Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 17

“The entire nation will die for its Emperor, for the greatest man in the world!” the young man said suddenly in a loud and vehement voice, without any preamble whatsoever, resembling a young peasant lad fearful of being interrupted and deprived of the opportunity to express himself in full. He glanced round at Prince Andrei. Prince Andrei smiled.

“The greatest genius of our age,” Pierre continued.

“What? That is your opinion? You are joking!” screeched Anna Pavlovna, her fright prompted less by the words that the young man uttered than by the animation, so spontaneous and entirely improper, that was expressed in the full, fleshy features of his face, and still more by the sound of his voice, which was too loud and, above all, too natural. He made no gestures and spoke in short bursts, occasionally adjusting his spectacles and glancing around, but it was clear from his whole appearance that no one could stop him now and he would express his entire view, regardless of the proprieties. The young man was like a wild, unbroken horse who, until saddled and stirrupped, is quiet and even timid and in no way different from other horses, but who, as soon as the harness is put on him, suddenly begins for no clear reason to pull in his head, and rear and buck in the most ludicrous manner possible, without knowing why himself. The young man had evidently sensed the bridle and begun his ludicrous bucking.

“Nobody in France even thinks about the Bourbons nowadays,” he continued hastily, so that no one would interrupt him, and constantly glancing round at Prince Andrei, as though he was the only one from whom he expected encouragement. “Do not forget that it is only three months since I returned from France.”

He spoke in excellent French.

“Monsieur le vicomte is absolutely right to suppose that in a year it will be too late for the Bourbons. It is already too late. There are no more royalists. Some have abandoned their fatherland, others have become Bonapartists. The whole of St. Germain pays homage to the Emperor.”

“There are exceptions,” the vicomte said superciliously.

The worldly, experienced Anna Pavlovna looked anxiously by turns at the vicomte and the improper young man and could not forgive herself for imprudently inviting this youth without first getting to know him.

The improper youth was the illegitimate son of a rich and renowned grandee. Anna Pavlovna had invited him out of respect for his father, bearing in mind also that Monsieur Pierre had just returned from abroad, where he had been educated.

“If only I had known that he was so badly brought up and a bonapartist,” she thought, looking at his big, close-cropped head and his large, fleshy features. “So this is the upbringing they give young men nowadays. You can tell a man of good society straight away,” she said to herself, admiring the vicomte’s composure.

“Almost the entire nobility,” Pierre continued, “has gone over to Bonaparte.”

“So say the Bonapartists,” said the vicomte. “It is hard these days to discover the opinion of the French public.”

“As Bonaparte said,” Prince Andrei began, and involuntarily everyone turned in the direction of his voice, which was low and indolent, but always audible because of its self-assurance, waiting to hear exactly what Bonaparte had said.

“‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not want it,’” Prince Andrei continued after a brief silence, again repeating the words of Napoleon. “‘I opened up my ante-chambers and the crowds rushed in.’ I do not know how justified he was in saying that, but it was clever, viciously clever,” he concluded with an acid smile and turned away.

“He did have the right to speak out like that against the royalist aristocracy; it no longer exists in France,” Pierre put in, “or if it does, then it carries no weight. And the people? The people adore the great man, and the people have chosen him. The people are without prejudice; they have seen the greatest genius and hero in the world.”

“He might be a hero to some,” said the vicomte, not replying to the young man and not even looking at him, but addressing Anna Pavlovna and Prince Andrei, “but after the murder of the duke there is one more martyr in heaven and one less hero on earth.”

Anna Pavlovna and the others had no time to appreciate the vicomte’s words before the unbroken horse continued his novel and amusing bucking.

“The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,” Pierre continued, “was a state necessity, and I see precisely greatness of soul in the fact that Napoleon was not afraid to take upon himself alone the responsibility for that act.”

“You approve of murder!” Anna Pavlovna exclaimed in a ghastly whisper.

“Monsieur Pierre, how can you see greatness of soul in murder?” said the little princess, smiling and drawing her work closer to her.

“Ah! Oh!” said various voices.

“Magnificent,” Prince Hippolyte suddenly said in English, and began slapping his open hand against his knee. The vicomte merely shrugged.

“Is the murder of the duke a good deed or a bad one?” he said, surprising everyone with his high-toned presence of mind. “One or the other …”

Pierre sensed that this dilemma had been posed for him so that if he replied in the negative, they would force him to repudiate his admiration for his hero, but if he replied in the positive, that the deed was a good one, then God alone knew what might happen to him. He replied in the positive, unafraid of what would happen.

“This deed is a great one, like everything that this great man does,” he said audaciously, paying no attention to the horror expressed on all of their faces except the face of Prince Andrei, or to the contemptuous shrugs; he carried on talking on his own, even though his hostess clearly did not wish it. Everyone exchanged glances of amazement as they listened to him, except Prince Andrei. Prince Andrei listened with sympathy and a quiet smile.

“Surely he knew,” continued Pierre, “what a furious storm the death of the duke would stir up against him? He knew that for this one head he would be obliged once again to wage war against the whole of Europe, that he would fight, and would be victorious again, because …”

“Are you Russian?” asked Anna Pavlovna.

“I am. But he will be victorious, because he is a great man. The death of the duke was necessary. He is a genius and the difference between a genius and ordinary people is that he does not act for himself, but for humanity. The royalists wished to inflame once again the internal war and revolution that he had suppressed. He needed domestic peace, and with the execution of the duke he set an example that made the Bourbons stop their intrigues.”

“But, mon cher Monsieur Pierre,” said Anna Pavlovna, attempting to overcome him by meekness, “how can you call the means to the restoration of the legitimate throne intrigues?”

“Only the will of the people is legitimate,” he replied, “and they drove out the Bourbons and handed power to the great Napoleon.”

And he looked triumphantly over the top of his spectacles at his listeners.

“Ah! The Social Contract,” the vicomte said in a quiet voice, evidently reassured at having recognised the source from which his opponent’s views were derived.

“Well, after this …!” exclaimed Anna Pavlovna.

But even after this Pierre continued speaking just as uncivilly.

“No,” he said, growing more and more animated, “the Bourbons and the royalists fled from the revolution, they could not understand it. But this man rose above it, and suppressed its abuses while retaining all that is good – the equality of citizens and freedom of speech and of the press, and only because of this did he acquire power.”

“Indeed, but if, having taken power, he had returned it to the rightful king,” said the vicomte ironically, “then I should call him a great man.”

“He could not have done that. The people gave him power only so that he could rid them of the Bourbons, and because the people saw in him a great man. The revolution itself was a great thing,” continued Monsieur Pierre, demonstrating with this audacious and challenging introductory phrase his great youth and desire to express everything as quickly as possible.

“Revolution and regicide are a great thing! After this …”

“I am not talking of regicide. When Napoleon appeared, the revolution had already run its course, and the nation put itself into his hands of its own accord. But he understood the ideas of the revolution and became its representative.”

“Yes, the ideas of plunder, murder and regicide,” the ironic voice interrupted once again.

“Those were the extremes, of course, but that is not what is most important, what is important are the rights of man, emancipation from prejudices, the equality of citizens; and Napoleon retained all of these ideas in full force.”

“Liberty and equality,” the vicomte said derisively, as though he had decided finally to demonstrate seriously to this youth the full stupidity of his words. “All high-sounding words which have been compromised long ago. Who does not love liberty and equality? Our Saviour preached liberty and equality. But after the revolution were people any happier? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte is destroying it.”

Prince Andrei looked with a merry smile by turns at Monsieur Pierre, at the vicomte and at his hostess, and evidently found this unexpected and indecorous episode amusing. During the first minute of Pierre’s outburst Anna Pavlovna had been horrified, for all her experience of the world, but when she saw that, despite the sacrilegious sentiments expressed by Pierre, the vicomte did not lose his temper, and when she became convinced that it was no longer possible to suppress what was being said, she gathered her strength and joined forces with the vicomte to assail the orator.

“But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” said Anna Pavlovna, “how do you explain a great man who was capable of executing a duke or, in the final analysis, simply a man, without a trial and without any proven guilt?”

“I would like to ask,” said the vicomte, “how Monsieur Pierre explains the Eighteenth Brumaire. Surely this is deceit? It is cheap swindling, in no way resembling the conduct of a great man.”

“And the prisoners whom he killed in Africa?” the little princess interjected at the same point. “That is awful.” And she shrugged her little shoulders.

“He is a scoundrel, no matter what you say,” said Prince Hippolyte.

Monsieur Pierre did not know whom to answer, he glanced round at them all and smiled, and the smile exposed his uneven black teeth. His smile was not the same as other people’s, which merge into the absence of a smile. On the contrary, when his smile came, his serious, even rather sullen face instantly disappeared and a different one replaced it; childish, kind, even a little stupid, and seeming to beg forgiveness.

The vicomte, who was seeing him for the first time, realised that this Jacobin was by no means as terrible as the things that he said. Everyone fell silent.

“Well, do you want him to answer everyone at once?” Prince Andrei’s voice rang out. “Besides, in the actions of a statesman one should distinguish between the actions of the individual and those of the general or the emperor. So it seems to me.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” put in Pierre, delighted at the support that had been offered him. “As a man, he is great on the Bridge at Arcole, in the hospital in Jaffa, where he offers his hand to victims of the plague, but …”

Prince Andrei, evidently wishing to mitigate the awkwardness caused by Pierre’s oration, half-rose to his feet, preparing to leave and signalling to his wife.

“It is difficult,” he said, “to judge people of our own time, posterity will judge them.”

Suddenly Prince Hippolyte stood up, halting everybody by gesturing with his hands and requesting them to be seated, and began speaking:

“Today I was told a quite charming Moscow anecdote, I simply must regale you with it. I beg your pardon, vicomte, I shall tell it in Russian, otherwise the whole point of the story will be lost.”

And Prince Hippolyte began speaking in Russian with the same accent with which French people who have spent a year in Russia speak. Everyone paused, so keenly and insistently did Prince Hippolyte demand their attention for his story.

“There is à Moscou a certain lady. And she be very mean. She needed have two footmen behind a carriage. And very tall. That was to her taste. And she had chambermaid who was tall also. She said …”

At this point Prince Hippolyte began pondering, evidently struggling to figure something out.

“She said … yes, she said, ‘Girl, put livery on and go with me to carriage to make visits.’”

Then Prince Hippolyte snorted and began to chortle far sooner than his listeners, which was something of a disadvantage to the narrator. However, many of them, including the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did smile.

“She set off. Suddenly strong wind appeared. Girl lose her hat and long hair tumble down all loose …”

Then he could hold out no longer and burst into fitful laughter, and through this laughter he said:

“And so the whole world find out …”

That was how the anecdote ended. Although it was not clear why he told it or why it absolutely had to be told in Russian, Anna Pavlovna and the others were nonetheless grateful for Prince Hippolyte’s courtesy, which had put such an agreeable end to Monsieur Pierre’s disagreeable and discourteous outburst. Following the anecdote the conversation broke up into petty gossip about the next ball and the last, a play, and when and where people would see each other again.