Pierre drove round to let Marya Dmitriyevna know that her wishes had been carried out – Kuragin had been banished from Moscow. The whole house was in a state of turmoil and alarm. Natasha was very poorly and Marya Dmitriyevna told him why on the quiet: once she had been told Anatole was married, that same night she had poisoned herself with arsenic, which she had got hold of by some secret means. After swallowing just a little she had become so scared she had woken Sonya up and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had been administered in good time and now she was out of danger, but still too weak even to think of being taken back to the country, and the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the count in his terrible distress, and Sonya constantly in tears, but he wasn’t allowed to see Natasha.
That day Pierre dined at the club and heard gossip on all sides about the attempted abduction of young Countess Rostov. He strenuously denied all such stories, assuring everyone there was nothing in them beyond the fact his brother-in-law had proposed to Natasha and been refused. It had occurred to Pierre that his duty lay in covering up the whole affair and restoring the young countess’s reputation.
He was dreading Prince Andrey’s return, but every day he drove round to the old prince to catch up on the latest news about him.
Mademoiselle Bourienne had kept old Prince Bolkonsky abreast of all the rumours flying about the town, and he had read the note to Princess Marya in which Natasha had broken off the engagement. He seemed more cheerful than usual and couldn’t wait to see his son again.
A few days after Anatole’s departure Pierre received a note from Prince Andrey letting him know he was back and inviting him over.
The first thing his father did when Prince Andrey arrived home in Moscow was hand over Natasha’s note to Princess Marya breaking off the engagement. (Mademoiselle Bourienne had filched the note from Princess Marya and handed it on to the old prince.) From his father’s lips he heard a rather embellished account of Natasha’s elopement.
Prince Andrey had arrived in the evening, and Pierre had come to see him the very next morning. He was expecting to find Prince Andrey in virtually the same state as Natasha, and so it came as a surprise for him to walk into the drawing-room and hear the sound of Prince Andrey’s voice in the study, holding forth enthusiastically on the subject of some affair going on up in Petersburg. The old prince and some other voice kept cutting across him from time to time. Princess Marya came out to meet Pierre. She sighed, looking back towards the door of the room where Prince Andrey was talking, in an obvious gesture of sympathy for him in all his grief, but Pierre could tell from her face that she was pleased by what had happened and also by her brother’s acceptance of his fiancée’s unfaithfulness.
‘He says he’s been expecting it,’ she commented. ‘I know his pride won’t let him tell us what he feels, but I must say he’s taken it better, far better, than I ever expected. It obviously wasn’t meant to be . . .’
‘So it really is all over, is it?’ said Pierre.
Princess Marya looked at him in some surprise, genuinely at a loss to understand how anyone could ask a question like that. Pierre went on into the study. Prince Andrey had changed a good deal and looked altogether healthier, but there was a new furrow running down between his brows. He stood there dressed in civilian clothes, arguing vehemently face to face with his father and Prince Meshchersky, and making bold gestures.
The topic of conversation was Speransky, news of whose sudden banishment and alleged treachery had just broken in Moscow.
‘Now he’s being criticized and censured by people who were raving about him only a month ago,’ Prince Andrey was saying, ‘and by other people incapable of understanding what he’s been aiming at. It’s too easy to criticize a man when he’s out of favour, and make him shoulder the blame for everybody else’s mistakes. But I tell you this: if any good has been done in the present reign it’s been done by him, and him alone . . .’ He saw Pierre and stopped. His face twitched and took on a nasty look. ‘And posterity will see justice done to him,’ he said, winding things up before turning to Pierre.
‘Now then, how are you? Still putting the weight on?’ he said with some warmth, though the new furrow had etched itself deeper still on his forehead. ‘Yes, I’m very well,’ he said, responding to Pierre’s inquiry with a smile. Pierre could see all too clearly what his smile meant: ‘I’m very well, but nobody’s bothered about the state of my health.’
