At that moment the door, that dreaded door at which Pierre had gazed so long and which usually opened so softly, was suddenly flung open and banged against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out wringing her hands.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, in despair. ‘He is passing away, and you leave me alone.’
Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikhaylovna swooped down, grabbed the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest princess and Prince Vasily pulled themselves together and followed. A few minutes later the eldest princess was the first to re-emerge with a pale, dry face, biting her lip. At the sight of Pierre her face crumbled into uncontrolled hatred.
‘Oh, it’s all right for you,’ she said, ‘you’ve got what you wanted.’ She buried her face in her handkerchief and ran sobbing out of the room.
Then came Prince Vasily. He staggered as far as the sofa where Pierre was sitting and sank down on it, covering his eyes with one hand. Pierre noticed he was pale, and his jaw was quivering and twitching as if he was having a fit.
‘Oh, my dear boy,’ he said, taking Pierre by the elbow, his voice ringing with a sincerity and weakness that Pierre had never seen in him before, ‘we sin, we cheat, and what’s it all for? I’m over fifty, my friend . . . And I too . . . Everything ends in death, everything does. Death is so horrible . . .’ And he burst into tears.
Anna Mikhaylovna was the last to emerge. She came over to Pierre with slow and quiet steps. ‘Pierre,’ she said. Pierre looked inquiringly at her. She kissed the young man on the forehead, wetting him with her tears. She did not speak for a while, but then she said, ‘He’s gone . . .’
Pierre gazed at her over his spectacles.
‘Come on. I’ll take you in again. Cry if you can. There is nothing like tears for the easing of pain.’ She led him into the dark room, and Pierre was glad that in there no one could see his face. Anna Mikhaylovna left him alone, and when she came back he had put one arm under his head and was fast asleep.
In the morning Anna Mikhaylovna said to Pierre, ‘Yes, my dear, it is a great loss for all of us. I cannot speak for you. But the Lord will keep you. You are still young, and now you are, I hope, at the head of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well enough to be sure you won’t let this go to your head, but it does impose certain duties, and you must be a man.’
Pierre said nothing.
‘Perhaps, later, I may tell you, my dear, that if I had not been there . . . God knows what might have happened. You know my uncle promised me only the day before yesterday he wouldn’t forget Boris. But he didn’t have enough time. I do hope, my dear friend, that you will carry out your father’s wishes.’
Pierre didn’t understand a word she was saying. Blushing shyly, he looked at Anna Mikhaylovna and still said nothing. After her little talk with him, Anna Mikhaylovna drove home to the Rostovs, and went to bed. When she awoke the following morning, she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details of Count Bezukhov’s death. She said the count had died exactly as she would wish to die, his end had been more than touching, it had been truly inspiring, the last meeting between father and son had been so moving that she couldn’t recall it without weeping, and she couldn’t say who had behaved better in those dreadful moments – the father, who had remembered everything and everyone so well at the last and had said such moving things to his son, or Pierre, who made such a heartbreaking sight, so utterly distraught and yet struggling to hide his grief so as not to upset his dying father. ‘It is hard to bear, but it does one good. It uplifts the soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son,’ she said. She whispered to them in the strictest confidence, sotto voce, about the machinations of the princess and Prince Vasily, of which she could not approve.
CHAPTER 22
