Tolstoy - War and peace : Leo Tolstoy

2002 Modern Library Paperback Edition

Reading group guide copyright 2002 by Random House, Inc.
Biographical note copyright 1994 by Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Modern Library, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

M ODERN L IBRARY and the T ORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 18281910.
[Voina i mir. English]
War and Peace/Leo Tolstoy; translated by Constance Garnett.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-82039-6
1. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815CampaignsRussiaFiction.
2. RussiaHistoryAlexander I, 18011825Fiction.
I. Garnett, Constance Black, 18621946. II. Title.
PG3366.V6 1994
891.733dc20 93-38836

Modern Library website address: www.modernlibrary.com

v3.1_r1

PART ONE

W ell, Prince, Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family. No, I warn you, that if you do not tell me we are at war, if you again allow yourself to palliate all the infamies and atrocities of this Antichrist (upon my word, I believe he is), I dont know you in future, you are no longer my friend, no longer my faithful slave, as you say. There, how do you do, how do you do? I see Im scaring you, sit down and talk to me.

These words were uttered in July 1805 by Anna Pavlovna Scherer, a distinguished lady of the court, and confidential maid-of-honour to the Empress Marya Fyodorovna. It was her greeting to Prince Vassily, a man high in rank and office, who was the first to arrive at her soire. Anna Pavlovna had been coughing for the last few days; she had an attack of la grippe, as she saidgrippe was then a new word only used by a few people. In the notes she had sent round in the morning by a footman in red livery, she had written to all indiscriminately:

If you have nothing better to do, count (or prince), and if the prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too alarming to you, I shall be charmed to see you at my house between 7 and 10. Annette Scherer.

Heavens! what a violent outburst! the prince responded, not in the least disconcerted at such a reception. He was wearing an embroidered court uniform, stockings and slippers, and had stars on his breast, and a bright smile on his flat face.

He spoke in that elaborately choice French, in which our forefathers not only spoke but thought, and with those slow, patronising intonations peculiar to a man of importance who has grown old in court society. He went up to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting her with a view of his perfumed, shining bald head, and complacently settled himself on the sofa.

First of all, tell me how you are, dear friend. Relieve a friends anxiety, he said, with no change of his voice and tone, in which indifference, and even irony, was perceptible through the veil of courtesy and sympathy.

How can one be well when one is in moral suffering? How can one help being worried in these times, if one has any feeling? said Anna Pavlovna. Youll spend the whole evening with me, I hope?

And the fte at the English ambassadors? To-day is Wednesday. I must put in an appearance there, said the prince. My daughter is coming to fetch me and take me there.

I thought to-days fte had been put off. I confess that all these festivities and fireworks are beginning to pall.

If they had known that it was your wish, the fte would have been put off, said the prince, from habit, like a wound-up clock, saying things he did not even wish to be believed.

Dont tease me. Well, what has been decided in regard to the Novosiltsov dispatch? You know everything.

What is there to tell? said the prince in a tired, listless tone. What has been decided? It has been decided that Bonaparte has burnt his ships, and I think that we are about to burn ours.

Prince Vassily always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating his part in an old play. Anna Pavlovna Scherer, in spite of her forty years, was on the contrary brimming over with excitement and impulsiveness. To be enthusiastic had become her pose in society, and at times even when she had, indeed, no inclination to be so, she was enthusiastic so as not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The affected smile which played continually about Anna Pavlovnas face, out of keeping as it was with her faded looks, expressed a spoilt childs continual consciousness of a charming failing of which she had neither the wish nor the power to correct herself, which, indeed, she saw no need to correct.

In the midst of a conversation about politics, Anna Pavlovna became greatly excited.

Ah, dont talk to me about Austria! I know nothing about it, perhaps, but Austria has never wanted, and doesnt want war. She is betraying us. Russia alone is to be the saviour of Europe. Our benefactor knows his lofty destiny, and will be true to it. Thats the one thing I have faith in. Our good and sublime emperor has the greatest part in the world to play, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not desert him, and he will fulfil his missionto strangle the hydra of revolution, which is more horrible than ever now in the person of this murderer and miscreant. Whom can we reckon on, I ask you? England with her commercial spirit will not comprehend and cannot comprehend all the loftiness of soul of the Emperor Alexander. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She tries to detect, she seeks a hidden motive in our actions. What have they said to Novosiltsov? Nothing. They didnt understand, theyre incapable of understanding the self-sacrifice of our emperor, who desires nothing for himself, and everything for the good of humanity. And what have they promised? Nothing. What they have promised even wont come to anything! Prussia has declared that Bonaparte is invincible, and that all Europe can do nothing against him. And I dont believe a single word of what was said by Hardenberg or Haugwitz. That famous Prussian neutrality is a mere snare. I have no faith but in God and the lofty destiny of our adored emperor. He will save Europe! She stopped short abruptly, with a smile of amusement at her own warmth.

I imagine, said the prince, smiling, that if you had been sent instead of our dear Wintsengerode, you would have carried the Prussian kings consent by storm,you are so eloquent. Will you give me some tea?

In a moment. By the way, she added subsiding into calm again, there are two very interesting men to be here to-night, the vicomte de Mortemart; he is connected with the Montmorencies through the Rohans, one of the best families in France. He is one of the good emigrants, the real ones. Then Abb Morio; you know that profound intellect? He has been received by the emperor. Do you know him?