CHAPTER IV

Pierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual, he ate and
drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that
some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through
dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and a
look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his nose.
His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear nothing of
what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some depressing and
unsolved problem.

The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the
princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dólokhov’s intimacy with his
wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in
the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly
through his spectacles, but that his wife’s connection with Dólokhov was a
secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the
princess’ hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dólokhov, who
was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dólokhov’s
handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous
rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his
wife’s past and her relations with Dólokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what
was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be true
had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how Dólokhov,
who had fully recovered his former position after the campaign, had
returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself of his friendly
relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dólokhov had come straight to
his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled
how Hélène had smilingly expressed disapproval of Dólokhov’s living at
their house, and how cynically Dólokhov had praised his wife’s beauty to
him and from that time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a
day.

“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know him. It would be
particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just
because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped
him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure of
deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do not
believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.” He remembered the
expression Dólokhov’s face assumed in his moments of cruelty, as when
tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into the water, or when
he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or shot a post-boy’s
horse with a pistol. That expression was often on Dólokhov’s face when
looking at him. “Yes, he is a bully,” thought Pierre, “to kill a man means
nothing to him. It must seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and
that must please him. He must think that I, too, am afraid of him—and
in fact I am afraid of him,” he thought, and again he felt something
terrible and monstrous rising in his soul. Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv
were now sitting opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostóv was talking
merrily to his two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other
a notorious duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically
at Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very
noticeable one at the dinner. Rostóv looked inimically at Pierre, first
because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband
of a beauty, and in a word—an old woman; and secondly because Pierre
in his preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostóv and
had not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor’s health was drunk,
Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.

“What are you about?” shouted Rostóv, looking at him in an ecstasy of
exasperation. “Don’t you hear it’s His Majesty the Emperor’s health?”

Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till all
were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostóv.

“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostóv was otherwise engaged;
he was shouting “Hurrah!”

“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dólokhov to Rostóv.

“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostóv.

“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denísov.

Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking
about him. He reddened and turned away.

“Well, now to the health of handsome women!” said Dólokhov, and with a
serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth,
he turned with his glass to Pierre.

“Here’s to the health of lovely women, Peterkin—and their lovers!”
he added.

Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at
Dólokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets with
Kutúzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal guests.
He was just going to take it when Dólokhov, leaning across, snatched it
from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at Dólokhov and his eyes
dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that had tormented him all
dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He leaned his whole massive
body across the table.

“How dare you take it?” he shouted.

Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvítski and the
neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezúkhov.

“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened voices.

Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that smile
of his which seemed to say, “Ah! This is what I like!”

“You shan’t have it!” he said distinctly.

Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.

“You…! you… scoundrel! I challenge you!” he ejaculated, and, pushing
back his chair, he rose from the table.

At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt that
the question of his wife’s guilt which had been tormenting him the whole
day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He hated her
and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denísov’s request that he would
take no part in the matter, Rostóv agreed to be Dólokhov’s second, and
after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with Nesvítski,
Bezúkhov’s second. Pierre went home, but Rostóv with Dólokhov and Denísov
stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies and other
singers.

“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokólniki,” said Dólokhov, as he took leave
of Rostóv in the club porch.

“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostóv asked.

Dólokhov paused.

“Well, you see, I’ll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words. If
you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write affectionate
letters to your parents, and if you think you may be killed, you are a
fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm intention of killing
your man as quickly and surely as possible, and then all will be right, as
our bear huntsman at Kostromá used to tell me. ‘Everyone fears a bear,’ he
says, ‘but when you see one your fear’s all gone, and your only thought is
not to let him get away!’ And that’s how it is with me. À demain, mon
cher.” *

* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.

Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the
Sokólniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv already there.
Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no
connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had
evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed
up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two
considerations: his wife’s guilt, of which after his sleepless night he
had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dólokhov, who had no
reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him…. “I should
perhaps have done the same thing in his place,” thought Pierre. “It’s even
certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel, this murder?
Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee.
Can’t I go away from here, run away, bury myself somewhere?” passed
through his mind. But just at moments when such thoughts occurred to him,
he would ask in a particularly calm and absent-minded way, which inspired
the respect of the onlookers, “Will it be long? Are things ready?”

When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers, and
the pistols loaded, Nesvítski went up to Pierre.

“I should not be doing my duty, Count,” he said in timid tones, “and
should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in
choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I
did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground
for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it…. You were not right,
not quite in the right, you were impetuous…”

“Oh yes, it is horribly stupid,” said Pierre.

“Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will
accept them,” said Nesvítski (who like the others concerned in the affair,
and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the affair
had come to an actual duel). “You know, Count, it is much more honorable
to admit one’s mistake than to let matters become irreparable. There was
no insult on either side. Allow me to convey….”

“No! What is there to talk about?” said Pierre. “It’s all the same…. Is
everything ready?” he added. “Only tell me where to go and where to
shoot,” he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.

He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the
trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand—a fact that
he did not wish to confess.

“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he.

“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dólokhov to Denísov (who on his side
had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the
appointed place.

The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where
the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest covered
with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the last few
days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther edge of the
clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in the deep wet
snow between the place where they had been standing and Nesvítski’s and
Dólokhov’s sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten paces apart to
mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty paces’ distance
nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been ready, but they
still delayed and all were silent.