RETURNING from his southern tour in the happiest frame of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had, of visiting his friend Bolkonsky, whom he had not seen for two years.
Bogutcharovo lay in a flat, ugly part of the country, covered with fields and copses of fir and birch-trees, in parts cut down. The manor house was at the end of the straight village that ran along each side of the high road, behind an overflowing pond newly dug, and still bare of grass on its banks in the midst of a young copse, with several large pines standing among the smaller trees.
The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, serfs' quarters, stables, bath-houses, lodges, and a large stone house with a semicircular fa?ade, still in course of erection. Round the house a garden had been newly laid out. The fences and gates were solid and new; under a shed stood two fire-engines and a tub painted green. The paths were straight, the bridges were strong and furnished with stone parapets. Everything had an air of being cared for and looked after. The house serfs on the way, in reply to inquiries where the prince was living, pointed to a small new lodge at the very edge of the pond. Prince Andrey's old body-servant, Anton, after assisting Pierre out of his carriage, said that the prince was at home, and conducted him into a clean little lobby.
Pierre was struck by the modesty of this little, clean house, after the splendid surroundings in which he had last seen his friend in Petersburg.
He went hurriedly into the little parlour, still unplastered and smelling of pine wood, and would have gone further, but Anton ran ahead on tip-toe and knocked at the door.
“What is it?” he heard a harsh, unpleasant voice.
“A visitor,” answered Anton.
“Ask him to wait”; and there was the sound of a chair being pushed back.
Pierre went with rapid steps to the door, and came face to face with Prince Andrey, who came out frowning and looking older. Pierre embraced him, and taking off his spectacles, kissed him and looked close at him.
“Well, I didn't expect you; I am glad,” said Prince Andrey.
Pierre said nothing; he was looking in wonder at his friend, and could not take his eyes off him. He was struck by the change in Prince Andrey. His words were warm, there was a smile on the lips and the face, but there was a lustreless, dead look in his eyes, into which, in spite of his evident desire to seem glad, Prince Andrey could not throw a gleam of happiness. It was not only that his friend was thinner, paler, more manly looking, but the look in his eyes and the line on his brow, that expressed prolonged concentration on some one subject, struck Pierre and repelled him till he got used to it.
On meeting after a long separation, the conversation, as is always the case, did not for a long while rest on one subject. They asked questions and gave brief replies about things of which they knew themselves they must talk at length. At last the conversation began gradually to revolve more slowly about the questions previously touched only in passing, their life in the past, their plans for the future, Pierre's journeys, and what he had been doing, the war, and so on. The concentrated and crushed look which Pierre had noticed in Prince Andrey's eyes was still more striking now in the smile with which he listened to him, especially when he was telling him with earnestness and delight of his past or his future. It was as though Prince Andrey would have liked to take interest in what he was telling him, but could not. Pierre began to feel that to express enthusiasm, ideals, and hopes of happiness and goodness was unseemly before Prince Andrey. He felt ashamed of giving expression to all the new ideas he had gained from the masons, which had been revived and strengthened in him by his last tour. He restrained himself, afraid of seeming na?ve. At the same time he felt an irresistible desire to show his friend at once that he was now a quite different Pierre, better than the one he had known in Petersburg.
“I can't tell you how much I have passed through during this time. I shouldn't know my old self.”
“Yes, you are very, very much changed since those days,” said Prince Andrey.
“Well, and what of you?” asked Pierre. “What are your plans?”
“Plans?” repeated Prince Andrey ironically. “My plans?” he repeated, as though wondering what was the meaning of such a word. “Why, you see, I am building; I want next year to settle in here altogether …”
Pierre looked silently and intently into the face of Prince Andrey, which had grown so much older.
“No, I'm asking about …” Pierre began, but Prince Andrey interrupted him.
“But why talk about me … talk to me, and tell me about your journey, about everything you have been doing on your estates.”
Pierre began describing what he had been doing on his estates, trying as far as he could to disguise his share in the improvements made on them. Prince Andrey several times put in a few words before Pierre could utter them, as though all Pierre's doings were an old, familiar story, and he were hearing it not only without interest, but even as it were a little ashamed of what was told him.
Pierre began to feel awkward and positively wretched in his friend's company. He relapsed into silence.
“I tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andrey, who was unmistakably dreary and ill at ease with his visitor, “I'm simply bivouacking here; I only came over to have a look at things. I'm going back again to my sister to-day. I will introduce you to her. But I think you know her, though,” he added, obviously trying to provide entertainment for his guest, with whom he now found nothing in common. “We will set off after dinner. And now would you care to see my place?” They went out and walked about till dinner time, talking of political news and common acquaintances, like people not very intimate. The only thing of which Prince Andrey now spoke with some eagerness and interest was the new buildings and homestead he was building; but even in the middle of a conversation on this subject, on the scaffolding, when Prince Andrey was describing to Pierre the plan of the house, he suddenly stopped. “There's nothing interesting in that, though, let us go in to dinner and set off.”
At dinner the conversation fell on Pierre's marriage.
“I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andrey.
Pierre blushed as he always did at any reference to his marriage, and said hurriedly: “I'll tell you one day how it all happened. But you know that it's all over and for ever.”
“For ever?” said Prince Andrey; “nothing's for ever.”
“But do you know how it all ended? Did you hear of the duel?”
“Yes, you had to go through that too!”
“The one thing for which I thank God is that I didn't kill that man,” said Pierre.
“Why so?” said Prince Andrey. “To kill a vicious dog is a very good thing to do, really.”
“No, to kill a man is bad, wrong …”
“Why is it wrong?” repeated Prince Andrey; “what's right and wrong is a question it has not been given to men to decide. Men are for ever in error, and always will be in error, and in nothing more than in what they regard as right and wrong.”
“What does harm to another man is wrong,” said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrey was roused and was beginning to speak and eager to give expression to what had made him what he now was.
“And who has told you what is harm to another man?” he asked.
“Harm? harm?” said Pierre; “we all know what harms ourselves.”
“Yes, we know that, but it's not the same harm we know about for ourselves that we do to another man,” said Prince Andrey, growing more and more eager, and evidently anxious to express to Pierre his new view of things. He spoke in French. “I only know two very real ills in life, remorse and sickness. There is no good except the absence of those ills. To live for myself so as to avoid these two evils: that's the sum of my wisdom now.”
“And love for your neighbour, and self-sacrifice?” began Pierre. “No, I can't agree with you! To live with the sole object of avoiding doing evil, so as not to be remorseful, that's very little. I used to live so, I used to live for myself, and I spoilt my life. And only now, when I'm living, at least trying to live” (modesty impelled Pierre to correct himself) “for others, only now I have learnt to know all the happiness of life. No, I don't agree with you, and indeed, you don't believe what you're saying yourself.”
Prince Andrey looked at Pierre without speaking, and smiled ironically. “Well, you'll see my sister Marie. You will get on with her,” said he. “Perhaps you are right for yourself,” he added, after a brief pause, “but every one lives in his own way; you used to live for yourself, and you say that by doing so you almost spoiled your life, and have only known happiness since ............