‘Ah, Pierre,’ said the countess, going up to her husband, ‘you don’t know r what a plight our poor Anatole is in . . .’ She stopped short, seeing in her husband’s bowed head, in his glittering eyes, in his resolute tread, jj that terrible look of rage and power, which she knew and had experienced in her own case after the duel with Dolohov.
‘Wherever you are, there is vice and wickedness,’ said Pierre to his wife. ‘Anatole, come along, I want a word with you,’ he said in French. Anatole looked round at his sister, and got up obediently; prepared to follow Pierre.
Pierre took him by the arm, drew him to him, and walked out of the room.
‘If you allow yourself in my drawing-room . . .’Ellen whispered; but Peirre walked out of the room, without answering her.
Anatole followed him, with his usual jaunty swagger. But his face betrayed uneasiness. Going into his own room, Pierre shut the door, and addressed Anatole without looking at him. ‘Did you promise Countess Rostov to marry her? Did you try to elope with her?’
‘My dear fellow,’ answered Anatole, in French (as was the whole conversation), ‘I don’t consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that tone.’
Pierre’s face, which had been pale before, was distorted by fury. With his big hand he clutched Anatole by the collar of his uniform, and pro-1 ceeded to shake him from side to side, till Anatole’s face showed a suffi- j cient degree of terror.
‘When I say I want a word with you . . .’ Pierre repeated.
‘Well, what? this is stupid. Eh?’ said Anatole, feeling a button of his ! collar that had been torn off with the cloth.
‘You’re a scoundrel and a blackguard; and I don’t know what prevents i me from permitting myself the pleasure of braining you with this, see,’ said Pierre, expressing himself so artificially, because he was speaking ■ French. He took up a heavy paper-weight, and lifted it in a menacing way, but at once hurriedly put it down in its place.
‘Did you promise to marry her?’
‘I, I, . . . I . . . didn’t think ... I never promised, though, because . . .’
Pierre interrupted him.
‘Have you any of her letters? Have you any letters?’ Pierre repeated, advancing upon Anatole. Anatole glanced at him, and at once thrust his hand in his pocket, and took out a pocket-book.
Pierre took the letter he gave him, and pushing away a table that stood in the way, he plumped down on the sofa.
‘I won’t be violent, don’t be afraid,’ said Pierre, in response to a gesture of alarm from Anatole. ‘Letters—one,’ said Pierre, as though repeating a lesson to himself. ‘Two’—after a moment’s silence he went on, getting up again and beginning to walk about—‘to-morrow you are to leave Moscow.’
‘But how can I . . . ?’
‘Three’—Pierre went on, not heeding him—‘you are never to say a word of what has passed between you and the young countess. That I know I can’t prevent your doing; but if you have a spark of conscience . . .’ Pierre walked several times up and down the room. Anatole sat at the table, scowling and biting his lips.
‘You surely must understand that, apart from your own pleasure, there’s the happiness, the peace of other people; that you are ruining a whole life, simply because you want to amuse yourself. Amuse yourself with women like my wife—with them you’re within your rights, they know what it is you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience of vice; but to promise a girl to marry her ... to deceive, to steal . . . Surely you must see that it’s as base as attacking an old man or a child! . . .’
Pierre paused and glanced at Anatole, more with inquiry now than with wrath.
‘I don’t know about that. Eh?’ said Anatole, growing bolder as Pierre gained control over his rage. ‘I don’t know about that, and I don’t want to,’ he said, looking away from Pierre, and speaking with a slight quiver of his lower jaw, ‘but you have said words to me, base and all that sort of thing, which as a man of honour I can’t allow any one to do.’
Pierre looked at him in amazement, not able to understand what it was he wanted.
‘Though it has been only tete-a-tete,’ Anatole went on, ‘still I can’t . . .’
‘What, do you want satisfaction?’ said Pierre sarcastically.
‘At any rate you might take back your words. Eh? If you want me to do as you wish. Eh!’
‘I’ll take them back, I’ll take them back,’ said Pierre, ‘and beg you to forgive me.’ Pierre could not help glancing at the loose button. ‘And here’s money too, if you want some for your journey.’
Anatole smiled.
The expression of that base and cringing smile, that he knew so well in his wife, infuriated Pierre. ‘Oh, you vile, heartless tribe!’ he cried, and walked out of the room.
Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.
XXI
Pierre drove to Marya Dmitryevna’s to report to her the execution ofc her commands, as to Kuragin’s banishment from Moscow. The whole
