Page 337 of 470
“Yes, it really is Bezkhov in a coachman’s coat, with a queer-looking old boy. Really,” said Natsha, “look, look!”
“No, it’s not he. How can you talk such nonsense?”
“Mamma,” screamed Natsha, “I’ll stake my head it’s he! I assure you! Stop, stop!” she cried to the coachman.
But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchnski Street came more carts and carriages, and the Rostvs were being shouted at to move on and not block the way.
In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostvs all saw Pierre—or someone extraordinarily like him—in a coachman’s coat, going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a small, beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed a face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and respectfully touching Pierre’s elbow said something to him and pointed to the carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at first understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the direction the old man indicated, he recognized Natsha, and following his first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly toward the coach. But having taken a dozen steps he seemed to remember something and stopped.
Natsha’s face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical kindliness.
“Peter Kirlovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is wonderful!” she cried, holding out her hand to him. “What are you doing? Why are you like this?”
Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked along beside her while the coach still moved on.
“What is the matter, Count?” asked the countess in a surprised and commiserating tone.
“What? What? Why? Don’t ask me,” said Pierre, and looked round at Natsha whose radiant, happy expression—of which he was conscious without looking at her—filled him with enchantment.
“Are you remaining in Moscow, then?”
Pierre hesitated.
“In Moscow?” he said in a questioning tone. “Yes, in Moscow. Good-by!”
“Ah, if only I were a man! I’d certainly stay with you. How splendid!” said Natsha. “Mamma, if you’ll let me, I’ll stay!”
Pierre glanced absently at Natsha and was about to say something, but the countess interrupted him.
“You were at the battle, we heard.”
“Yes, I was,” Pierre answered. “There will be another battle tomorrow...” he began, but Natsha interrupted him.
“But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself....”
“Oh, don’t ask me, don’t ask me! I don’t know myself. Tomorrow... But no! Good-by, good-by!” he muttered. “It’s an awful time!” and dropping behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.
Natsha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.
For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdev. This is how it happened.
When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his interview with Count Rostopchn, he could not for some time make out where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Hlne, he felt suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess was very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from Bazdev’s widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband’s books, as she herself was leaving for the country.
“Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will come directly,” Pierre replied to the major-domo.
But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door. There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head and quickening his pace went down the street.
Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph Bazdev’s books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.
He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the Patriarch’s Ponds, where the widow Bazdev’s house was.
Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre, experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to talk to his driver.
The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Krmlin and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills gates and a great battle would be fought there.
Having reached the Patriarch’s Ponds Pierre found the Bazdevs’ house, where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate. Gersim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhk five years before with Joseph Bazdev, came out in answer to his knock.
“At home?” asked Pierre.
“Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danlovna has gone to the Torzhk estate with the children, your excellency.”
“I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books,” said Pierre.
