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Book 8 Chapter 1

AFTER PRINCE ANDREY'S ENGAGEMENT to Natasha, Pierre suddenly, for no apparent reason, felt it impossible to go on living in the same way as before. Firm as his belief was in the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, the old freemason, and happy as he had been at first in the task of perfecting his inner spiritual self, to which he had devoted himself with such ardour, yet after Prince Andrey's engagement to Natasha, and the death of Osip Alexyevitch, the news of which reached him almost simultaneously, the whole zest of his religious life seemed to have suddenly vanished. Nothing but the skeleton of life remained: his house with his brilliant wife, now basking in the favours of a very grand personage indeed, the society of all Petersburg, and his service at court with its tedious formalities. And that life suddenly filled Pierre with unexpected loathing. He gave up keeping his diary, avoided the society of brother-masons, took to visiting the club again and to drinking a great deal; associated once more with gay bachelor companions, and began to lead a life so dissipated that Countess Elena Vassilyevna thought it necessary to make severe observations to him on the subject. Pierre felt that she was right; and to avoid compromising his wife he went away to Moscow.

In Moscow, as soon as he entered his huge house with the faded and fading princesses, his cousins, and the immense retinue of servants, as soon as, driving through the town, he saw the Iversky chapel with the lights of innumerable candles before the golden setting of the Madonna, the square of the Kremlin with its untrodden snow, the sledge-drivers, and the hovels of Sivtsev Vrazhok; saw the old Moscow gentlemen quietly going on with their daily round, without hurry or desire of change; saw the old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club—he felt himself at home, in a quiet haven of rest. In Moscow he felt comfortable, warm, at home, and snugly dirty, as in an old dressing-gown.

All Moscow society, from the old ladies to the children, welcomed Pierre back like a long-expected guest, whose place was always ready for him, and had never been filled up. For the Moscow world, Pierre was the most delightful, kind-hearted, intellectual, good-humoured, and generous eccentric, and a heedless and genial Russian gentleman of the good old school. His purse was always empty, because it was always open to every one.

Benefit-entertainments, poor pictures and statues, benevolent societies, gypsy choruses, schools, subscription dinners, drinking parties, the masons, churches, and books—no one and nothing ever met with a refusal, and had it not been for two friends, who had borrowed large sums of money from Pierre and constituted themselves guardians of a sort over him, he would have parted with everything. Not a dinner, not a soirée took place at the club without him.

As soon as he was lolling in his place on the sofa, after a couple of bottles of Margaux, he was surrounded by a circle of friends, and arguments, disputes, and jokes sprang up round him. Where there were quarrels, his kindly smile and casually uttered jokes were enough to reconcile the antagonists. The masonic dining lodges were dull and dreary when he was absent.

When after a bachelor supper, with a weak and good-natured smile, he yielded to the entreaties of the festive party that he would drive off with them to share their revels, there were shouts of delight and triumph. At balls he danced if there were a lack of partners. Girls and young married ladies liked him, because he paid no special attention to any one, but was equally amiable to all, especially after supper. “He is charming; he is of no sex,” they used to say of him.

Pierre was just a kammerherr, retired to end his days in Moscow, like hundreds of others. How horrified he would have been if, seven years before, when he had just come home from abroad, any one had told him that there was no need for him to look about him and rack his brains, that the track had long ago been trodden, marked out from all eternity for him, and that, struggle as he would, he would be just such another as all men in his position. He could not have believed it then! Had he not longed with his whole heart to establish a republic in Russia; then to be himself a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a great strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not passionately desired and believed in the regeneration of the sinful race of man and the schooling of himself to the highest point of perfect virtue? Had he not founded schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?

But instead of all that, here he was the wealthy husband of a faithless wife, a retired kammerherr, fond of dining and drinking, fond, too, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat after dinner, of indulging in a little abuse of the government, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favourite in Moscow society. For a long while he could not reconcile himself to the idea that he was precisely the retired Moscow kammerherr, the very type he had so profoundly scorned seven years before.

Sometimes he consoled himself by the reflection that it did not count, that he was only temporarily leading this life. But later on he was horrified by another reflection, that numbers of other men, with the same idea of its being temporary, had entered that life and that club with all their teeth and a thick head of hair, only to leave it when they were toothless and bald.

In moments of pride, when he was reviewing his position, it seemed to him that he was quite different, distinguished in some way from the retired kammerherrs he had looked upon with contempt in the past; that they were vulgar and stupid, at ease and satisfied with their position, “while I am even now still dissatisfied; I still long to do something for humanity,” he would assure himself in moments of pride. “But possibly all of them too, my fellows, struggled just as I do, tried after something new, sought a path in life for themselves, and have been brought to the same point as I have by the force of surroundings, of society, of family, that elemental force against which man is powerless,” he said to himself in moments of modesty. And after spending some time in Moscow he no longer scorned his companions in destiny, but began even to love them, respect them, and pity them like himself.

Pierre no longer suffered from moments of despair, melancholy, and loathing for life as he had done. But the same malady that had manifested itself in acute attacks in former days was driven inwards and never now left him for an instant. “What for? What's the use? What is it is going on in the world?” he asked himself in perplexity several times a day, instinctively beginning to sound the hidden significance in the phenomena of life. But knowing by experience that there was no answer to these questions, he made haste to try and turn away from them, took up a book, or hurried off to the club, or to Apollon Nikolaevitch's to chat over the scandals of the town.

“Elena Vassilyevna, who has never cared for anything but her own body, and is one of the stupidest women in the world,” Pierre thought, “is regarded by people as the acme of wit and refinement, and is the object of their homage. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by every one while he was really great, and since he became a pitiful buffoon the Emperor Francis seeks to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through their Catholic Church, return thanks to God for their victory over the French on the 14th of June, and the French, through the same Catholic Church, return thanks to God for their victory over the Spaniards on the same 14th of June. My masonic brothers swear in blood that they are ready to sacrifice all for their neighbour, but they don't give as much as one rouble to the collections for the poor, and they intrigue between Astraea and the manna-seekers, and are in a ferment about the authentic Scottish rug, and an act, of which the man who wrote it did not know the meaning and no one has any need. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of sins and love for one's neighbour—the law, in honour of which we have raised forty times forty churches in Moscow—but yesterday we knouted to death a deserter; and the minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, the priest, gave the soldier the cross to kiss before his punishment.”

Such were Pierre's reflections, and all this universal deception recognised by all, used as he was to seeing it, was always astounding him, as though it were something new. “I understand this deceit and tangle of cross-purposes,” he thought, “but now am I to tell them all I understand? I have tried and always found that they understood it as I did, at the bottom of their hearts, but were only trying not to see it. So I suppose it must be so! But me—what refuge is there for me?” thought Pierre.

He suffered from an unlucky faculty—common to many men, especially Russians—the faculty of seeing and believing in the possibility of good and truth, and at the same time seeing too clearly the evil and falsity of life to be capable of taking a serious part in it. Every sphere of activity was in his eyes connected with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he took up, evil and falsity drove him back again and cut him off from every field of energy. And meanwhile he had to live, he had to be occupied. It was too awful to lie under the burden of those insoluble problems of life, and he abandoned himself to the first distraction that offered, simply to forget them. He visited every possible society, drank a great deal, went in for buying pictures, building, and above all reading.

He read and re-read everything he came across. On getting home he would take up a book, even while his valets were undressing him, and read himself to sleep; and from sleep turned at once to gossip in the drawing-rooms and the club; from gossip to carousals and women; from dissipation back again to gossip, reading, and wine. Wine was more and more becoming a physical necessity to him, and at the same time a moral necessity. Although the doctors told him that in view of his corpulence wine was injurious to him, he drank a very great deal. He never felt quite content except when he had, almost unconsciously, lifted several glasses of wine to his big mouth. Then he felt agreeably warm all over his body, amiably disposed towards all his fellows, and mentally ready to respond superficially to every idea, without going too deeply into it. It was only after drinking a bottle or two of wine that he felt vaguely that the terrible tangled skein of life which had terrified him so before was not so terrible as he had fancied. With a buzzing in his head, chatting, listening to talk or reading after dinner and supper, he invariably saw that tangled skein on some one of its sides. It was only under the influence of wine that he said to himself: “Never mind. I'll disentangle it all; here I have a solution all ready. But now's not the time. I'll go into all that later on!” But that later on never came.

In the morning, before breakfast, all the old questions looked as insoluble and fearful as ever, and Pierre hurriedly snatched up a book and rejoiced when any one came in to see him.

Sometimes Pierre remembered what he had been told of soldiers under fire in ambuscade when they have nothing to do, how they try hard to find occupation so as to bear their danger more easily. And Pierre pictured all men as such soldiers trying to find a refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, some in the government service. “Nothing is trivial, nothing is important, everything is the same; only to escape from it as best one can,” thought Pierre. “Only not to see it, that terrible it.”


安德烈公爵在求娜塔莎为妻之后,皮埃尔并无任何明显的理由,忽然觉得不能继续过着从前的生活。无论他怎样相信他的恩主向他启示的真理,无论他怎样充满热情为之献身的内心修炼在开初使他心向神往的时日给予他多大的喜悦,——在安德烈公爵和娜塔莎订婚之后,在约瑟夫·阿列克谢耶维奇死去之后(他几乎是同时获悉这两件事),从前的生活魅力对他来说忽已消失殆尽。生活只留下一个框架:他的那幢住宅、一个姿色迷人的妻子——她现已获得某个要人的宠爱、他和彼得堡一切人士的结识以及枯燥乏味的、拘泥于形式的业务。皮埃尔忽然觉得从前的那种生活出乎意外地令人讨厌。他停止写日记了,避免与师兄师弟来往,又开始进入俱乐部,开始好酒贪杯,又与光棍朋友接近,他开始过着这种生活,以致伯爵夫人海伦·尼西里耶夫娜认为有必要对他严加指责。皮埃尔觉得她的做法是对的,为了不使她声名狼藉、皮埃尔动身前往莫斯科。

在莫斯科,他一走进他那栋高古的住宅(它里面住着已经憔悴和正在憔悴的公爵小姐及许多家仆)的时候,在他驶过全城,刚刚看见那金镂袈裟前面的无数烛光的伊韦尔小教堂,看见那积雪未被车子压脏的克里姆林广场,看见西夫采夫·弗拉若克贫民区的马车夫和茅舍的时候,在他一看见那些无所希冀、足不出户地虚度残生的莫斯科老人的时候,在他一看见那些老太太,那些莫斯科的太太小姐、莫斯科的芭蕾舞和莫斯科的英国俱乐部的时候,——他就觉得自己置身于家中,置身于平静的安身之处。在莫斯科定居,就像穿着一种旧长衫似的,温暖、舒适、不干净。

整个莫斯科的上流社会,从老太太到小孩,迎接皮埃尔就像迎接一位翘盼已久的尸位以待的客人那样。在莫斯科的上流社会人士的心目中,皮埃尔是个至为可爱、仁慈聪颖、愉快、宽宏大量的古怪人,是个心不在焉的诚实待人的旧派头的俄国贵族。他的钱包总是空的,因为它对人人都是敞开着的。

纪念演出、劣等彩色画、塑像、慈善团体、茨冈人、学校、募捐宴会、纵酒、共济会、教会、书籍——任何人、任何事都不会遭到他的拒绝;假如不是有两个向他借了许多钱的友人担任监护的话,他真会把什么都分给别人。俱乐部里,无论是宴会,还是晚会,少不了他。他一喝完两瓶马尔高酒,随便倒在他坐的沙发上,人们就把他围住,议论纷纷,争吵不休,笑话喧阗。无论在那里发生争吵,只要他露出和善的微笑,随便打个诨,就和事了。共济会分会的餐厅里假如缺少他,就显得烦闷,很不景气。

单身汉的晚餐结束之后,他带着和善而甜蜜的微笑,屈从愉快的伙伴的请求,站立起来,和他们一同驶行,于是在青年人之间传来了激动的欢呼。如果舞会上缺少一个舞伴,他就走来跳舞。年轻的夫人和小姐之所以喜欢他,是因为他不追求任何女人,他对人人都同样殷勤,特别是在晚餐完毕后:Il est charmant,il n'a pas de sexe.①”大家都这样谈论他。

①法语:他很有魅力,不像男性。


皮埃尔是个退休的宫廷高级侍从,他很温厚地在莫斯科度过自己的残年,像他这样的人,莫斯科有几百个。

如果说七年前,他刚从国外回来时候,若是有人对他说,他不必去寻觅什么,不必去臆想什么,他的轨道早已开辟,就永远注定不变,无论他怎么兜圈子,他将来不外乎是你所有处在他的地位的人那样,他听了之后真会胆战心惊。他是决不会相信这番话的,他时而一心一意地期望在俄国缔造共和,时而想当拿破仑,时而想当哲学家,时而想当战术家,当一个打败拿破仑的人吗?难道不是他有先见之明而且热烈地期望彻底改造缺德的人类,使他自己达到尽善尽美的地步吗?难道不是他建立学校和医院并且解放农民吗?

但是他未能实现这一切,他当了一个不贞洁的妻子的富有的丈夫,一个爱吃爱喝、敞开身上的衣服略微咒骂一下政府的退休高级侍从,一个莫斯科英国俱乐部的成员,而且他还是一个人人喜爱的莫斯科上流社会的成员。他长久地不能容忍那种思想,说他现在正是七年前他极端蔑视的那种退休的莫斯科宫廷高级侍从。

有时候他用那种思想来安慰自己,说他只是暂且过着这种生活,但是后来另外一种思想使他胆战心惊,有许多像他一样的人在进入这个生活领域和这个俱乐部时,满口是牙齿,满头是黑发,后来从那儿走出来时,牙齿和头发全都落光了。

当他感到高傲的时候,他想到自己的地位,他仿佛觉得,他和他以前蔑视的那些退休的宫廷高级侍从迥然不同,那些人鄙俗而愚蠢,一味自满,安于现状,“而我直至现在仍然感到不满,仍然想为人类作一点贡献。”当他感到高傲的时候,他自言自语地说。“也许我所有的同事也都像我一样拼命地挣扎,寻找一条新的生活道路像我一样,被那种环境的力量、社会和门第的力量,人类无力反抗的自然力量引导到我所走的道路上。”他在谦虚的时候说,在莫斯科住了一些时日,他已不再藐视那些和他共命运的同事了,而开始喜爱并尊敬他们,而且像怜惜自己那样怜惜他们了。

皮埃尔不像从前那样每时每刻都感到绝望、忧郁而且厌恶人生,过去经常急剧地发作的疾病已侵入内心,每时每刻都在缠住他。“为什么?为了什么目的?这个世界上在发生什么事?”在一日之内他就有几次惶惑不安地问自己,情不自禁地开始缜密思考生活中的各种现象的涵义,但他凭经验也知道,这些问题都没有答案,于是他赶紧设法回避它,他时常看书,或者赶着上俱乐部,或者到阿波隆·尼古拉耶维奇那里去闲谈市内的流言飞语。

“海伦·瓦西里耶夫娜除开爱自己的身段,她不爱任何东西,她是世界上最愚蠢的女人之一,”皮埃尔想道,“但是人们都觉得她是智慧和风雅的顶峰并且崇拜她。拿破仑·波拿巴在没有成为伟人前一直被世人藐视,自从他变成可怜的丑角之后,弗朗茨皇帝却力求把自己的女儿许配他为非法的夫人。西班牙人用天主教神甫祈求上帝,深表感激之情,因为他们在六月十四日打败了法国人,而法国人也用天主教神甫祈求上帝,为了他们在六月十四日打败西班牙人而向上帝感恩。我的共济会的师兄师弟们以鲜血发誓,他们愿意誓为他人牺牲一切,可是他们不为贫民而捐献出一个卢布,他们施耍阴谋,唆使阿斯特列亚分会去反对马哪派的求道者,为一张道地的苏格兰地毯和一份连草拟人也不知道其内中涵义的、谁也不需要的文据而四出奔走。我们都信守基督教教规——恕罪、爱他人,为此在莫斯科建立了四十个教区的四十座教堂,可是昨天就有一名逃兵被鞭笞致死,在宣布极刑前,那个爱与恕的教规的执行人——神甫,叫那名士兵亲吻十字架。”皮埃尔这样想道,这种普遍的、已被众人公认的虚伪,不管他怎样习以为常,但是它每次都像一件新鲜事物,使他觉得诧异。“我明了这种虚伪和杂乱无章,”他想道,“可是我怎样才能把我明了的一切讲给他们听呢?我尝试过了,总是发现他们在灵魂深处也像我一样对一切了若指掌,只是想方设法不去看它罢了。这样说来,就应该这样!但是我藏到哪里去呢?”皮埃尔想道。他体验到他具有许多人的、尤其是俄国人的那种不幸者的能力:能够看出并且相信善与真的可能性,可是对生活中的恶与伪却看得过分清楚,以致不能认真地生活下去。在他的眼中,任何劳动领域均与罪恶和虚伪联系在一起。无论他想做一个什么人,无论他着手做什么事,罪恶与虚伪都把他推开,挡住他所活动的一切途径。但同时应当活下去,应当从事某种活动。在这些悬而未决的生活问题的压力下,真是太可怕了。为了忘怀这些问题,他浸沉于他所碰到的各种乐事。他经常进入形形色色的交际场所,纵情地饮酒,收购图画,建筑亭台楼阁,主要是博览群书。

他经常读书,手边有一本什么书,就读什么书,回到家里以后,当仆人还在给他宽衣的时候,他已经拿起一本书来读,读书之后继而睡眠,睡眠之后便在客厅和俱乐部闲谈,闲谈之后继而狂饮,追求女人,狂饮之后继而闲谈、读书和纵酒。饮酒对于他愈益成为生理上的需要,同时也是精神上的需要。虽然大夫们都对他说,他长得太胖,酒对他的危害性很大,但是他仍旧好酒贪杯。只有当他本人都没有发觉他怎么竟把几杯酒倒进了他那张大嘴巴之后,他才觉得非常痛快,他才觉得他体内有一种舒适的温暖,他才温和地对待所有亲近的人,才愿意动动脑筋,对各种思想肤浅地发表意见,但却未能深入其实质。他喝了一两瓶葡萄酒以后,他才模糊地意识到,往昔使他不寒而栗的难以解决的生活难题并不像他想象的那样可怕了。在午餐和晚餐之后,他头晕脑胀,一边讲些空话,一边听人家谈话或者读书的时候他才不断地遇见自己身边的这个生活上的难题。但是他只是在酒瘾上来的时候,他才自言自语地说:“这没有什么。我会把它搞清楚的——怎么解释它呢,我已经有所准备。现在我可没有空闲哩,——以后我来全面考虑吧!”但是这个以后在任何时候都不会到来。

早上饿着肚皮的时候,从前的一切问题仿佛又显得难以解决,极为可怕了,于是皮埃尔急忙拿起一本书来读,每当有人来找他的时候,他就感到非常高兴。

有时皮埃尔回忆起他所听到的故事,故事中谈到,士兵们作战时处于枪林弹雨之下,他们躲在掩蔽体内,这时无事可做,为了经受起危险造成的威胁,他们尽可能给自己找点事情做。皮埃尔仿佛觉得所有的人都是逃避人生的士兵:有的人贪图功名,有的人赌博成癖,有的人编写法典,有的人玩弄女性,有的人贪爱玩物,有的人骑马闲游,有的人跻身于政坛,有的人从事狩猎,有的人好酒贪杯,有的人国务倥偬。“既没有卑微人物,也没有高官显贵,横竖一样:只想巧妙地逃避人生!”皮埃尔想道,“只想不目睹人生,这种可怕的人生。”



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