Анатолий Шигапов – Peace, war and peace (страница 2)

The carriage stopped at his house on Liteynaya. Rostopchin got out, paid the coachman, and unhurriedly went up to his study. A single candle burned in the study, its yellow circle of light falling on the writing desk piled with papers - reports, dispatches, drafts of decrees that now were probably of no use to anyone. He sat in his armchair, took a pen, dipped it in ink, and sat for a long time not knowing what to write. He wanted to write a request for resignation, but his hand would not rise, because deep down he still hoped that everything would work out, that Paul would come to his senses, that the fear would pass and life would fall back into its rut. He laid down the pen, pushed aside the papers, and looked at the portrait of Catherine that hung above the desk in a gilded frame - young, with an aquiline profile, in a guards uniform - and it seemed to him that she looked at him reproachfully, as if asking: "What is it, Fyodor? Afraid?"

"What can I do, little mother?" he said aloud. "Your time is over. Another is beginning."

Outside the wind howled, and the snow no longer melted because frost had struck. Rostopchin went to the window, drew back the curtain, and saw that the sky had cleared completely, and on that black, endless sky, stars had lit - small, frequent, as cold and indifferent as they had always been, under Catherine, under Peter, under Rurik, and would continue to be long after neither Rostopchin, nor Paul, nor Petersburg itself remained. He stood there a minute, then extinguished the candle, lay down on the sofa without undressing, and closed his eyes. He did not sleep - he listened as somewhere far away, probably in the Winter Palace, the clock struck, and he counted the strokes. Twelve. A new night had begun, a new reign, a new life, and no one - neither wise nor foolish, neither noble nor common - knew what it would bring.

II

Countess Varvara Nikolaevna Golovina sat in the small drawing room of Empress Maria Feodorovna, in that very place by the window from which the snow-covered palace garden was visible - a garden where, in summer under Catherine, people had walked freely and laughed, and now, in December, sentries in Prussian uniforms stood and marched so evenly and resoundingly that it seemed the very earth was beating out the step. On the table before the countess lay unfinished embroidery - an intricate monogram she was embroidering at the empress's request - but the needle had frozen in her fingers, and she had not made a stitch for a quarter of an hour because she was listening. She listened to that strange, unfamiliar noise coming from the next hall: not loud talk, not happy laughter, as Catherine's evenings had been, but half-whispers, fearful, with long pauses when everyone fell silent because somewhere at the end of the corridor steps could be heard - the heavy, quick steps of Emperor Paul, who, it was said, might enter at any moment and say something that made even the most experienced courtiers' legs buckle.

Prince Vasily Kuragin appeared in the doorway. He looked around, as everyone did in those days - a short, quick glance that took in all those present, the doors, the windows, and whether anyone stood behind the curtain - and, approaching Countess Golovina, bent so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath and whispered:

"Well, my dear, what do you say about the new decrees? They ban round hats, frock coats, the waltz. C'est ridicule, n'est-ce pas?"

The countess, without raising her eyes from her sewing but also without making a stitch, answered in the same quiet, nearly inaudible whisper, because she and Prince Vasily both knew that within these walls even the walls could carry an incautious word to those for whom it was not intended:

"This is worse than ridiculous, my dear. It is fear. The sovereign fears everything that reminds him of freedom - the freedom we breathed for thirty-four years. He wants us to walk the Prussian step, speak in whispers, and fear to open our mouths. Il nous rendra fous, mon cher prince, il nous rendra fous, and that will be the most terrible madness, because it will not be ours but his."

Prince Vasily sighed - a deep, meaningful sigh that signified agreement, apprehension, and a readiness to say the opposite at any moment - looked around once more, and walked to the fireplace, where other guests stood, also whispering and glancing at the door.

Countess Golovina set aside her sewing and raised her eyes to the window. The sky was low, leaden, that heavy, motionless color that appears in Petersburg in December, when snow both falls and does not fall, but hangs in the air as fine, prickly dust, and it seems that the whole sky presses on the earth, and no one can throw off that weight. "Quel temps horrible," she thought. And the people were the same: heavy, frightened, not daring to smile. She remembered Catherine's times - how freely French flowed in the drawing rooms, how people were not afraid to say too much, knowing that the empress was intelligent and would forgive foolishness, and would keep cruelty for business, not for amusement. Now any "merci" or "bonjour" was uttered with caution, and the most cautious had switched entirely to Russian, mangling it and suffering, because they were not accustomed to expressing subtle thoughts in a language that until recently had seemed to them the language of footmen and coachmen.

Young Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya entered - the very one who, despite her poverty, knew how to enter where others dared not, and how to speak to those whom others feared. By the hand she led her son, Boris, a boy of eleven, dressed in a brand-new little uniform sewn obviously for growth - the sleeves were slightly too long, and the collar stuck up. The boy, rosy-cheeked, with clear eyes not yet knowing fear, looked curiously at the portraits of emperors on the walls, at the golden candelabra, at the tall mirrors reflecting himself, his mother, and all those frightened people in their sumptuous dresses and uniforms.

Countess Golovina beckoned the boy with her finger, and Boris, glancing at his mother who gave a slight nod, stepped forward and stopped, standing at attention as he had been taught in dancing lessons.

"Come here, my child," said the countess. "You, I see, are not afraid of changes? You look at those portraits as if they were your own family."

Boris blushed - with that deep, childish blush that floods cheeks, forehead, and even ears - and answered, looking straight into the countess's eyes:

"I am not afraid, Your Excellency. Because the sovereign is a father, and a father can do nothing wrong."

Countess Golovina involuntarily smiled - that sad, weary smile that appeared on her face whenever she heard something naive and touching. "A father," she thought. "Still a child. He does not know that fathers are sometimes more terrible than enemies." She stroked Boris's head, let him go, and took up her sewing again, but the needle once more froze, for from the next hall came commands - sharp, guttural, in the German manner - and the tramp of many boots drilling the step.

Emperor Paul was conducting a parade drill right in the corridors of the Winter Palace, because, it was said, parade grounds were not enough for him; he wanted his mother's very residence to become a barracks. The countess listened. The steps drew nearer, and her heart beat faster, and like everyone in that room, she froze, afraid to move. But the steps passed by - the door to the little drawing room did not open - and everyone there exhaled almost simultaneously, and that exhalation in the silence was so audible that each recognized another's fear and was ashamed of their own.

Countess Golovina looked out the window at the low sky that still pressed down on Petersburg, and thought of those who would live after them - of ten-year-old, leggy Nikolai Rostov, who was probably now fighting with his sisters in his father's Moscow house, not knowing that soon he would be sent to military school to learn the Prussian step; of four-year-old Natasha, who must be playing with dolls and not understanding why her mother had grown so sad; of eleven-year-old Pierre Bezukhov, who, it was said, was writing some strange poetry and disobeying his tutors; of ten-year-old Hélène, already promising to be a great beauty; of thirteen-year-old Anatole, who they said had yesterday jumped out of a second-story window on a dare and remained uninjured; of nineteen-year-old Dolokhov, already sent to the guards and feared by everyone like fire.

"They still have to live under this sovereign," thought the countess, looking at Boris Drubetskoy, who had returned to his mother and was now listening to her whisper, his lips pursed. "They have to live and live. God grant that they survive."

She crossed herself - furtively, beneath her sewing, so that no one would see - and made her first stitch, then a second, then a third. The needle moved evenly, and the monogram on the fabric began to take shape. But her thoughts were still out there, beyond the window, where the low December sky hung over the palace, over the city, over all of Russia, and no one knew what it would bring.