Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy (nice books to read .txt) 📖
- Author: graf Leo Tolstoy
Book online «War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy (nice books to read .txt) 📖». Author graf Leo Tolstoy
PĂ©tya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who would be returning that way. PĂ©tya no longer thought of presenting his petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!
While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption—it was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor’s arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvass, gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Pétya was particularly fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman’s wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk who had rescued Pétya was talking to a functionary about the priests who were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used the word “plenary” (of the service), a word Pétya did not understand. Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls, were such as might have had a particular charm for Pétya at his age, but they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation—the pedestal of the cannon—still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and by his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced when he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.
Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment, to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Pétya too would have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the cathedral doors. “Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the crowd again.
“Which is he? Which?” asked Pétya in a tearful voice, of those around him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Pétya, fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm on him—though it happened not to be the Emperor—frantically shouted “Hurrah!” and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the army.
The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began to disperse. It was already late, and Pétya had not eaten anything and was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while the Emperor dined—looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table, glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.
While the Emperor was dining, ValĂşev, looking out of the window, said:
“The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again.”
The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose and went out onto the balcony. The people, with PĂ©tya among them, rushed toward the balcony.
“Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!...” cried the crowd, and Pétya with it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Pétya among them, wept with joy.
A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the balcony. Pétya’s eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why, but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar’s hand and he felt that he must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated though she was lying on the ground—she grabbed at some biscuits but her hand did not reach them. Pétya pushed her hand away with his knee, seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted “Hurrah!” with a voice already hoarse.
The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began to disperse.
“There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!” was being joyfully said by various people.
Happy as Pétya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from the Krémlin, but called on his friend Obolénski, who was fifteen and was also entering the regiment. On returning home Pétya announced resolutely and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would run away. And next day, Count Ilyá Rostóv—though he had not yet quite yielded—went to inquire how he could arrange for Pétya to serve where there would be least danger.
Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages were standing outside the SlobĂłda Palace.
The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats of blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen’s hall there was an incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on high-backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor, but most of the gentry were strolling about the room.
All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the Club or in their own houses, were in uniform—some in that of Catherine’s day, others in that of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander’s time or the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic of being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men, dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled, were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces of the crowd PĂ©tya had seen in the Square, there was a striking contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook, ZinaĂda DmĂtrievna’s health, and so on.
Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman’s uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated; this extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the merchant-class—les états généraux (States-General)—evoked in him a whole series of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in his soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution.
Comments (0)