War And Peace: Book 7 - CHAPTER I

作者: Leo Tolstoy

Free Download Babylon Translate Software

The poster (email) is not available. 收藏推荐:

图书介绍

Author: Leo Tolstoy

THE BIBLICAL TRADITION tells us that the absence of work—idleness—was a

condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. The love of idleness

has remained the same in fallen man; but the curse still lies heavy upon man,

and not only because in the sweat of our brow we must eat bread, but because

from our moral qualities we are unable to be idle and at peace. A secret voice

tells us that we must be to blame for being idle. If a man could find a state in

which while being idle he could feel himself to be of use and to be doing his

duty, he would have attained to one side of primitive blessedness. And such a

state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is enjoyed by a whole class—the

military class. It is in that obligatory and irreproachable idleness that the

chief attraction of military service has always consisted, and will always

consist.

Nikolay Rostov was enjoying this blessed privilege to the full, as after the

year 1807 he remained in the Pavlograd regiment, in command of the squadron that

had been Denisov's.

Rostov had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, who would have been thought

rather bad form by his old acquaintances in Moscow, though he was loved and

respected by his comrades, his subordinates, and his superior officers, and was

well content with his life. Of late—in the year 1809—he had found more and more

frequently in letters from home complaints on the part of his mother that their

pecuniary position was going from bad to worse, and that it was high time for

him to come home, to gladden and comfort the hearts of his old parents.

As he read those letters, Nikolay felt a pang of dread at their wanting to

drag him out of the surroundings in which, by fencing himself off from all the

complexities of existence, he was living so quietly and peacefully. He felt that

sooner or later he would have to plunge again into that whirlpool of life, with

many difficulties and business to attend to, with the steward's accounts, with

quarrels and intrigues, and ties, with society, with Sonya's love and his

promise to her. All that was terribly difficult and complicated; and he answered

his mother's letters with cold letters in French on the classic model, beginning

“Ma chère maman,” and ending: “Votre obéissant fils,” saying

nothing of any intention of coming home. In 1810 he received letters from home

in which he was told of Natasha's engagement to Bolkonsky, and of the marriage

being deferred for a year, because the old prince would not consent to it. This

letter chagrined and mortified Nikolay. In the first place, he was sorry to be

losing from home Natasha, whom he cared more for than all the rest of the

family. Secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not having been at

home at the time, as he would have shown this Bolkonsky that it was by no means

such an honour to be connected with him, and that if he cared for Natasha he

could get on just as well without his crazy old father's consent. For a moment

he hesitated whether to ask for leave, so as to see Natasha engaged, but then

the man