War And Peace полностью

Prince Andrey had been two years in the country without a single break. All the innovations introduced by Pierre on his estates without any concrete results, because of his continual flitting from one enterprise to another, had been carried through by Prince Andrey privately and without any noticeable effort on his part. He possessed in the highest degree the one quality that Pierre totally lacked: the practical application to get things going with no fuss or struggle.

On one of his estates three hundred serfs had been given the status of free farm-labourers (one of the first examples of this in Russia), and on the others forced labour had been replaced by the payment of rent. At Bogucharovo he was paying for a trained midwife to look after the peasant-women in childbirth, and a salaried priest was teaching the children of the peasants and house servants how to read and write. Prince Andrey spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his son, who was still being looked after by nurses. The other half he spent ‘cloistered at Bogucharovo’, as his father put it. For all the indifference to current events that he had shown to Pierre, he followed them closely, receiving a constant stream of books, and he was amazed to discover that when people came to see him or his father fresh from Petersburg, the very maelstrom of life, they were all miles behind him in their awareness of recent political developments at home and abroad, even though he had never left the countryside.

When not engaged in the management of his estates or voracious reading over a wide area, Prince Andrey had used the time to do a searching study of our last two military debâcles, and had also drafted a series of reforms in our service rules and regulations.

In the spring of 1808 Prince Andrey set off to visit the Ryazan estates, which now belonged to his son, with him as trustee.

Warmed by the spring sunshine, he drove along in his carriage, glancing at the first shoots of grass, the first leaves on the birch-trees and the first spring clouds looking fluffy and white as they floated through the bright blue sky. His mind was blank as he looked out on both sides, a picture of cheery unconcern.

They went over the crossing where he and Pierre had had their conversation a year before. They drove through a muddy village, past threshing floors and green winter crops, down and over a bridge still packed with snow, back uphill along a clay road gouged into hollows by the rain, past strips of stubble and a few bushes turning green, and then at last they drove into a wood with birch-trees on either side of the road. In the wood there was no wind and it was almost hot. The birches stood there with no sign of movement, spangled with their sticky green leaves, while lilac-coloured flowers and the first shoots of new green grass pushed up and peeped out from under last year’s leaves. A scattering of baby firs stood out as coarse evergreens among the birches – a nasty reminder of winter. The horses neighed as they entered the forest, visibly perspiring.

Andrey’s servant, Pyotr, said something to the coachman. He agreed, but his sympathy didn’t seem to satisfy Pyotr, who turned on the box to face his master.

‘Nice day, sir!’ he said with a respectful smile.

‘You what?’

‘It’s nice, isn’t it, sir?’

‘What is he talking about? . . . Oh, he must mean the spring,’ thought Prince Andrey, glancing around. ‘That’s it. Everything’s turning green . . . as early as this! The birch-trees, the wild cherries . . . even the alders are just on the turn. But not the oak, no sign there. Look, there’s one.’

There at the roadside stood an oak-tree. It must have been ten times older than the birch-trees that made up the wood, ten times as thick and twice the height of any of them. That tree was enormous – it would have taken two men to join hands round its girth – with branches broken off it ages ago and its old, cracked bark all scarred and broken. There is stood among the beaming birches, with its great gnarled hands and fingers sprawling out awkwardly and unevenly, a truculent, sneering monster. He alone refused to submit to the charms of spring; he would not countenance either springtime or sunshine.

‘Springtime, love and happiness!’ this tree seemed to be saying. ‘Aren’t you fed up with it all, this stupid, senseless sham? It never changes, the same old trick! There is no springtime, sunshine or happiness. Just look at those dead fir-trees sitting there where they’ve been brought down, always the same every one of them, and look at me sticking out broken, peeling fingers wherever they care to grow – out of my back, out of my sides. That’s how they’ve grown, and that’s how I am, and I don’t believe in any of your hopes and shams.’

Prince Andrey drove on through the forest, glancing back several times at the oak-tree as if he was expecting it to do something. Flowers and grass grew underneath it, but it just stood there among them, an ugly, awkward thing, stock-still and scowling.