refreshment, my poor Anna Mikhailovna, or your strength will give out.”
He said nothing to Pierre, merely squeezed his arm with feeling just below the shoulder. Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna went through into the small drawing room.
“Nothing is so restorative after a sleepless night as a cup of this excellent Russian tea,” Lorrain said with an expression of restrained vivacity, sipping from a fine handleless Chinese cup as he stood in the small round drawing room in front of the table laid with a tea set and a cold supper. Everyone who was present in Count Bezukhov’s house that night had gathered round the table in order to restore their strength. Pierre remembered this little drawing room very well, with its mirrors and little tables. During balls at the count’s house Pierre, who did not know how to dance, had loved to sit in this small hall of mirrors and observe the ladies in their ball gowns, with diamonds and pearls adorning bare shoulders, passing through this room, examining themselves in the brightly illuminated mirrors that repeated their reflections several times over. Now that same room was barely lit by two candles in the middle of the night and a set of tea things and supper dishes stood untidily on a single little table, and a diverse collection of dull people were sitting there, talking to each other in whispers, demonstrating with their every movement and every word that no one was forgetting what was happening just then and what was yet to take place in the bedroom. Pierre did not eat, although he felt hungry. He glanced round enquiringly at his guide and saw her tiptoeing back out into the reception room, where Prince Vasily and the eldest princess had remained. Pierre assumed that this too was as it ought to be and, after waiting for a moment, he followed her. Anna Mikhailovna was standing beside the princess and they were both talking at the same time in excited whispers:
“Be so good, my dear princess, as to permit me to know what is necessary and what is not,” said the younger woman, evidently still in the same state of excitement in which she had slammed the door of her room.
“But my dear princess,” Anna Mikhailovna said mildly and earnestly, blocking the way from the bedroom and not allowing the eldest princess to pass, “will it not be too distressing for poor uncle at such a moment, when he is in need of rest? A discussion of worldly matters at such a moment, when his soul has already been prepared …”
Prince Vasily was sitting in an armchair in his familiar pose, with one leg crossed high over the other. His cheeks were twitching violently and had sunk so that they appeared fatter at the bottom, but he had the air of a man little interested in the two ladies’ conversation.
“Listen, my dear Anna Mikhailovna, leave Katish to do as she knows best. You know how the count loves her.”
“I do not even know what is in this document,” said Katish, turning towards Prince Vasily and indicating the mosaic document case that she was holding. “I only know that the genuine will is in his bureau, and this forgotten piece of paper …” She tried to walk round Anna Mikhailovna, but with a little hop Anna Mikhailovna barred her way once again.
“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikhailovna, grabbing hold of the document case with one hand so tightly that it was clear that she would not let it go easily. “My dear princess, I beg you, I implore you, have pity on him. I implore you.”
The eldest princess said nothing. The only thing to be heard were the sounds of the struggle for the document case. It was evident that if she were to speak, it would be to say something unflattering to Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna was clinging on tight, but despite that, her voice remained as sweet and syrupy as ever.
“Pierre, come over here, my friend. I think he has a place in a family council, does he not, prince?”
“Why do you say nothing, cousin?” the eldest princess suddenly screeched so loudly that they heard it in the drawing room and took fright at the sound of her voice. “Why do you say nothing, when anyone who wishes to can take it upon themselves to interfere and make scenes at the door of a dying man’s room? Schemer!” she whispered venomously and tugged on the document case with all her strength, but Anna Mikhailovna took a few steps forward in order not to be separated from the case and renewed her grip.
“Oh!” said Prince Vasily in reproachful amazement. He stood up. “This is absurd. Come now, let go, I tell you.”
The eldest princess let go.
“And you.”
Anna Mikhailovna did not obey him.
“Let go, I tell you. I take everything on myself. I shall go and ask him. I … enough of this from you.”
“But prince, after such a great sacrament, allow him a moment’s peace. You, Pierre, tell us your opinion,” she said to the young man, who had come right up close to them and was staring in astonishment at the princess’s embittered face that had lost all decorum, and at Prince Vasily’s twitching cheeks.
“Remember that you will answer for all the consequences,” Prince Vasily said severely. “You do not know what you are doing.”
“Loathsome woman,” screeched the eldest princess, unexpectedly throwing herself at Anna Mikhailovna and snatching away the document case. Prince Vasily lowered his head and spread his arms in despair.
At that moment the terrible door at which Pierre had been looking for so long and which had always opened so quietly, was noisily thrown wide open, banging against the wall, and the middle princess ran out fluttering her arms in the air.
“What are you doing?” she said in a desperate voice. “He is dying, and you leave me alone!”
The eldest princess dropped the document case. Anna Mikhailovna quickly bent down, snatched up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest princess and Prince Vasily came to their senses and followed her. The first to emerge a few minutes later was the eldest princess, her face pale and cold and her lower lip bitten. At the sight of Pierre, her face assumed an expression of irrepressible spite. “Yes, now you can rejoice,” she said, “this what you were waiting for.” Bursting into sobs, she hid her face in her handkerchief and ran out of the room.
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOCUMENT CASE Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1866
The eldest princess was followed out of the bedroom by Prince Vasily. He staggered as far as the divan on which Pierre was sitting and fell onto it, covering his eyes with his hand. Pierre noticed that he was pale and his lower jaw was jerking and shuddering feverishly.
“Ah, my friend,” he said, taking Pierre by the elbow, and there was a sincerity and infirmity in his voice that Pierre had never noticed in it before. “We sin so much, we deceive so much, and all for what? I am over fifty, my friend … for me … Everything will end in death, everything. Death is terrible.” He burst into tears.
Anna Mikhailovna was the last to emerge. She walked across to Pierre with slow, quiet steps.
“Pierre!” she said.
Pierre looked at her enquiringly. She kissed the young man on the forehead, wetting his face with her tears. She paused before speaking.
“He has passed away …”
Pierre looked at her through his spectacles.
“Come with me, I will walk with you. Try to cry; nothing brings more relief than tears.”
She led him into the dark drawing room, and Pierre was glad that no one there could see his face. Anna Mikhailovna left him there, and when she returned he was sound asleep with his head lying on his hand.
The next morning Anna Mikhailovna said to Pierre:
“Yes, my friend, it is a great loss for all of us, and especially for you. But God will support you, you are young and now, I hope, the owner of immense wealth. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well enough to be sure that it will not turn your head, but it