战争与和平War and Peace （第八卷）

BOOK EIGHT: 1811 --12

 CHAPTER I

 After Prince Andrews engagement to Natasha, Pierre without any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to

go on living as before. Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and happy

as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had devoted himself with such ardor--all the zest of

such a life vanished after the engagement of Andrew and Natasha and the death of Joseph Alexeevich, the news of

which reached him almost at the same time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who

now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all Petersburg, and his court service

with its dull formalities. And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping a

diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the Club again, drank a great deal, and came once

more in touch with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Helene thought it necessary to

speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she right, and to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.

 In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and fading princesses still lived, with its

enormous retinue; as soon as, driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable tapers

burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Kremlin Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the

sleigh drivers and hovels of the Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried nowhere,

and were ending their days leisurely; when he saw those old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English

Club, he felt himself at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and dirty as in an

old dressing gown.

 Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre like a long-expected guest whose

place was always ready awaiting him. For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,

merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of the old Russian type. His purse was

always empty because it was open to everyone.

 Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies, gypsy choirs, schools, subscription

dinners, sprees, Freemasons, churches, and books--no one and nothing met with a refusal from him, and had it

not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from him and taken him under their protection, he would

have given everything away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the Club without him. As soon as he sank into

his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux he was surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began.

When there were quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the antagonists. The Masonic dinners

were dull and dreary when he was not there.

 When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile, yielding to the entreaties of the

festive company to drive off somewhere with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At

balls he danced if a partner was