‘So, you don’t know what’s going on?’ roared the old prince. ‘Well I do! You French spy, you slave of Bonaparte. You’re a spy! Get out, I tell you! Get out of my house!’ And he slammed the door. Métivier gave a shrug and walked over to Mademoiselle Bourienne, who had come running in from the next room when she heard all the shouting.
‘The prince is not quite himself – a touch of bile and a rush of blood to the brain. Don’t be too concerned. I’ll look in tomorrow,’ said Métivier, and he scurried away putting a finger to his lips.
Through the door came the sound of shuffling slippers and a voice shouting, ‘Spies and traitors! Traitors everywhere! No peace in your own house!’
When Métivier had gone the old prince summoned his daughter and deluged her with the whole fury of his passion. She was to blame for letting the spy in. Hadn’t he told her, yes, told her, to put the names down on a list and not let anyone else in? Why had she let that scoundrel in? It was all her fault. He couldn’t get a minute’s peace with her in the house – he couldn’t even die in peace.
‘No, madam, we must part, we must part, I tell you! I can’t take any more,’ he said, storming out of the room. And as if to rob her of any crumb of consolation, he walked back in, did his best to look calm and collected, and added, ‘And don’t imagine that I’ve said this in the heat of the moment. Oh no, I’m perfectly calm and I’ve given it a lot of thought. It’s going to happen. We must part. You can find yourself somewhere else to live! . . .’ And he couldn’t even leave it at that. With the vicious fury found only in a man inspired by love, and in obvious anguish himself, he shook his fists at her and roared, ‘Oh! If only some fool would marry her!’ With that he slammed the door, sent for Mademoiselle Bourienne and subsided in his study.
At two o’clock the six luncheon guests arrived and foregathered in the drawing-room to wait for him – the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin and his nephew, General Chatrov, a former army colleague of the prince’s, and two representatives of the younger generation, Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy. Boris, who had only recently come back to Moscow on leave, had been most anxious to meet Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky and had wormed his way in so effectively that for his sake the old prince had made an exception to his usual rule of keeping all young bachelors out of the house.
The prince did not receive ‘society people’ as such, but his house was the focal point of a small clique where – though there wasn’t much talk of this in town – it was more flattering to be received than anywhere else. Boris had latched on to this a week previously when he had heard Rostopchin turn down an invitation from the commander-in-chief of Moscow, who had invited him to dinner on St Nicholas’s day, with the words, ‘That’s the day when I always visit Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky to pay my devotion to the relics.’
‘Oh yes, of course . . .’ replied the commander-in-chief. ‘How is he, by the way?’
The little party which had come together before luncheon in the old-fashioned drawing-room with its high ceiling and old furniture was much like a law-court in solemn session. They sat there in silence, and if they did speak it was in subdued tones. Prince Nikolay, when he came in, looked grim and reluctant to speak. Princess Marya seemed even more meek and mild than usual. The guests preferred to leave her out of the conversation, since it was obvious that she wasn’t up to it. Count Rostopchin held the thread of the conversation all on his own, treating them to the latest news, first from the town and then the world of politics.
Lopukhin and the old general put in the odd remark now and then. Prince Nikolay presided like a judge receiving a submission, with nothing more than the occasional grunt or the briefest of words to indicate that he was taking stock of the facts laid before him. The tone of the conversation was based on the assumption that no one approved of what was being done in the political world. Events were described that clearly confirmed the idea of everything going from bad to worse, but in every account and every critical discourse it was remarkable how each speaker held back, or was held back by someone else, if he got anywhere near the borderline where criticism might have touched on the person of the Tsar himself.
Over the meal the conversation turned to recent political developments, in particular Napoleon’s seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s lands, and the Russian note, hostile to Napoleon, that had been sent to every European court.2
