War and Peace Book by Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

Chapter 6

204

Chapter VI

It was long since the Rostรณvs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his sonโ€™s handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the letter.

Anna Mikhรกylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house, on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same time.

Anna Mikhรกylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still living with the Rostรณvs.

โ€œMy dear friend?โ€ said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to sympathize in any way.

The count sobbed yet more.

โ€œNikรณlenka… a letter… wa… a… s… wounded… my darling boy… the countess… promoted to be an officer… thank God… How tell the little countess!โ€

Anna Mikhรกylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her own eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with Godโ€™s help, would inform her.

At dinner Anna Mikhรกylovna talked the whole time about the war news and about Nikรณlenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received from him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might very likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these hints began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at the count and at Anna Mikhรกylovna, the latter very adroitly turned the conversation to insignificant matters.

Natรกsha, who, of the whole family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her father and Anna Mikhรกylovna, that it had something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mikhรกylovna was preparing them for it.

Bold as she was, Natรกsha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything relating to Nikรณlenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner, but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her chair regardless of her governessโ€™ remarks. After dinner, she rushed headlong after Anna Mikhรกylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.

โ€œAuntie, darling, do tell me what it is!โ€

โ€œNothing, my dear.โ€

โ€œNo, dearest, sweet one, honey, I wonโ€™t give upโ€”I know you know something.โ€

Anna Mikhรกylovna shook her head.

โ€œYou are a little slyboots,โ€ she said.

โ€œA letter from Nikรณlenka! Iโ€™m sure of it!โ€ exclaimed Natรกsha, reading confirmation in Anna Mikhรกylovnaโ€™s face.

โ€œBut for Godโ€™s sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mamma.โ€

โ€œI will, I will, only tell me! You wonโ€™t? Then I will go and tell at once.โ€

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Anna Mikhรกylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter, on condition that she should tell no one.

โ€œNo, on my true word of honor,โ€ said Natรกsha, crossing herself, โ€œI wonโ€™t tell anyone!โ€ and she ran off at once to Sรณnya.

โ€œNikรณlenka… wounded… a letter,โ€ she announced in gleeful triumph.

โ€œNicholas!โ€ was all Sรณnya said, instantly turning white.

Natรกsha, seeing the impression the news of her brotherโ€™s wound produced on Sรณnya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.

She rushed to Sรณnya, hugged her, and began to cry.

โ€œA little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he wrote himself,โ€ said she through her tears.

โ€œThere now! Itโ€™s true that all you women are crybabies,โ€ remarked Pรฉtya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. โ€œNow Iโ€™m very glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all blubberers and understand nothing.โ€

Natรกsha smiled through her tears.

โ€œYou havenโ€™t read the letter?โ€ asked Sรณnya.

โ€œNo, but she said that it was all over and that heโ€™s now an officer.โ€

โ€œThank God!โ€ said Sรณnya, crossing herself. โ€œBut perhaps she deceived you. Let us go to Mamma.โ€

Pรฉtya paced the room in silence for a time.

โ€œIf Iโ€™d been in Nikรณlenkaโ€™s place I would have killed even more of those Frenchmen,โ€ he said. โ€œWhat nasty brutes they are! Iโ€™d have killed so many that thereโ€™d have been a heap of them.โ€

โ€œHold your tongue, Pรฉtya, what a goose you are!โ€

โ€œIโ€™m not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,โ€ said Pรฉtya.

โ€œDo you remember him?โ€ Natรกsha suddenly asked, after a momentโ€™s silence.

Sรณnya smiled.

โ€œDo I remember Nicholas?โ€

โ€œNo, Sรณnya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly, remember everything?โ€ said Natรกsha, with an expressive gesture, evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. โ€œI remember Nikรณlenka too, I remember him well,โ€ she said. โ€œBut I donโ€™t remember Borรญs. I donโ€™t remember him a bit.โ€

โ€œWhat! You donโ€™t remember Borรญs?โ€ asked Sรณnya in surprise.

โ€œItโ€™s not that I donโ€™t rememberโ€”I know what he is like, but not as I remember Nikรณlenka.

Himโ€”I just shut my eyes and remember, but Borรญs… No!โ€ (She shut her eyes.) โ€œNo! thereโ€™s nothing at all.โ€

โ€œOh, Natรกsha!โ€ said Sรณnya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was out of the question, โ€œI am in love with your brother once for all and, whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as long as I live.โ€

206

Natรกsha looked at Sรณnya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said nothing. She felt that Sรณnya was speaking the truth, that there was such love as Sรณnya was speaking of. But Natรกsha had not yet felt anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.

โ€œShall you write to him?โ€ she asked.

Sรณnya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on himself?

โ€œI donโ€™t know. I think if he writes, I will write too,โ€ she said, blushing.

โ€œAnd you wonโ€™t feel ashamed to write to him?โ€

Sรณnya smiled.

โ€œNo.โ€

โ€œAnd I should be ashamed to write to Borรญs. Iโ€™m not going to.โ€

โ€œWhy should you be ashamed?โ€

โ€œWell, I donโ€™t know. Itโ€™s awkward and would make me ashamed.โ€

โ€œAnd I know why sheโ€™d be ashamed,โ€ said Pรฉtya, offended by Natรกshaโ€™s previous remark.

โ€œItโ€™s because she was in love with that fat one in spectaclesโ€ (that was how Pรฉtya described his namesake, the new Count Bezรบkhov) โ€œand now sheโ€™s in love with that singerโ€ (he meant Natรกshaโ€™s Italian singing master), โ€œthatโ€™s why sheโ€™s ashamed!โ€

โ€œPรฉtya, youโ€™re stupid!โ€ said Natรกsha.

โ€œNot more stupid than you, madam,โ€ said the nine-year-old Pรฉtya, with the air of an old brigadier.

The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhรกylovnaโ€™s hints at dinner. On retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikhรกylovna, with the letter, came on tiptoe to the countessโ€™ door and paused.

โ€œDonโ€™t come in,โ€ she said to the old count who was following her. โ€œCome later.โ€ And she went in, closing the door behind her.

The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.

At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna Mikhรกylovnaโ€™s voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence, then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps. Anna Mikhรกylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the public to appreciate his skill.

โ€œIt is done!โ€ she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.

When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait, and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away the bald head. Vรฉra, Natรกsha, Sรณnya, and Pรฉtya now entered the room, and the reading of the letter began. After a brief description of the campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his

207

fatherโ€™s and motherโ€™s hands asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Vรฉra, Natรกsha, and Pรฉtya. Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him โ€œdear Sรณnya, whom he loved and thought of just the same as ever.โ€ When she heard this Sรณnya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was crying.

โ€œWhy are you crying, Mamma?โ€ asked Vรฉra. โ€œFrom all he says one should be glad and not cry.โ€

This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natรกsha looked at her reproachfully.

โ€œAnd who is it she takes after?โ€ thought the countess.

Nicholasโ€™ letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she did not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and Dmรญtri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh proofs of Nikรณlenkaโ€™s virtues.

How strange, how extraordinary, how joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who had first learned to say โ€œpearโ€ and then โ€œgranny,โ€ that this son should now be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly warrior doing some kind of manโ€™s work of his own, without help or guidance. The universal experience of ages, showing that children do grow imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the countess. Her sonโ€™s growth toward manhood, at each of its stages, had seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the millions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty years before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this letter, he now was.

โ€œWhat a style! How charmingly he describes!โ€ said she, reading the descriptive part of the letter. โ€œAnd what a soul! Not a word about himself…. Not a word! About some Denรญsov or other, though he himself, I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so highโ€”I always said….โ€

For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out, while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment of the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikhรกylovna, practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand Duke Constantine Pรกvlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostรณvs supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address, and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards there was no reason why it should not reach the Pรกvlograd regiment, which was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Dukeโ€™s courier to Borรญs and Borรญs was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from the old count, the countess, Pรฉtya, Vรฉra, Natรกsha, and Sรณnya, and finally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other things the old count sent to his son.

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Table of Contents

Book One: 1805 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Book Two: 1805 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Book Three: 1805 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Book Four: 1806 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Book Five: 1806 - 07 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Book Six: 1808 - 10 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Book Seven: 1810 - 11 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Book Eight: 1811 - 12 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Book Nine: 1812 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Book Eleven: 1812 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Book Twelve: 1812 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Book Thirteen: 1812 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Book Fifteen: 1812 - 13 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
First Epilogue: 1813 - 20 - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Second Epilogue - Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12