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“Well, I will read them, then!” Bagratin seemed to say, and, fixing his weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious expression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading them aloud. Bagratin bowed his head and listened:
Bring glory then to Alexander’s reign And on the throne our Titus shield. A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field! E’en fortunate Napoleon Knows by experience, now, Bagratin, And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...
But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came the resounding strains of the polonaise:
Conquest’s joyful thunder waken, Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...
and Count Rostv, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his verses, bowed to Bagratin. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more important than verses, and Bagratin, again preceding all the rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two Alexanders—Bekleshv and Narshkin—which was a significant allusion to the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest.
Just before dinner, Count Ily Rostv presented his son to Bagratin, who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward, as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ily looked joyfully and proudly around while Bagratin spoke to his son.
Nicholas Rostv, with Densov and his new acquaintance, Dlokhov, sat almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince Nesvtski. Count Ily Rostv with the other members of the committee sat facing Bagratin and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality, did the honors to the prince.
His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of which Ily Rostv blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish, which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the other committeemen. “There will be many toasts, it’s time to begin,” he whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting for what he would say.
“To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he cried, and at the same moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The band immediately struck up “Conquest’s joyful thunder waken...” All rose and cried “Hurrah!” Bagratin also rose and shouted “Hurrah!” in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schn Grabern. Young Rostv’s ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. “To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he roared, “Hurrah!” and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued for a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had made and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a note lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, “To the health of the hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivnovich Bagratin!” and again his blue eyes grew moist. “Hurrah!” cried the three hundred voices again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed by Paul Ivnovich Kutzov:
Russians! O’er all barriers on! Courage conquest guarantees; Have we not Bagratin? He brings foemen to their knees,... etc.
As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed and Count Ily Rostv became more and more moved, more glass was smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshv, Narshkin, Uvrov, Dolgorkov, Aprksin, Valev, to the committee, to all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count Ily Rostv separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast, the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept outright.
Pierre sat opposite Dlokhov and Nicholas Rostv. As usual, he ate and drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some depressing and unsolved problem.
The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dlokhov’s intimacy with his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly through his spectacles, but that his wife’s connection with Dlokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the princess’ hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dlokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dlokhov’s handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his wife’s past and her relations with Dlokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how Dlokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dlokhov had come straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Hlne had smilingly expressed disapproval of Dlokhov’s living at their house, and how cynically Dlokhov had praised his wife’s beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a day.
“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know him. It would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.” He remembered the expression Dlokhov’s face assumed in his moments of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or shot a post-boy’s horse with a pistol. That expression was often on Dlokhov’s face when looking at him. “Yes, he is a bully,” thought Pierre, “to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that I, too, am afraid of him—and in fact I am afraid of him,” he thought, and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul. Dlokhov, Densov, and Rostv were now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostv was talking merrily to his two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one at the dinner. Rostv looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty, and in a word—an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostv and had not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor’s health was drunk, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.
