Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the hussars.
Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Pétya was saying. Pétya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.
"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirttych, for heaven's sake! You are my only hope I" said Pétya.
"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I'll mention it, I'll bring it all up today."
"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?" asked the old count. "The countess has been to Mass at the Razumovskis' and heard the new prayer. She says it's very fine."
"Yes, I've got it," said Pierre. "The Emperor is to be here tomorrow . . . there's to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate you!"
"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?"
"We are again retreating. They say we're already near Smolensk," replied Pierre.
"O Lord, O Lord!" exclaimed the count.
"Where is the manifesto?"
"The Emperor's appeal? Oh yes!"
Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting Natásha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing room.
"On my word, I don't know what I've done with it," he said.
"There he is, always losing everything!" remarked the countess.
Natasha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and sat down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.
"No, really! I'll drive home, I must have left them there. I'll certainly . . ."
"But you'll be late for dinner."
"Oh! And my coachman has gone."
But Sónya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had found them in Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.
"No, after dinner," said the old count, evidently expecting much enjoyment from that reading.
At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new chevalier of St. George, Shinshfn told them the town news, of the illness of the old Georgian princess, of Métivier's disappearance from Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchín and accused of being a French "spyer" (so Count Rostopchín had told the story), and how Rostopchín let him go and assured the people that he was "not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin."
"People are being arrested . . ." said the count. "I've told the countess she should not speak French so much. It's not the time for it now."
"And have you heard?" Shinshin asked.
"Prince Golitsyn has engaged a master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in the streets."
"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the militia, you too will have to mount a horse," remarked the old count, addressing Pierre.
Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.
"Oh yes, the war," he said. "No! What sort of warrior should I make? And yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can't make it out. I don't know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no one can answer for himself."
After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and with a serious face asked Sonya, who was considered an excellent reader, to read the appeal.
"To Moscow, our ancient Capital!
"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He comes to despoil our beloved country,"
Sonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.
Natásha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and now at Pierre.
Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression in the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sarcastic smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that gave him the opportunity: Sónya's reading, any remark of the count's, or even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.
