a curl is not a cannon, a tail is not a saber, and I am no German.'"

Andrei kept silent. He knew that when his father began to speak in this tone, it was better not to interrupt, because each word found its way without outside help. But still he could not help himself and, still looking out the window, said, trying to keep his voice calm though everything inside boiled:

"Mais c'est ridicule, mon père. How can one disgrace a man who has won so many battles? That is not just foolishness - that is..." He could not find the word.

"It is suicide," the old prince finished for him. "Russia's suicide. For without an army we are nothing. But he, you see, wants the army to be pretty. To march as in a parade. That all buttons shine. He has forgotten that a bullet is a fool but a bayonet is a fine fellow. He doesn't need soldiers - he needs puppets. And all of Russia, in his plan, is to become a puppet theater, with him as the sole puppeteer."

Karp, standing by the stove and listening, was amazed. He did not understand many words - what "disgrace" was, what a "jacket" was - but he understood the main thing: the master was cursing the tsar. And cursing him as if the tsar were not God's anointed but a common man doing foolish things. And Karp was also amazed that the master - the old prince - spoke words in Russian, but suddenly inserted something incomprehensible: "C'est un fou dangereux." And Andrei, the young master, immediately answered in the same incomprehensible tongue: "Mais c'est ridicule, mon père." And Karp thought they spoke in that incomprehensible language because they were afraid that someone would hear and report them to the tsar. But in the kitchen - no one would report them. Or were they afraid of the walls? But walls, as we know, have ears - Karp knew that for a fact.

"Be silent," the old prince suddenly said, striking the table with a ruler so that the decanter jumped - not loudly, but impressively. "Be silent and listen. La prudence est la mère de la sagesse. Remember that. With the tongue these days one must be more careful than ever. Say an extra word - and you are lost, and you will drag me down with you. And Marya? She is nineteen. Who will take care of her if we are both exiled to Siberia?"

Andrei turned from the window. His face was pale, his lips pressed together, and in his eyes - those same gray, deep eyes that his late mother had loved so much - stood such anguish that Karp, though not a sensitive man, felt sorry for the master.

"I understand, mon père," said Andrei. "I am silent. But for how long can one be silent? When will the time come when one can speak truth to one's face?"

"Never," said the old prince, with such certainty that Karp involuntarily crossed himself. "Truth is not spoken to one's face. Never. It is spoken behind the back, when the person can no longer answer, or written in diaries that are burned before death. The living keep silent. And you keep silent."

He fell silent, wearily leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Karp understood that the conversation was over, put the soup on the table - in a silver tureen, steaming, with dill on top - and was about to leave when he suddenly heard the old prince say, addressing not Andrei but himself:

"Will we live to see better times? Or will we die without having seen them?"

Andrei said nothing. Karp went to the kitchen, sat on a bench, and remained silent for a long time. His assistant asked: "What is it, Uncle Karp?" But Karp only waved his hand. Then he stood up, went to the window overlooking the garden, and began to look at the oak - that huge, spreading oak that had grown by the house since his grandfather's time. A month ago the oak had been green and fresh, its branches stretching toward the sun. But now, in September, the leaves had begun to turn yellow, and red veins appeared here and there, and Karp thought that this oak was like human life: first it reaches for the light, grows, spreads; then old age comes, the leaves turn yellow, the branches bend, and everything moves toward its end. And no one can postpone that end - not the tsar, not the prince, not the richest and most powerful.

"And they keep quarreling," thought Karp. "The tsar at the courtiers, the courtiers at the tsar. But what is it to us peasants? One thing remains: to work, to pray, and to wait for everything somehow to sort itself out. Or not. As God wills."

He looked at the sky - low, autumn, entirely covered with gray clouds - and thought that until spring the sky would remain this way: gloomy, cold, cheerless. And life would be the same: gloomy, cold, and it was unknown when spring would come. Maybe soon, maybe never.

He sighed, crossed himself before the icon in the corner - an old, time-blackened one - and went to finish his kitchen duties, because the prince had ordered sterlet in sauce for supper, and the soup had already cooled, and it had to be reheated, and as Karp knew, if the soup were cold, it was better not to show his face to the old prince. But his thoughts were still there, in the dining room, where the master and his son had spoken of things about which a simple man had better not think, and if he did think, then only to himself, and not repeat to anyone, not even his wife, because the tongue has no bones, and what you say today may turn against you tomorrow.

Karp put the soup on the stove, covered it, and watched it boil and bubble, thinking that life was like this soup: it cooks and cooks, and then it is poured out, and no one remembers what it tasted like. And princes boiled, and tsars boiled, and everyone would boil and be poured out. But the earth would remain, the oak would remain, the sky would remain. And someone else would look at this sky and think their own thoughts - as bitter, as insoluble, as the old prince's today.

Meanwhile, Andrei, left alone in the dining room, went to the window. The oak stood like a yellow spot against the gray background of the sky; the wind stirred its branches; the leaves rustled, and it seemed the tree was whispering something - perhaps a complaint, perhaps a curse, or perhaps just an autumn song about how everything passes. Andrei looked at the oak and thought: "When will real life begin? Must I always keep silent, looking at this oak, waiting for my father to die? And then another tsar will come, and everything will repeat, and again I must be silent and again wait for someone to die?" And he wanted to shout at the top of his lungs for all to hear: "I do not want to be silent! I want to live!" - but he did not shout, because his father was right: now words could cost you your head.

He stood a while longer, then turned and left. His steps clattered on the floor, the door slammed, and the house grew quiet. The silence was so deep that Karp could hear the leaves rustling outside, dogs barking somewhere far away, and the ticking of the clock in the old prince's study. And it occurred to him that this silence was not an ordinary silence but the kind that comes before a storm. And the storm would come. Not today, then tomorrow. Not tomorrow, then the day after. But it would come.

Karp took the soup off the stove, set it on the table, and crossed himself. "Lord," he whispered, "have mercy on us sinners." And he did not know that with these words he was praying not only for himself but for the old prince, for Andrei, and for all Russia, which, like this oak, stood in the middle of a field, buffeted by winds, not knowing when spring would come.

VIII

In the middle of the large drawing room stood a Christmas tree. The tree had been brought from a forest near Moscow the day before, had stood all night in the entryway thawing, and this morning it was brought into the hall, and Agafya with two maids had been for four hours hanging toys on it: glass balls, gold fish, porcelain angels, gingerbread men she had baked herself in the kitchen yesterday, and paper chains the children had glued. It smelled of pine needles, wax, and something sweet and festive; logs crackled in the stoves; frost painted silver patterns on the windows; and everything in the house was as it was every year, and every year everything repeated, but each time seemed new and joyful.

Agafya, adjusting the star that had slipped askew and which she had already tied to the top of the tree three times, sighed and thought: "So Christmas time has come. And it seems only yesterday it was summer, only yesterday we were mowing hay, and now here is frost, and the tree, and the children running and laughing, and no one thinks that someday it will all end. And thank God they don't think. Laughter is for children, sighing for old people." She was about to tie the star a fourth time when suddenly the drawing-room door burst open and Natasha ran in - five years old, rosy-cheeked, in her father's dressing gown belted with a sash, and a colorful kerchief on her head tied so that it stuck up like a turban in Turkish pictures Agafya had seen in the master's books. The dressing gown trailed on the floor; the kerchief slipped over her eyes; but Natasha was perfectly happy and, stopping in the middle of the room, hands on hips, shouted to the whole drawing room:

"And I am a sultana! Look, everyone! I am the most important sultana in the world! I am going to war! Regardez, je vais à la guerre!" she cried in French, because the governess taught her and Vera French, and Natasha, though she did not understand half of it, loved to insert French words where they were not needed at all - simply because it seemed important and grown-up.