Анатолий Шигапов – Peace, war and peace (страница 11)

"Send it with a courier tomorrow. Have it fly."

Then he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and after a silence, said as if to himself:

"If I die, he will be alone. Prince Vasily will eat him alive. And Princess Drubetskaya too. I must do something. I must write a will... but when? There's never time."

Grigory stood and looked at the count. He felt pity for the old man - that quiet, silent pity that servants feel for old, lonely masters who have no one but their servants. The count had relatives - Prince Vasily, Princess Drubetskaya, some cousins and nephews - but they all wanted one thing: his money. And his son, the only one who loved him not for his money, was far away in France, and it was unknown when he would return.

"Your Excellency," said Grigory, hesitating, "perhaps write to Pierre to come? After all, one's own flesh and blood."

The count opened his eyes, looked at Grigory with a long, heavy look, and answered:

"No. Let him study. I shall live yet. I am tenacious."

He smirked - that crooked, joyless smirk people give when they know their tenacity is running out but do not want to show it. Grigory bowed and went out into the corridor.

In the corridor it was dark; it smelled of old wood and wax. Grigory passed the room where Pierre had once lived - a small room with a window onto the yard - and stopped. The room was empty; furniture stood covered with sheets; on the wall hung a portrait of the late Countess Bezukhova, young, beautiful, with that special, sad smile that appears on women who know they will die young. Grigory crossed himself, remembered how little Pierre had run about this room, asking: "Grigory, why is the sky so high? Why don't the stars fall?" And how Grigory had not known what to answer, and answered: "God made it so, master." And Pierre had not believed, said God had nothing to do with it, that everything had an explanation, one only had to seek. And Grigory had thought then: "A strange boy. Big, clever eyes. Maybe he will indeed find the answer."

Now Pierre was thirteen, lived in Paris, studied in a boarding school, wrote his father letters about Bonaparte and about how the world was arranged. And Grigory, looking at his mother's portrait, thought: "If only he would grow up soon and return. Or the old count will die any day, and the boy will be left alone, surrounded by wolves. Prince Vasily is already sharpening his teeth. And Princess Drubetskaya is not far behind. She came again yesterday - brought flowers, but she kept looking at the portfolio. Foxes, I declare."

He went downstairs to the kitchen, ordered dinner to be served, and remained standing by the window, looking out at the autumn street. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained low and gray; rare passersby walked with collars turned up, hiding their faces. Someone among the servants said that in Petersburg there were more arrests, that the sovereign was displeased, that everyone was afraid - nobles, merchants, common people. Grigory listened and thought: "Fear everywhere. Everywhere dread. And the boy in France is probably better off. There at least you know what to fear. But here - unknown. Maybe tomorrow a decree, the day after exile. And no one knows for what."

He sat on a bench, took up an old, well-read book - a book of saints' lives, which he liked to read in his spare time - but did not read, because his thoughts were elsewhere. He thought about how life goes on, and no one knows where it leads. The count is rich and noble, but lies in his chair, afraid that after his death his son will be cheated. Prince Vasily is clever and cunning, but also afraid - afraid he will not get what he hoped for. And he, Grigory, a little man, a servant, is also afraid, because if the count dies, the new master may turn him out in his old age, and he will wander the world. Everyone is afraid. Only the sky - high, indifferent - fears nothing and looks on everyone alike: on the count, on the prince, on the servant.

He crossed himself, rose, and went to set the table, because the count should have dinner, and dinner must not grow cold, and order must be kept - as in life and as in death, because order is order, and without it one cannot manage.

Outside dusk was falling; candles were lit in the house; shadows danced on the walls, and it seemed that in this dance of shadows there was something that could not be understood with the mind, only felt - felt that everything was going as it must, and no one could stop this movement, not the tsar, not a minister, not the richest man in Russia.

XII

The day was December, frosty, sunny, with that special, festive sparkle that comes before Christmas, when snow creaks underfoot, hoarfrost shimmers on the branches, and it seems the whole world has frozen in anticipation of something joyful and bright. At the Rostovs' house guests had come today - not many, about ten people - and all sat in the drawing room, drinking tea with jam and listening to little Natasha sing French romances before them, which her governess had taught her.

Efim did not see this, but heard - through the double windows came a faint, pure voice, so thin and tender that even the old coachman, who understood not a word of French, felt a pang in his heart. The voice sang of something sad, something Efim could not put into words but understood with his whole being, because in that voice was that genuine, unaffected purity that exists only in children - and that passes as they grow up. In the drawing room, as the footmen later told, Countess Rostova wiped tears with a handkerchief; the count himself, red as a lobster, sat with a glass in his hand and, sobbing, repeated: "Ah, what a girl! Ah, Lord!"; and one guest, an elderly princess, very important and perfumed, bending to the countess's ear, said: "Elle a du talent, ma chère. She has real talent; take care of her."

The count, hearing this, laughed through his tears and shouted something loud and cheerful, making everyone laugh; and Natasha, finishing her song, made a curtsey - clumsy, funny, because she still did not know how to bow properly - and ran to her mother, buried her face in her knees, and asked: "Mama, did I sing well? Mama, truly well?" The countess stroked her hair and said: "Well, my joy, very well."

But Natasha could not stay still. She was six years old, and after long sitting in the stuffy drawing room, after singing and applause, she wanted to go outside - into the frost, into the snow, where she could run, shout, roll in a snowdrift, and not think about how to bow and speak French. She slipped out of the room unnoticed, ran down the stairs, threw a little fur coat over her shoulders - not buttoned, carelessly - and ran out onto the porch.

Efim, seeing the young lady run out, was surprised.

"Young lady!" he said. "It's cold! Why no hat? You'll catch cold, the count will scold you."

"I'm not afraid!" cried Natasha, jumping in the frost. "Efim, oh Efim, will you take me to Moscow tomorrow? We're going to our aunt, I heard. Will you take me?"

"I'll take you, young lady," answered Efim, smiling into his mustache. "Wherever you order, there I'll take you. Even to the end of the world."

Natasha laughed, ran to the porch railing, wrapped her arms around it, and began to look at the sky. The sky was low, winter, that grayish-blue color that comes in December, when the day is short and the frost strong, and stars are already beginning to light in the east, though the sun has not yet set. Natasha looked at this sky, at the clouds, at the rare, twinkling stars, and sighed - not because she was sad, no, she was merry, but in that sigh there was something that made Efim suddenly think: "The girl is growing. Still small, but already sighing like a grown-up. She must have her own sorrow, even if she doesn't say what." He remembered his own daughter, who died in infancy, and for a moment felt pain, but the pain passed at once, because life is life, and there is no time to grieve the past when you have work to do.

"Efim," Natasha suddenly said without turning, "do stars fall? Kolya told me they fall. But I don't believe it. Stars are God's little eyes, they don't fall."

"Your brother, Nikolai Ilyich, was surely joking," answered Efim. "Stars don't fall. They stand in the sky like candles in church. And what falls are shooting stars; in the folk they call them falling stars. But those aren't stars, just flyers."

"How do you know?" asked Natasha, turning her rosy, frost-covered face to him.

"Because I'm old," said Efim. "I know everything."

Natasha laughed, pushed off from the railing, ran across the porch, grabbing the posts, then stopped, looked at the sky once more, and said:

"And when I grow up, I will sing. Right on a stage. So that everyone weeps. And you, Efim, will weep too."

"I will, young lady," said Efim. "Where can I go?"

At that moment the door opened, and Nikolai came onto the porch - twelve years old, already tall, with freckles and that mischievous, boyish expression that later, when he became an officer, would turn into dash, but for now only promised future bravado. He was without a hat, in a jacket thrown over his shoulders, and seeing Natasha, he shouted: