Berg smiled with a sense of his own superiority over a feeble woman. He paused and reflected that this charming wife of his was indeed a feeble woman, incapable of ever attaining any of the qualities needed for masculine prowess – ‘ein Mann zu sein’,5 as the Germans put it. Meanwhile Vera was also smiling, with her own sense of superiority over a decent, well-behaved husband, who nevertheless, as she saw it, took such a wrong view of life – as all men did. Berg judged women by the standards of his own wife and considered all of them feeble and foolish. Vera judged men by the standards of her own husband and, extrapolating from him alone, she found all men conceited and self-centred, each convinced he was the only one with any sense whereas he didn’t actually understand anything at all.
Berg got to his feet and gingerly embraced his wife, taking care not to squash the fine lace cape that had cost him a pretty penny, and he gave her a peck in the middle of her mouth.
‘There’s just one thing – we mustn’t rush into having children,’ he said, linking one thought to another at some subconscious level.
‘No,’ responded Vera. ‘That’s something I certainly don’t want. We must live for society.’
‘Princess Yusupov was wearing one just like that,’ said Berg, smiling with pleasure and bonhomie as he pointed to the cape.
At that moment they were informed that Count Bezukhov had arrived. The young newlyweds smiled at each other with self-satisfaction on either side, each claiming unspoken credit for this visit.
‘It’s all a question of knowing how to cultivate the right people,’ thought Berg. ‘And knowing how to behave!’
‘But, listen, when I’m looking after a guest,’ said Vera, ‘please don’t interrupt me, because I know what they all need, and what needs to be said to different people.’
Berg was smiling too.
‘Oh, we can’t have that. Sometimes men need men’s talk,’ he said.
Pierre was shown into a small drawing-room where no one could sit down without disrupting the neat symmetry and tidiness, so it was perfectly natural and not the least bit strange that Berg, while magnanimously offering to disturb the symmetry of an armchair or a sofa for an honoured guest, found himself thoroughly uncomfortable and in several minds over how to do it, so he left his guest to resolve the matter of choice. Pierre shattered the symmetry by moving a chair up for himself, and with that the soirée was under way, with Berg and Vera falling over each other in their eagerness to look after the guest.
Vera had decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be treated to conversation about the French embassy, so without further ado she launched forth on that subject. Berg then decided the conversation needed a touch of masculinity, so he cut across his wife’s remarks with a reference to the subject of the war with Austria, followed by an instinctive switch from generalities to his own personal interests and the various proposals he had had, to persuade him to take part in the Austrian campaign, and his reasons for declining. Despite the desultory conversation and Vera’s resentment of the interpolated masculine touch, both host and hostess were satisfied that, although there was only one guest present, the soirée had got off to a good start, that their soirée and all the other soirées were like peas in pod, with the same conversation, tea and lighted candles.
It wasn’t long before Boris, an old comrade of Berg’s, arrived. There was a tinge of patronizing high-mindedness in his attitude to Berg and Vera. Then came the colonel and his lady, then the general himself, then the Rostovs, by which time the soirée really had become exactly like every other soirée. Berg and Vera could hardly contain their smiles of rapture at the sight of all this traffic in their drawing-room, at the blurred murmur of conversation and the rustle of skirts as people curtsied and bowed. Everything was just like everywhere else, especially the general, who complimented them on their rooms, clapped Berg on the shoulder and then took charge in a fatherly way of arranging the table for a game of boston. The general sat down alongside Count Ilya Rostov, who was next in seniority to himself. The old folk were grouped together, and so were the youngsters, and with the hostess at the tea table, the cakes in their silver basket the image of the cakes at the Panins’ soirée, absolutely everything was like everywhere else.
CHAPTER 21
Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had no choice but to sit down and play boston with the old count, the general and the colonel. In his position at the card table he happened to be sitting across from Natasha, and he was struck by a curious change that had come over her since the day of the ball. She was quiet, and not only was she less pretty than she had been at the ball, she would have looked rather plain but for her air of sweet indifference to everything.
