‘But she’s stupid. I used to say that myself – she is stupid,’ he thought. ‘This can’t be love. No, there’s something disgusting about the way she has aroused me – it’s forbidden fruit. Somebody told me that her brother, Anatole, was in love with her, and she with him, and there was a bit of a scandal, and that’s why Anatole was sent away. Hippolyte’s another brother . . . And her father is Prince Vasily . . . It’s not good,’ he mused. And just as he was thinking this through (the thoughts never came to any conclusion), he caught himself smiling and became conscious of another pattern of thoughts bubbling up through the earlier ones – that he was simultaneously dwelling on her uselessness and dreaming of how she would become his wife, how she might fall in love with him, how she might change into someone quite different, and perhaps everything he had thought and heard about her might be untrue. And again he saw her, not as some daughter born to Prince Vasily – no, he saw her whole body thinly veiled by a grey dress. ‘No, but, why did I never think of that before?’ And again he told himself that it was impossible for there to be anything disgusting or, as he had thought, unnatural or dishonourable, in this marriage. He remembered her earlier words and glances, and the words and glances from other people who had seen them together. He remembered the words and glances of Anna Pavlovna, when she had spoken about his house, and hundreds of hints like that from Prince Vasily and other people, and he horrified himself by wondering whether one way or another he might already have tied himself into something that was obviously not a good thing to be involved in, something he ought not to do. But the moment he began to find a way of expressing this to himself, from another part of his mind she emerged again, her image floating up in all its feminine loveliness.
CHAPTER 2
In November 1805 Prince Vasily was due to set off on a tour of inspection taking him through four provinces. He had arranged this assignment for two reasons: first, to visit his run-down estates and then to pick up his son, Anatole, from where his regiment was stationed and take him on a visit to old Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky, with a view to marrying him to the rich old man’s daughter. But before he could leave and deal with these new matters, Prince Vasily wanted to settle things with Pierre, who for some days now had certainly been hanging about the house (Prince Vasily’s house where he was still staying), mooning around stupidly and looking all excited when Hélène was there, as befits a young man in love, but he had still not made a proposal.
‘This is fine, but it’s got to be settled,’ Prince Vasily said to himself one morning, with a sad sigh, feeling that Pierre, who owed him so much (‘but let that pass’), was not behaving too well in this matter. ‘Ah, the folly of youth . . . still, God bless him,’ thought Prince Vasily, much enjoying his own good-heartedness, ‘but it’s got to be settled. It’s little Hélène’s name-day the day after tomorrow. I’ll invite a few people round, and if he can’t see what he’s supposed to do, I’ll have to do it for him. Yes, it’s up to me. I am her father.’
