Book Fifteen: 1812-13 - Chapter XIII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearancehe was just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded andseemed occupied not with what was before his eyes but with somethingspecial of his own. The difference between his former and present selfwas that formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or wassaid to him, he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainlyseeking to distinguish something at a distance. At present he stillforgot what was said to him and still did not see what was beforehis eyes, but he now looked with a scarcely perceptible andseemingly ironic smile at what was before him and listened to what wassaid, though evidently seeing and hearing something quite different.Formerly he had appeared to be a kindhearted but unhappy man, and sopeople had been inclined to avoid him. Now a smile at the joy oflife always played round his lips, and sympathy for others, shone inhis eyes with a questioning look as to whether they were ascontented as he was, and people felt pleased by his presence.

　　Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when hetalked, and seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away inconversation and knew how to listen so that people readily told himtheir most intimate secrets.

　　The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularlyhostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to himafter the old count's death, now after staying a short time in Orel-where she had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of hisingratitude she considered it her duty to nurse him- felt to hersurprise and vexation that she had become fond of him. Pierre didnot in any way seek her approval, he merely studied her with interest.Formerly she had felt that he regarded her with indifference andirony, and so had shrunk into herself as she did with others and hadshown him only the combative side of her nature; but now he seemedto be trying to understand the most intimate places of her heart, and,mistrustfully at first but afterwards gratefully, she let him seethe hidden, kindly sides of her character.

　　The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence moresuccessfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth andshowing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply infinding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.

　　"Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influenceof bad people but of people such as myself," thought she.

　　His servants too- Terenty and Vaska- in their own way noticed thechange that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he hadbecome much "simpler." Terenty, when he had helped him undress andwished him good night, often lingered with his master's boots in hishands and clothes over his arm, to see whether he would not start atalk. And Pierre, noticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generallykept him there.

　　"Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?" he would ask.

　　And Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and ofthe old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes andtalking, or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories, and then would goout into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his masterand affection for him.

　　The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, thoughhe considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose everymoment was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours withPierre telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations onthe characters of his patients in general, and especially of theladies.

　　"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like ourprovincials," he would say.

　　There were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and thedoctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.

　　This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to makefun of the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.

　　The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talkwith him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, andpour out to him his indignation against the French and especiallyagainst Napoleon.

　　"If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fightsuch a nation," he said to Pierre. "You, who have suffered so from theFrench, do not even feel animosity toward them."

　　Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merelyby evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in sodoing.

　　During the last days of Pierre's stay in Orel his old Masonicacquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiresswho had a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporarypost in the commissariat department in that town.

　　Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they hadnever been intimate, came to him with the professions of friendshipand intimacy that people who meet in a desert generally express forone another. Willarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a manof his own circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.

　　But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had laggedmuch behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself,into apathy and egotism.

　　"You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow," he said.

　　But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it hadbeen formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. ToPierre as he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange tothink that he had been like that himself but a short time before.

　　Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his familyaffairs, his wife's affairs, and his official duties. He regardedall these occupations as hindrances to life, and considered thatthey were all contemptible because their aim was the welfare ofhimself and his family. Military, administrative, political, andMasonic interests continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre,without trying to change the other's views and without condemning him,but with the quiet, joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him,was interested in this strange though very familiar phenomenon.

　　There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, withthe princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met,which gained for him the general good will. This was hisacknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions bywords, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking,feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view. Thislegitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to excite andirritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, andthe interest he took in, other people. The difference, and sometimescomplete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, andbetween one man and another, pleased him and drew from him an amusedand gentle smile.

　　In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself acenter of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniaryquestions, especially requests for money to which, as an extremelywealthy man, he was very exposed, produced in him a state ofhopeless agitation and perplexity. "To give or not to give?" he hadasked himself. "I have it and he needs it. But someone else needs itstill more. Who needs it most? And perhaps they are both impostors?"In the old days he had been unable to find a way out of all thesesurmises and had given to all who asked as long as he had anythingto give. Formerly he had been in a similar state of perplexity withregard to every question concerning his property, when one personadvised one thing and another something else.

　　Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubtor perplexity about these questions. There was now within him ajudge who by some rule unknown to him decided what should or shouldnot be done.

　　He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now hefelt certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The firsttime he had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, acolonel, came to him and, after talking a great deal about hisexploits, concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierreshould give him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children.Pierre refused without the least difficulty or effort, and wasafterwards surprised how simple and easy had been what used toappear so insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refusedthe colonel's demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse toartifice when leaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to acceptsome money of which he was evidently in need. A further proof toPierre of his own more settled outlook on practical matters wasfurnished by his decision with regard to his wife's debts and to therebuilding of his houses in and near Moscow.

　　His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with himhis diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, accordingto the head steward's calculation, about two million rubles.

　　To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him anestimate showing that despite these losses his income would not bediminished but would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife'sdebts which he was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuildhis Moscow house and the country house on his Moscow estate, which hadcost him eighty thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.

　　"Yes, of course that's true," said Pierre with a cheerful smile."I don't need all that at all. By being ruined I have become muchricher."

　　But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an accountof the state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architecthad made of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses,speaking of this as of a settled matter. About the same time hereceived letters from Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintancesspeaking of his wife's debts. And Pierre decided that the steward'sproposals which had so pleased him were wrong and that he must go toPetersburg and settle his wife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow.Why this was necessary he did not know, but he knew for certain thatit was necessary. His income would be reduced by three fourths, but hefelt it must be done.

　　Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.

　　During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre hadexperienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during hisjourney he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of newfaces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he feltlike a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone- the stagecoach driver, thepost-house overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages-had a new significance for him. The presence and remarks ofWillarski who continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russiaand its backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre'spleasure. Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinarystrength and vitality- the strength which in that vast space amidthe snows maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and uniquepeople. He did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agreewith him- an apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoiddiscussions that could lead to nothing- and he smiled joyfully as helistened to him.