Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 28

In the drawing room the conversation was continuing.

“Ah, my dear,” said the countess, “in my life too not everything is roses. Do you think I cannot see that with the way we live, our fortune will not last long? And it’s all the club, and his generous nature. When we are in the country, what rest do we get there? Theatres, hunts and God knows what else. But there I am talking about myself! Now, how did you arrange everything? I am constantly amazed at you, Annette, at your age, the way you gallop off in a carriage on your own, to Moscow, to St. Petersburg, to all the ministers and all the important people, and you know how to deal with them all, I am amazed! Well, how did everything go? I don’t know how to do anything of that sort.”

“Ah my darling,” replied Princess Anna Mikhailovna. “God grant that you may never know how hard it is to be left a widow with no support and with a son whom you love to distraction. One can learn to do everything,” she continued with a certain pride. “My lawsuit taught me that. If I need to see one of these bigwigs, I write a note: ‘Princess so-and-so wishes to see so-and-so’, and I go myself in a cab, two or three times if necessary, even four, until I get what I want. I don’t give a jot what people think of me.”

“Well, how did you ask for Borenka?” asked the countess. “After all, your son is a Guards officer, but Nikolai is going as a cadet. I have no one to intercede for me. Whom did you petition?”

“Prince Vasily. He was very kind. Now he has agreed to everything, and informed His Majesty,” Princess Anna Mikhailovna said ecstatically, completely forgetting all the humiliation that she had gone through to achieve her goal.

“And has he grown old, Prince Vasily?” the countess asked. “I haven’t seen him since our dramatics at the Rumyantsevs’. I think he has forgotten all about me. He used to run around after me,” the countess recalled with a smile.

“He is the same as ever,” replied Anna Mikhailovna. “The prince is courteous, positively brimming over with compliments. His high position has not turned his head at all. ‘I regret that I can do so little for you, my dear princess,’ he said to me, ‘ask what you will.’ Yes, he is a splendid man and an excellent relative. But you know, Nathalie, how I love my son. I don’t know what I would not do for his happiness. And my circumstances are so bad,” Anna Mikhailovna continued sadly, lowering her voice, “so very bad that I am now in a quite appalling situation. My miserable lawsuit is consuming everything I have and never makes progress. Can you believe that I do not have, literally do not have, ten kopecks to spare, and I have no idea where to get the money for Boris’s uniform.” She took out a handkerchief and began to cry. “I need five hundred roubles, and I have one twenty-five-rouble note. I am in such a state. My only hope now is Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If he will not support his godchild – after all, he is Boris’s godfather – and provide him with something to live on, then all my efforts will have been wasted, I shall have no money to fit him out.”

The countess shed a few tears and pondered something without speaking.

“I often think, perhaps it is a sin,” said the princess, “but I often think: there is Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov living alone … it’s an immense fortune … and what is he living for? Life is a burden to him, and Borya is only about to start living.”

“He is bound to leave something to Boris,” said the countess.

“God knows. These rich men and grandees are such egotists. But nonetheless I shall go to him now, and take Boris, and tell him to his face what is the matter. Let people think what they will of me, I really do not care, when my son’s destiny depends on it.” The princess got to her feet. “It is now two o’clock. And you are dining at four. I shall have enough time to go there and back.” And with the bearing and manners of a practical St. Petersburg lady who knows how to make good use of her time, Anna Mikhailovna sent for her son and went out into the front hall with him.

“Goodbye, my darling,” she said to the countess, who saw her to the door. “Wish me success,” she added, whispering so that her son would not hear.

“You are going to Count Kirill Vladimirovich, ma chère,” the count said from the dining room as he emerged into the hallway. “If he is feeling better, invite Pierre to dine with us. He has been here before, he danced with the children. You absolutely must invite him. Well, we shall see how Taras excels himself today. They say Count Orlov never had such a dinner as we shall have today.”