Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 32

Countess Rostova and her daughter and an already large number of guests were sitting in the drawing room. The count showed the male guests through into the study, offering them his own connoisseur’s collection of Turkish pipes. From time to time he came out and asked if she had arrived yet. They were expecting Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society by the nickname of the fearsome dragon, a lady renowned not for her wealth or her distinctions, but for her straightforward thinking and frank simplicity of manner. Marya Dmitrievna was known to the royal family, she was known to the whole of Moscow and the whole of St. Petersburg, and both cities, while marvelling at her, chuckled in secret over her rudeness and told jokes about her: nonetheless everyone without exception respected and feared her.

In the smoke-filled study the conversation was about the war, which had been declared in a manifesto, and about the levy. No one had yet read the manifesto, but everyone knew it had been published. The count sat on the ottoman between two other men who were smoking and talking. The count himself did not smoke or talk but, inclining his head first to one side and then to the other, he watched the smokers with evident enjoyment and listened to the conversation of his two neighbours, whom he had pitted against each other.

One of the speakers was a civilian, with a wrinkled, bilious, clean-shaven, thin face, a man already approaching old age, although he was dressed like a most fashionable young man: he was sitting with his legs up on the ottoman, with the air of being quite at home and, having thrust the amber mouthpiece deep into his mouth from one side, was fitfully drawing in the smoke and screwing up his eyes. He was a well-known Moscow wit, the old bachelor Shinshin, a cousin of the countess, who was referred to in the salons of Moscow as an affected fop. He seemed to be speaking with condescension towards his conversation partner. The other, a fresh, pink Guards officer, irreproachably washed, buttoned and combed, was holding the amber mouthpiece in the centre of his mouth and drawing the smoke in lightly with his pink lips, releasing it in rings from his shapely mouth, which seemed expressly made for the blowing of smoke rings. He was the lieutenant Berg, an officer of the Semyonovsky Regiment, with whom Boris was to travel to the regiment and about whom Natasha had been teasing Vera, the eldest of the young countesses, calling Berg her fiancé. Berg moved on from conversation about the war to his own affairs, unfolding his future plans for service in the army, and was evidently very proud to be conversing with such a celebrity as Shinshin. The count sat between them and listened carefully. The pastime that the count found most agreeable, apart from playing boston, which he greatly loved, was playing the role of listener, especially when he managed to pit two lively and loquacious conversation partners against each other. Although Berg was clearly not a loquacious partner, the count observed on Shinshin’s lips a mocking smile that seemed to say: “Watch how I sort out this little officer.” And the count, without the slightest animus against Berg, was amusing himself by discovering the wit in Shinshin’s every word.

“Well, come on, old man, my highly esteemed Alphonse Karlovich,” Shinshin said, laughing and combining, in the manner which was the distinguishing feature of his speech, the most trivial Russian expressions with refined French phrases. “Aren’t you counting on having an income from the treasury, and don’t you want the regiment to pay you a little something too?”

“Oh no, Pyotr Nikolaevich, I simply wish to demonstrate that there are far fewer advantages to being in the cavalry than in the infantry. Now, just imagine my situation, Pyotr Nikolaevich.”

Berg always spoke very precisely, calmly and politely. His conversation always concerned only himself, and he always remained calmly silent while the talk was of something that had no direct connection with him. He could remain silent like this for hours at a time, without feeling the slightest embarrassment himself or provoking it in anyone else. But as soon as the conversation concerned him personally, he would begin speaking at length and with obvious enjoyment.

“Just imagine my situation, Pyotr Nikolaevich, if I were in the cavalry, I would receive no more than two hundred roubles every four months, even at the rank of lieutenant, but now I receive two hundred and thirty,” he said with a gleeful, self-satisfied, egotistical smile, regarding Shinshin and the count as if it were obvious to him that his success would always be the main goal of everyone else’s desires.

“What’s more, Pyotr Nikolaevich, having transferred to the Guards, I’ll be more easily noticed,” Berg continued, “and there are openings in the Guards infantry far more often. And then, imagine for yourself how well I can get by on two hundred and thirty roubles.”

He paused and then continued triumphantly:

“I can put money away and send some to my father as well,” he said and blew out a smoke ring.

“The accounts are balanced. As the proverb says, a German can thresh grain on the head of an axe,” said Shinshin, moving the amber mouthpiece to the other side of his mouth and winking at the count.

The count burst out laughing. The other guests, seeing Shinshin making conversation, came over to listen. Berg, failing to notice either mockery or indifference, related at length and in precise detail how, by moving to the Guards, he had already gained one rank’s advantage over his corps comrades, and how in wartime the company commander might well be killed so that he, as the remaining senior officer, could very easily become company commander, and how everybody in the regiment loved him, and how pleased his papa was with him. The listeners all waited with the count, hoping for something funny, but nothing funny came. Berg was clearly relishing telling them all this, and had not the slightest suspicion that other people might have their own reasons for listening. But everything he told them was so nice and proper, the naïvety of his young egotism was so transparent, that he quite disarmed his listeners and even Shinshin stopped laughing at him. He thought Berg not worth talking to.

“Well, old man, whether you are in the infantry or the cavalry, you will always get ahead anywhere, that I prophesy. I predict a brilliant career for you,” he said, patting Berg’s shoulder and lowering his legs from the ottoman. Berg smiled in delight. The count, followed by the guests, went out into the drawing room.