Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 18

Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soirée, the guests began taking their leave.

Pierre was ungainly. Fat and broad, with huge hands that seemed to have been made for swinging one-pood weights, he had no idea, as they say, of how to enter a salon and even less idea of how to leave it, that is, of how to make his farewells and say something particularly agreeable before his exit. In addition, he was absent-minded. As he stood up, instead of taking his own hat he grabbed hold of a three-cornered hat with a general’s panache and held it, tugging at the plume, until the general finally requested him with some animosity, or so it seemed to Pierre, to hand it back. But all of his absent-mindedness and his inability to enter a salon and converse appropriately within it were redeemed by an expression so good-natured and open that, despite all his shortcomings, even those whom he had placed in an embarrassing position could not help finding him likeable. Anna Pavlovna turned towards him and, expressing her forgiveness of his outburst with Christian meekness, nodded to him and said:

“I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.”

To these words he made no response, but merely bowed and once again displayed to everybody his smile that said nothing, except perhaps this: “Opinions are all very well, but see what a fine, good-natured fellow I am.” And everybody, even Anna Pavlovna, could not help but feel it.

“You know, my dear fellow, your way of thinking tends to raise the roof,” said Prince Andrei, buckling on his sabre.

“I don’t mean it to,” said Pierre, lowering his head, peering over his spectacles and coming to a standstill. “How is it possible to see nothing in either the revolution or Napoleon except the personal interests of the Bourbons? We ourselves do not appreciate how much we are indebted precisely to the revolution …”

Prince Andrei did not wait to hear the end of this discourse. He went out into the entrance hall and, presenting his shoulders to the servant, who threw on his cloak, he lent an indifferent ear to the idle chatter of his wife and Prince Hippolyte, who had also come out into the hallway. Prince Hippolyte was standing beside the delightful pregnant princess and staring hard at her through his lorgnette.

“Go in, Annette, you’ll catch cold,” said the little princess, taking her leave of Anna Pavlovna. “It’s settled,” she added quietly.

Anna Pavlovna had already managed to talk over with Lise the putative marriage of Anatole and Lise’s sister-in-law and to request the princess to influence her husband.

“I am relying on you, chère amie,” said Anna Pavlovna, also quietly, “you will write to her and let me know how her father views the matter. Au revoir.” And she left the entrance hall.

Prince Hippolyte moved still closer to the little princess and, leaning his face down to hers, began saying something to her in a half-whisper.

Two servants, one the princess’s and the other his, stood waiting for them to finish talking, holding a shawl and a redingote and listening to their French speech, which they could not understand, but with expressions that suggested they did understand and did not wish to show it. The princess as always smiled as she spoke and laughed as she listened.

“I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince Hippolyte, “so boring … An excellent soirée. Was it not, excellent?”

“They say the ball will be very fine,” replied the princess, twitching her lip with the faint moustache. “All the beautiful society ladies will be there.”

“Not all, because you will not be there, not all,” said Prince Hippolyte, laughing gleefully and, seizing the shawl from the manservant, even shoving him back, he began arranging it on the princess. Either out of clumsiness or on purpose, no one could have told which, he did not lower his arms for a long time after putting the shawl in place, and appeared to embrace the young woman.

She moved away from him gracefully, still smiling, turned round and looked at her husband. Prince Andrei’s eyes were closed, he looked tired and sleepy.

“Are you ready?” he asked his wife, running his eye over her. Prince Hippolyte hastily donned his redingote, which in the new style hung below his heels, and ran out, tripping over it, onto the porch after the princess, whom a servant was helping into a carriage.

“Princess, au revoir,” he shouted, tripping over his tongue in the same way as over his feet.

Gathering her skirts, the princess prepared to take her seat in the darkness of the carriage; her husband began adjusting his sabre; Prince Hippolyte, on the pretext of being helpful, kept getting in everyone’s way.

“Permit me, sir,” said Prince Andrei in Russian to Prince Hippolyte, who was preventing him from passing.

This “permit me, sir” had a ring of such cold contempt that Prince Hippolyte hastily stepped aside and began apologising and swaying agitatedly from one foot to the other, as though in pain from some fresh wound, still raw and smarting.

“I’m expecting you, Pierre,” said Prince Andrei’s voice.

The postillion set off with the carriage wheels rumbling. Prince Hippolyte laughed fitfully as he stood on the porch, waiting for the vicomte, whom he had promised to drive home …

“Eh bien, mon cher, your little princess is very nice, very nice,” said the vicomte after he and Hippolyte had got into their carriage. “Mais très bien.” He kissed the tips of his fingers. “And perfectly French.” Hippolyte snorted and began laughing. “And you know, you are quite terrible, with your innocent ways,” the vicomte continued. “I pity the poor husband, this poor little officer posturing as some ruling prince.”

Hippolyte snorted again and said through his laughter:

“And you said that Russian ladies were not as good as French. You just need to know how to go about it.”