《War And Peace》 Epilogue1 CHAPTER VIII
by Leo Tolstoy
THE ONE THING that sometimes troubled Nikolay in his government of his serfs
was his hasty temper and his old habit, acquired in the hussars, of making free
use of his fists. At first he saw nothing blameworthy in this, but in the second
year of his married life his views on that form of correction underwent a sudden
change.
One summer day he had sent for the village elder who had taken control at
Bogutcharovo on the death of Dron. The man was accused of various acts of fraud
and neglect. Nikolay went out to the steps to see him, and at the first answers
the village elder made, shouts and blows were heard in the hall. On going back
indoors to lunch, Nikolay went up to his wife, who was sitting with her head
bent low over her embroidery frame, and began telling her, as he always did,
everything that had interested him during the morning, and among other things
about the Bogutcharovo elder. Countess Marya, turning red and pale and setting
her lips, sat in the same pose, making no reply to her husband.
“The insolent rascal,” he said, getting hot at the mere recollection.
“Well, he should have told me he was drunk, he did not see … Why, what is it,
Marie?” he asked all at once.
Countess Marya raised her head, tried to say something, but hurriedly looked
down again, trying to control her lips.
“What is it? What is wrong, my darling? …” His plain wife always looked her
best when she was in tears. She never wept for pain or anger, but always from
sadness and pity. And when she wept her luminous eyes gained an indescribable
charm.
As soon as Nikolay took her by the hand, she was unable to restrain herself,
and burst into tears.
“Nikolay, I saw … he was in fault, but you, why did you! Nikolay!” and she
hid her face in her hands.
Nikolay did not speak; he flushed crimson, and walking away from her, began
pacing up and down in silence. He knew what she was crying about, but he could
not all at once aGREe with her in his heart that what he had been used to from
childhood, what he looked upon as a matter of course, was wrong. “It's
sentimental nonsense, old wives' cackle—or is she right?” he said to himself.
Unable to decide that question, he glanced once more at her suffering and loving
face, and all at once he felt that she was right, and that he had known himself
to be in fault a long time before.
“Marie,” he said, softly, going up to her: “it shall never happen again; I
give you my word. Never,” he repeated in a shaking voice like a boy begging for
forgiveness.
The tears flowed faster from his wife's eyes. She took his hand and kissed
it.
“Nikolay, when did you break your cameo?” she said to change the subject,
as she scrutinised the finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of
Laocoon.
“To-day; it was all the same thing. O Marie, don't remind me of it!” He
flushed again. “I give you my word of honour that it shall never happen again.
And let this be a reminder to me for ever,” he said, pointing to the broken
ring.
From that time forward, whenever in interviews with his village elders and
foremen he felt the blood rush to his face and his fists began to clench,
Nikolay turned the ring round on his finger and dropped his eyes before the man
who angered him. Twice a year, however, he would forget himself, and then, going
to his wife, he confessed, and again promised that this would really be the last
time.
“Marie, you must despise me,” he said to her. “I deserve it.”
name=Marker16>“You must run away, make haste and run away if you feel yourself unable to
control yourself,” his wife said mournfully, trying to comfort him.
In the society of the nobility of the province Nikolay was respected but not
liked. The local politics of the nobility did not interest him. And in
consequence he was looked upon by some people as proud and by others as a fool.
In summer his whole time from the spring sowing to the harvest was spent in
looking after the land. In the autumn he gave himself up with the same
business-like seriousness to hunting, going out for a month or two at a time
with his huntsmen, dogs, and horses on hunting expeditions. In the winter he
visited their other properties and spent his time in reading, chiefly historical
books, on which he spent a certain sum regularly every year. He was forming for
himself, as he used to say, a serious library, and he made it a principle to
read through every book he bought. He would sit over his book in his study with
an important air; and what he had at first undertaken as a duty became an
habitual pursuit, which afforded him a special sort of gratification in the
feeling that he was engaged in serious study. Except when he went on business to
visit their other estates, he spent the winter at home with his family, entering
into all the petty cares and interests of the mother and children. With his wife
he got on better and better, every day discovering fresh spiritual treasures in
her.
From the time of Nikolay's marriage Sonya had lived in his house. Before
their marriage, Nikolay had told his wife all that had passed between him and
Sonya, blaming himself and praising her conduct. He begged Princess Marya to be
kind and affectionate to his cousin. His wife was fully sensible of the wrong
her husband had done his cousin; she felt herself too guilty toward Sonya; she
fancied her wealth had influenced Nikolay in his choice, could find no fault in
Sonya, and wished to love her. But she could not like her, and often found evil
feelings in her soul in regard to her, which she could not overcome.
One day she was talking with her friend Natasha of Sonya and her own
injustice towards her.
“Do you know what,” said Natasha; “you have read the Gospel a GREat deal;
there is a passage there that applies exactly to Sonya.”
“What is it?” Countess Marya asked in surprise.
“ ‘To him that hath shall be given, and to him that hath not shall be taken
even that that he hath,' do you remember? She is the one that hath not; why, I
don't know; perhaps she has no egoism. I don't know; but from her is taken away,
and everything has been taken away. I am sometimes awfully sorry for her. I used
in old days to want Nikolay to marry her but I always had a sort of presentiment
that it would not happen. She is a barren flower, you know, like what one
finds among the strawberry flowers. Sometimes I am sorry for her, and sometimes
I think she does not feel it as we should have felt it.”
And although Countess Marya argued with Natasha that those words of the
Gospel must not be taken in that sense, looking at Sonya, she aGREed with the
explanation given by Natasha. It did seem really as though Sonya did not feel
her position irksome, and was quite reconciled to her fate as a barren
flower. She seemed to be fond not so much of people as of the whole family.
Like a cat, she had attached herself not to persons but to the house. She waited
on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children, was always ready to
perform small services, which she seemed particularly clever at; but all she did
was unconsciously taken for granted, without much gratitude.…
The Bleak Hills house had been built up again, but not on the same scale as
under the old prince.
The buildings, begun in days of straitened means, were more than simple. The
immense mansion on the old stone foundation was of wood, plastered only on the
inside. The GREat rambling house, with its unstained plank floors, was furnished
with the simplest rough sofas and chairs and tables made of their own
birch-trees by the labor of their serf carpenters. The house was very roomy,
with quarters for the house-serfs and accommodation for visitors.
The relations of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys would sometimes come on
visits to Bleak Hills with their families, sixteen horses and dozens of
servants, and stay for months. And four times a year—on the namedays and
birthdays of the master and mistress—as many as a hundred visitors would be put
up for a day or two. The rest of the year the regular life of the household went
on in unbroken routine, with its round of duties, and of teas, breakfasts,
dinners, and suppers, all provided out of home-grown produce.
