At the exact hour, the prince, powdered and shaven, walked into the dining-room, where there were waiting for him his daughter-in-law, Princess Marya, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the prince’s architect, who, by a strange whim of the old gentleman’s, dined at his table, though being an insignificant person of no social standing, he would not naturally have expected to be treated with such honour. The prince, who was in practice a firm stickler for distinctions of rank, and rarely admitted to his table even important provincial functionaries, had suddenly pitched on the architect Mihail Ivanovitch, blowing his nose in a check pocket-handkerchief in the corner, to illustrate the theory that all men are equal, and had more than once impressed upon his daughter that Mihail Ivanovitch was every whit as good as himself and her. At table the prince addressed his conversation to the taciturn architect more often than to any one.
In the dining-room, which, like all the other rooms in the house, was immensely lofty, the prince’s entrance was awaited by all the members of his household and the footmen, standing behind each chair. The butler with a table-napkin on his arm scanned the setting of the table, making signs to the footmen, and continually he glanced uneasily from the clock on the wall to the door, by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrey stared at an immense golden frame on the wall that was new to him. It contained the genealogical tree of the Bolkonskys, and hanging opposite it was a frame, equally immense, with a badly painted r yresentation (evidently the work of some household-artist) of a reigning prince in a crown, intended for the descendant of Rurik and founder
WAR AND PEACE
‘Bonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has splendid soldiers. And he attacked the Germans first too. And any fool can beat the Germans. From the very beginning of the world every one has beaten the Germans. And they’ve never beaten any one. They only conquer each other. He made his reputation fighting against them.’
And the prince began analysing all the blunders that in his opinion Bonaparte had committed in his wars and even in politics. His son did not protest, but it was evident that whatever arguments were advanced against him, he was as little disposed to give up his opinion as the old prince himself. Prince Audrey listened and refrained from replying. He could not help wondering how this old man, living so many years alone and never leaving the country, could know all the military and political events in Europe of the last few years in such detail and with such accuracy, and form his own judgment on them.
‘You think I’m an old man and don’t understand the actual position of affairs?’ he wound up. ‘But I’ll tell you I’m taken up with it! I don’t sleep at nights. Come, where has this great general of yours proved himself to be such?’
‘That would be a long story,’ answered his son.
‘You go along to your Bonaparte. Mademoiselle Bourienne, here is another admirer of your blackguard of an emperor! ’ he cried in excellent French.
‘You know that I am not a Bonapartist, prince.’
‘God knows when he’ll come back . . .’ the prince hummed in falsetto, laughed still more falsetto, and got up from the table.
The little princess had sat silent during the whole discussion and the rest of the dinner, looking in alarm first at Princess Marya and then at ier father-in-law. When they left the dinner-table, she took her sister-in- aw’s arm and drew her into another room.
‘What a clever man your father is,’ she said; ‘perhaps that is why I am afraid of him.’
Oh, he is so kind!’ said Princess Marya.
XXV
Prince Andrey was leaving the following evening. The old prince, not departing from his regular routine, went away to his own room after dinner. The little princess was with her sister-in-law. Prince Andrey, having changed his dress and put on a traveling-coat without epaulettes, had been packing with his valet in the rooms set apart for him. After himself inspecting the coach and the packing of his trunks on it, he gave orders for the horses to be put to. Nothing was left in the room but the things that Prince Andrey always carried with him: a travelling- case, a big silver wine-case, two Turkish pistols and a sabre, a present from his father, brought back from his campaign under Otchakov. All Prince Andrey’s belongings for the journey were in good order; every-
thing was new and clean, in cloth covers, carefully fastened with tape.
