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AT SUPPER no more was said of politics and societies, but a conversation
turned on the subject most agreeable to Nikolay—reminiscences of 1812. Denisov
started the talk, and Pierre was particularly cordial and amusing. And the party
broke up on the friendliest terms. Nikolay, after undressing in his study, and
giving instructions to his steward, who was awaiting him, went in his
dressing-gown to his bedroom, and found his wife still at her writing-table: she
was writing something.
“What are you writing, Marie?” asked Nikolay. Countess Marya flushed. She
was afraid that what she was writing would not be understood and approved by her
husband.
She would have liked to conceal what she was writing from him, and at the
same time, she was glad he had caught her, and she had to tell him.
“It's my diary, Nikolay,” she said, handing him a blue note-book, filled
with her firm, bold handwriting.
“A diary!” … said Nikolay with a shade of mockery, and he took the
note-book. He saw written in French:
“December 4.—Andryusha” (their elder boy) “would not be dressed
when he waked up this morning, and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was
naughty and obstinate. I tried threatening him, but he only got more
ill-tempered. Then I undertook to manage him, left him, and helped nurse get the
other children up, and told him I did not love him. For a long while he was
quiet, as though he were surprised. Then he rushed out to me in his night-shirt,
and sobbed so that I could not soothe him for a long while. It was clear that
what distressed him most was having grieved me. Then, when I gave him his report
in the evening, he cried piteously again as he kissed me. One can do anything
with him by tenderness.”
“What is his report?” asked Nikolay.
“I have begun giving the elder ones little marks in the evening of how they
have behaved.”
Nikolay glanced at the luminous eyes watching him, and went on turning over,
and read the diary. Everything in the children's lives was noted down in it that
seemed to the mother of interest as showing the character of the children, or
leading to general conclusions as to methods of bringing them up. It consisted
mostly of the most trifling details; but they did not seem so either to the
mother or the father, as he now, for the first time, read this record of his
children's lives. On the 5th of December there was the note:
“Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he should have no pudding. He had
none; but he looked so miserably and greedily at the others while they were
eating. I believe that punishing them by depriving them of sweet things only
develops greediness. Must tell Nikolay.”
Nikolay put the book down and looked at his wife. The luminous eyes looked at
him doubtfully, to see whether he approved or not. There could be no doubt of
Nikolay's approval, of his enthusiastic admiration of his wife.
Perhaps there was no need to do it so pedantically; perhaps there was no need
of it all, thought Nikolay; but this untiring, perpetual spiritual effort,
directed only at the children's moral welfare, enchanted him. If Nikolay could
have analysed his feelings, he would have found that the very groundwork of his
steady and tender love and pride in his wife was always this feeling of awe at
her spirituality, at that elevated moral world that he could hardly enter, in
which his wife always lived.
He was proud that she was so clever and so good, recognising his own
insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and he rejoiced the more that
she, with her soul, not only belonged to him, but was a part of his very
self.
“I quite, quite approve, my darling!” he said, with a significant air.
“And,” after a brief pause, he added, “And I have behaved badly to-day. You
were not in the study. Pierre and I were arguing, and I lost my temper. I
couldn't help it. He is such a child. I don't know what would become of him if
Natasha didn't keep him at her apron-strings. Can you imagine what he went to
Petersburg about?…They have made a…”
“Yes, I know,” said Countess Marya. “Natasha told me.”
“Oh, well, you know, then,” Nikolay went on, getting hot at the mere
recollection of the discussion. “He wants to persuade me that it's the duty of
every honest man to work against the government when one's sworn allegiance and
duty.…I am sorry you were not there. As it was, they all fell upon me, Denisov,
and Natasha, too.…Natasha is too amusing. We know she twists him round her
little finger, but when it comes to discussion—she hasn't an idea to call her
own—she simply repeats his words,” added Nikolay, yielding to that irresistible
impulse that tempts one to criticise one's nearest and dearest. Nikolay was
unaware that what he was saying of Natasha might be said word for word of
himself in relation to his wife.
“Yes, I have noticed that,” said Countess Marya.
“When I told him that duty and sworn allegiance come before everything, he
began arguing God knows what. It was a pity you were not there. What would you
have said?”
“To my thinking, you were quite right. I told Natasha so. Pierre says that
every one is suffering, and being ill-treated and corrupted, and that it's our
duty to help our neighbours. Of course, he is right,” said Countess Marya;
“but he forgets that we have other nearer duties, which God Himself has marked
out for us, and that we may run risks for ourselves, but not for our
children.”
“Yes, yes, that's just what I told him,” cried Nikolay, who actually
fancied he had said just that. “And they had all their say out about loving
one's neighbour, and Christianity, and all the rest of it, before Nikolinka, who
had slipped in there, and was pulling all my things to pieces.”
“Ah, do you know, Nikolay, I am so often worried about Nikolinka,” said
Countess Marya. “He is such an exceptional boy. And I am afraid I neglect him
for my own. All of us have our children; we all have our own ties; while he has
nobody. He is always alone with his thoughts.”
“Well, I don't think you have anything to reproach yourself with on his
account. Everything the fondest mother could do for her son you have done, and
are doing, for him. And of course I am glad you do. He is a splendid boy,
splendid! This evening he was lost in a sort of dream listening to Pierre. And
only fancy, we got up to go in to supper. I look; and there he has broken
everything on my table to fragments, and he told me of it at once. I have never
known him to tell a fib. He's a splendid boy!” repeated Nikolay, who did not in
his heart like Nikolinka, but always felt moved to acknowledge that he was a
splendid fellow.
“Still I am not the same as a mother,” said Countess Marya. “I feel that
it's not the same, and it worries me. He's a wonderful boy; but I am awfully
afraid for him. Companionship will be good for him.”
“Oh, well, it's not for long; next summer I shall take him to Petersburg,”
said Nikolay. “Yes, Pierre always was, and always will be, a dreamer,” he went
on, returning to the discussion in the study, which had evidently worked on his
feelings. “Why, what concern is all that of mine—Araktcheev's misdoings, and
all the rest of it—what concern was it of mine, when at the time of our marriage
I had so many debts that they were going to put me in prison, and a mother who
couldn't see it or understand it. And then you, and the children, and my work.
It's not for my own pleasure I am from morning to night looking after the men,
or in the counting-house. No, I know I must work to comfort my mother, repay
you, and not leave my children in beggary, as I was left myself.”
Countess Marya wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone; that
he attached too much importance to this work. But she knew that she must
not say this, and that it would be useless. She only took his hand and kissed
it. He accepted this gesture on his wife's part as a sign of assent and approval
of his words, and after a few moments of silent thought he went on thinking
aloud.
“Do you know, Marie,” he said, “Ilya Mitrofanitch” (this was a steward of
his) “was here to-day from the Tambov estate, and he tells me they will give
eighty thousand for the forest.” And with an eager face Nikolay began talking
of the possibility of buying Otradnoe back within a very short time. “Another
ten years of life, and I shall leave the children … in a capital
position.”
Countess Marya listened to her husband, and understood all he said to her.
She knew that when he was thus thinking aloud, he would sometimes ask what he
had been saying, and was vexed when he noticed she had been thinking of
something else. But she had to make a great effort to attend, because she did
not feel the slightest interest in what he was saying to her. She looked at him,
and though she would not exactly think of other things, her feelings were
elsewhere. She felt a submissive, tender love for this man, who could never
understand all that she understood; and she seemed, for that very reason, to
love him the more, with a shade of passionate tenderness. Apart from that
feeling, which absorbed her entirely, and prevented her from following the
details of her husband's plans, thoughts kept floating through her brain that
had nothing in common with what he was saying. She thought of her nephew (what
her husband had said of his excitement over Pierre's talk had made a great
impression on her), and various traits of his tender, sensitive character rose
to her mind; and while she thought of her nephew, she thought, too, of her own
children. She did not compare her nephew with her own children, but she compared
her own feeling for him, and her feeling for her children, and felt, with
sorrow, that in her feeling for Nikolinka there was something wanting.
Sometimes the idea had occurred to her that this difference was due to his
age; but she felt guilty towards him, and in her soul vowed to amend, and to do
the impossible, that is, in this life, to love her husband, and her children,
and Nikolinka, and all her fellow-creatures, as Christ loved men. Countess
Marya's soul was always striving towards the infinite, the eternal, and the
perfect, and so she could never be at peace. A stern expression came into her
face from that hidden, lofty suffering of the spirit, weighed down by the flesh.
Nikolay gazed at her. “My God! What will become of us, if she dies, as I dread,
when she looks like that?” he thought, and standing before the holy images, he
began to repeat his evening prayer.
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