Flis labours had not been in vain. All the banquet—the meat dishes and the Lenten fare alike—was sumptuous, but still he could not be perfectly at ease till the end of dinner. He made signs to the carver, gave whispered directions to the footmen, and not without emotion awaited the arrival of each anticipated dish. Everything was capital. At the second course, with the gigantic sturgeon (at the sight of which Ilya Andreitch flushed with shamefaced delight), the footman began popping corks and pouring out champagne. After the fish, which made a certain sensation, Count Ilya Andreitch exchanged glances with the other stewards. ‘There will be a great many toasts, it’s time to begin!’ he whispered, and, glass in hand, he got up. All were silent, waiting for what he would say.
‘To the health of our sovereign, the Emperor!’ he shouted, and at the moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of pleasure and enthusiasm. At that instant they began playing: ‘Raise the shout of victory!’ All rose from their seats and shouted ‘Hurrah!’ And Bagration shouted
‘Hurrah!’ in the same voice in which he had shouted it in the field at Schongraben. The enthusiastic voice of young Rostov could be heard above the three hundred other voices. He was on the very point of tears. ‘The health of our sovereign, the Emperor,’ he roared, ‘hurrah!’ Emptying his glass at one gulp, he flung it on the floor. Many followed his example. And the loud shouts lasted for a long while. When the uproar subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass, and all began settling themselves again; and smiling at the noise they had made, began talking. Count Ilya Andreitch rose once more, glanced at a note that lay ; beside his plate, and proposed a toast to the health of the hero of our last campaign, Prince Pyotr Ivanovitch Bagration, and again the count’s blue eyes were dimmed with tears. ‘Hurrah!’ was shouted again by the three hundred voices of the guests, and instead of music this time a chorus of singers began to sing a cantata composed by Pavel Ivanovitch Kutuzov:
‘No hindrance bars a Russian’s way,
Valour’s the pledge of victory,
We have our Bagrations,
Our foes will all be at our feet,’ etc. etc.
As soon as the singers had finished, more and more toasts followed, at l which Count Ilya Andreitch became more and more moved, and more ' glass was broken and even more uproar was made. They drank to the health of Bekleshov, of Naryshkin, of Uvarov, of Dolgorukov, of Apraxin, of Valuev, to the health of the stewards, to the health of the committee, to the health of all the club members, to the health of all the I guests of the club, and finally and separately to the health of the organ- [ iser of the banquet, Count Ilya Andreitch. At that toast the count took out his handkerchief and, hiding his face in it, fairly broke down.
IV
Pierre was sitting opposite Dolohov and Nikolay Rostov. He ate greedily and drank heavily, as he always did. But those who knew him slightly could see that some great change was taking place in him that day. He was silent all through dinner, and blinking and screwing up his I eyes, looked about him, or letting his eyes rest on something with an air of complete absent-mindedness, rubbed the bridge of his nose with his finger. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed not to be seeing or hearing what was passing about him and to be thinking of some one thing, something painful and unsettled.
This unsettled question that worried him was due to the hints dropped J by the princess, his cousin, at Moscow in regard to Dolohov’s close J intimacy with his wife, and to an anonymous letter he had received that I morning, which, with the vile jocoseness peculiar to all anonymous letters, had said that he didn’t seem to see clearly through his spectacles, and that his wife’s connection with Dolohov was a secret from no one but
himself. Pierre did not absolutely believe either the princess’s hints, or the anonymous letter, but he was afraid now to look at Dolohov, who sat opposite him. Every time his glance casually met Dolohov’s handsome, insolent eyes, Pierre felt as though something awful, hideous was rising up in his soul, and he made haste to turn away. Involuntarily recalling all his wife’s past and her attitude to Dolohov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might well be true, might at least appear to be the truth, if only it had not related to his wife. Pierre could not help recalling how Dolohov, who had been completely reinstated, had returned to Petersburg and come to see him. Dolohov had taken advantage of his friendly relations with Pierre in their old rowdy days, had come straight to his house, and Pierre had established him in it and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Ellen, smiling, had expressed her dissatisfaction at Dolohov’s staying in their house, and how cynically Dolohov had praised his wife’s beauty to him, and how he had never since left them up to the time of their coming to Moscow.
