First Epilogue: 1813-20 - Chapter XII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills severalperfectly distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole,though each retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to theothers. Every event, joyful or sad, that took place in that housewas important to all these worlds, but each had its own specialreasons to rejoice or grieve over that occurrence independently of theothers.

　　For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event andthey all felt it to be so.

　　The servants- the most reliable judges of their masters because theyjudge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by theiracts and way of life- were glad of Pierre's return because they knewthat when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every dayattend to the estate, and would would be in better spirits and temper,and also because they would all receive handsome presents for theholidays.

　　The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's returnbecause no one else drew them into the social life of the household ashe did. He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his onlypiece) to which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced,and they felt sure he had brought presents for them all.

　　Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delightedbecause Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of hisrapturous and passionate affection. No one had instilled into him thislove for Pierre whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who hadbrought him up had done her utmost to make him love her husband as sheloved him, and little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved himwith just a shade of contempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He didnot want to be an hussar or a Knight of St. George like his uncleNicholas; he wanted to be learned, wise, and kind like Pierre. InPierre's presence his face always shone with pleasure and he flushedand was breathless when Pierre spoke to him. He did not miss asingle word he uttered, and would afterwards, with Dessalles or byhimself, recall and reconsider the meaning of everything Pierre hadsaid. Pierre's past life and his unhappiness prior to 1812 (of whichyoung Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from some words hehad overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity, PlatonKarataev (of whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natasha(of whom the lad was also particularly fond), and especiallyPierre's friendship with the father whom Nicholas could notremember- all this made Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint.

　　From broken remarks about Natasha and his father, from the emotionwith which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful,reverent tenderness with which Natasha spoke of him, the boy, whowas only just beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion thathis father had loved Natasha and when dying had left her to hisfriend. But the father whom the boy did not remember appeared to him adivinity who could not be pictured, and of whom he never thoughtwithout a swelling heart and tears of sadness and rapture. So theboy also was happy that Pierre had arrived.

　　The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven andunite any company he was in.

　　The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, werepleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run moresmoothly and peacefully.

　　The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, andespecially that Natasha would now be herself again.

　　Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds andmade haste to satisfy all their expectations.

　　Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with theaid of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, notforgetting his mother- and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dressmaterial for a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews.In the early days of his marriage it had seemed strange to him thathis wife should expect him not to forget to procure all the thingshe undertook to buy, and he had been taken aback by her seriousannoyance when on his first trip he forgot everything. But in timehe grew used to this demand. Knowing that Natasha asked nothing forherself, and gave him commissions for others only when he himselfhad offered to undertake them, he now found an unexpected andchildlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for everyone in thehouse, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred Natasha's censureit was only for buying too many and too expensive things. To her otherdefects (as most people thought them, but which to Pierre werequalities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now addedstinginess.

　　From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footingentailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that hespent only half as much as before, and that his affairs- which hadbeen in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts-had begun to improve.

　　Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensiveluxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was nolonger his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life hadnow been settled once for all till death and that to change it was notin his power, and so that way of life proved economical.

　　With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.

　　"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stufflike a shopman.

　　Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter onher lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to thethings he showed her.

　　"That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality of thematerial. "It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?"

　　Pierre told her the price.

　　"Too dear!" Natasha remarked. "How pleased the children will beand Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this," she added,unable to suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold combset with pearls, of a kind then just coming into fashion.

　　"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it," returnedPierre.

　　"When am I to wear it?" and Natasha stuck it in her coil of hair."When I take little Masha into society? Perhaps they will befashionable again by then. Well, let's go now."

　　And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery andthen to the old countess' rooms.

　　The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playinggrand-patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawingroom with parcels under their arms.

　　The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap witha frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upperlip had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.

　　After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession,she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and leftwithout aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, orkept awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. Shewanted nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillityonly death could give her. But until death came she had to go onliving, that is, to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees invery young children and very old people was particularly evident inher. Her life had no external aims- only a need to exercise hervarious functions and inclinations was apparent. She had to eat,sleep, think, speak, weep, work, give vent to her anger, and so on,merely because she had a stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and aliver. She did these things not under any external impulse as peoplein the full vigor of life do, when behind the purpose for which theystrive that of exercising their functions remains unnoticed. Shetalked only because she physically needed to exercise her tongue andlungs. She cried as a child does, because her nose had to becleared, and so on. What for people in their full vigor is an aimwas for her evidently merely a pretext.

　　Thus in the morning- especially if she had eaten anything rich theday before- she felt a need of being angry and would choose as thehandiest pretext Belova's deafness.

　　She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the otherend of the room.

　　"It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would murmur.

　　And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come," she would mutterangrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!"

　　Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry ortoo damp or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritabilityher face would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infalliblesymptoms when Belova would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and thecountess' face yellow. Just as she needed to work off her spleen soshe had sometimes to exercise her still-existing faculty ofthinking- and the pretext for that was a game of patience. When sheneeded to cry, the deceased count would be the pretext. When shewanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health would be the pretext,and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the pretext would beCountess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise, which wasusually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner restin a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the samestories over and over again to the same audience.

　　The old lady's condition was understood by the whole householdthough no one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possibleeffort to satisfy her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with asad smile between Nicholas, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary was thecommon understanding of her condition expressed.

　　But those glances expressed something more: they said that she hadplayed her part in life, that what they now saw was not her wholeself, that we must all become like her, and that they were glad toyield to her, to restrain themselves for this once precious beingformerly as full of life as themselves, but now so much to bepitied. "Memento mori," said these glances.

　　Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, andthe little children failed to understand this and avoided her.