When Suspicion Becomes Certainty — War and Peace

Pierre sits opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual he eats and drinks eagerly, but those who know him see a change. He is silent, blinking, scowling, or rubbing the bridge of his nose with fixed, absent eyes. The problem is his cousin's hints in Moscow about Dólokhov's intimacy with Hélène, and an anonymous letter that morning, in the mean jocular style of such letters, saying he sees badly through his spectacles but his wife's connection with Dólokhov is a secret to no one else. He disbelieves both, yet fears to look at the handsome, insolent eyes opposite. Recalling Hélène's past, he sees that the letter might be true, or might seem true of anyone but his wife. Dólokhov, restored after the campaign, came straight to his house as a boon companion; Pierre put him up and lent him money. Hélène smiled disapproval of that living arrangement; Dólokhov cynically praised her beauty, and from then until Moscow he never left them a day. "It would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonour my name," Pierre thinks, "because I befriended him." He remembers the face of cruelty: the policeman tied to the bear, a duel without reason, a post-boy's horse shot. "He is a bully; I am afraid of him." Rostóv, merry with a dashing hussar and a notorious duellist, glances ironically at the massive civilian who did not recognise him and did not rise for the Emperor's health. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty?" Pierre sighs, empties his glass, and smiles: he had not recognised him. Rostóv is already shouting Hurrah.

Dólokhov toasts lovely women, Peterkin, and their lovers. Pierre drinks with downcast eyes. A footman laying Kutúzov's cantata before the principal guests is interrupted when Dólokhov leans across and snatches the leaflet. The something terrible that has tormented Pierre all dinner takes possession. He leans his whole body across the table. "How dare you take it?" Nesvítski and a neighbour whisper, Don't. Dólokhov's clear, mirthful, cruel eyes seem to say this is what he likes. "You shan't have it!" Pierre snatches the copy, pale, lips quivering. "You... scoundrel! I challenge you!" At the instant he utters it, his wife's guilt is answered yes. He hates her and is sundered from her. Despite Denísov's request, Rostóv agrees to be Dólokhov's second and after dinner arranges the duel with Nesvítski. Pierre goes home; the others stay late with gypsies. In the porch Dólokhov says till tomorrow at Sokólniki. The secret of duelling, he tells Rostóv, is two words: if you make a will and think you may be killed, you are lost; go intending to kill as quickly as possible, as the Kostromá bear hunter said, fear goes when you see the bear. Next morning at eight, Pierre, yellow and sleepless, arrives with Nesvítski. He is absorbed by Hélène's guilt, of which he now has not the slightest doubt, and by Dólokhov's guiltlessness: Dólokhov had no reason to preserve the honour of a man who was nothing to him. "I should perhaps have done the same." Why this murder? He might run away. Aloud, calmly, he asks whether things are ready. Sabers mark the barrier in melting snow; pistols are loaded. Nesvítski, timid, says there is no sufficient ground, Pierre was impetuous, it would be more honourable to admit a mistake. "Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," Pierre says, then: "No. Only tell me where to go and where to shoot," with an unnaturally gentle smile. He has never held a pistol and does not wish to confess it. Dólokhov will have no apologies. The antagonists stand forty paces apart in mist so thick that at that distance nothing can be seen. For three minutes all is ready. They still delay, and all are silent.