War And Peace полностью

The club members got together in the corner room to peruse these posters, and some of them were greatly amused by Karpushka’s being so rude to the French and saying things like they’ll get bloated on Russian cabbage, burst their bellies on Russian porridge and choke to death on the cabbage soup, and anyway they’re all dwarfs and any village lass could fork ’em away three at a time.

There were others, though, who did not approve of this tone, which they called vulgar and stupid. Rumour had it that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen, in fact all foreigners, from Moscow, and some of them had turned out to be spies and agents of Napoleon. But the main reason for putting this about was to be able to keep repeating the funny things Rostopchin said as he dispatched them. As the foreigners were being shepherded on board a barge heading for Nizhny, Rostopchin had said to them in French, ‘Keep yourselves to yourselves, get on this barge, and make sure it doesn’t turn into Charon’s ferry.’⁴ The word went round that all government offices had been evacuated from Moscow, which inspired Shinshin’s much-repeated little joke that at last Napoleon had given Moscow something to be grateful for. It was claimed that Mamonov’s regiment was costing him eight hundred thousand, and Bezukhov was stumping up even more, but the best thing about him was that he was going to get into uniform and ride at the head of his regiment, and spectators were welcome without paying at the gate.

‘You never say nice things about anybody,’ said Julie Drubetskoy, picking up a handful of lint and squeezing it between slender fingers that glittered with rings.

Julie would be leaving Moscow the following day, and she was giving a farewell soirée.

‘Bezukhov does look ridiculous, but he’s very nice, and his heart’s in the right place. How can you take pleasure to be so caustique?’

‘You’re fined!’ said a young man in a militiaman’s uniform, referred to by Julie as her knight in shining armour – he was going with her to Nizhny.

In Julie’s circle, as in many others in Moscow, the unwritten rule was to speak nothing but Russian, and anybody who slipped up and spoke some French had to pay a fine into the coffers of the Committee for Voluntary Donations.

‘A double fine for Frenchified Russian,’ said a Russian writer who happened to be within earshot. You can’t say “take pleasure to be. . .”’

‘You never say nice things about anybody,’ Julie persisted with the militiaman, ignoring the author and his remark.

‘I plead guilty to caustique,’ she said, ‘and I’ll even pay up for taking pleasure to tell the truth. But I won’t be held responsible for Frenchified Russian,’ she said, turning now to the scribbler. ‘I have neither the time nor the money to hire a teacher and learn Russian like Prince Golitsyn. Oh, but here he comes!’ added Julie. ‘Quand on . . . Oh no,’ she protested to the militiaman, ‘you can’t catch me like that. When one talks of the sun, out it comes! We were just talking about you.’ She gave a sweet smile as she welcomed Pierre with the easy lapse into falsehood that comes naturally to women in high society. ‘We were saying your regiment’s bound to be better than Mamonov’s.’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about the regiment,’ answered Pierre, kissing his hostess’s hand and sitting down beside her. ‘I’ve had enough of it!’

‘You will, er, take command personally, won’t you?’ said Julie, exchanging a sly, mocking glance with the militiaman.

Face to face with Pierre the militiaman had lost some of his causticity, and Julie’s smile now left him looking nonplussed. For all his good-natured absentmindedness Pierre had the kind of personality that soon put an end to any attempt to make a fool of him.

‘Oh no,’ Pierre chuckled with a glance down at his huge, bulging figure. ‘Too much for the French to aim at here, and I’m afraid I could never get up on a horse.’

Of all the people available as subjects for gossip Julie’s guests hit on the Rostovs.

‘I hear their finances are in a bad way,’ said Julie. ‘And the count’s not being very sensible. The Razumovskys did want to buy his house and their local estate, but it’s going on for ever. He’s asking too much.’

‘No, I think the sale will go through any day now,’ said someone. ‘Though you’d have to be crazy to buy anything in Moscow just now.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Julie. ‘Do you really think Moscow’s in danger?’

‘Well, why are you going away?’

‘Why am I going away? That’s a funny thing to ask. I’m going because . . . well, everybody’s going, and I’m not Joan of Arc or an Amazon.’

‘Quite so. Would you mind passing me a bit more of that linen?’

‘If he plays his cards right he ought to be able to pay off all his debts,’ said the militiaman, reverting to the subject of Count Rostov.