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Old Prince Nicholas Bolkonski received a letter from Prince
Vasili in November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would
be paying him a visit. "I am starting on a journey of inspection,
and of course I shall think nothing of an extra seventy miles
to come and see you at the same time, my honored benefactor,"
wrote Prince Vasili. "My son Anatole is accompanying me on
his way to the army, so I hope you will allow him personally to
express the deep respect that, emulating his father, he feels
for you."
"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out,
suitors are coming to us of their own accord," incautiously
remarked the little princess on hearing the news.
Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.
A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasili's servants came
one evening in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next
day.
Old Bolkonski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasili's
character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul
and Alexander Prince Vasili had risen to high position and honors.
And now, from the hints contained in his letter and given by the
little princess, he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his
low opinion changed into a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He
snorted whenever he mentioned him. On the day of Prince Vasili's
arrival, Prince Bolkonski was particularly discontented and out
of temper. Whether he was in a bad temper because Prince Vasili
was coming, or whether his being in a bad temper made him specially
annoyed at Prince Vasili's visit, he was in a bad temper, and
in the morning Tikhon had already advised the architect not to
go the prince with his report.
"Do you hear how he's walking?" said Tikhon, drawing
the architect's attention to the sound of the prince's footsteps.
"Stepping flat on his heels- we know what that means...."
However, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with
a sable collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed
the day before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince
was in the habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the
broom were still visible in the snow and a shovel had been left
sticking in one of the soft snowbanks that bordered both sides
of the path. The prince went through the conservatories, the serfs'
quarters, and the outbuildings, frowning and silent.
"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable
man, resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying
him back to the house.
"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your
honor."
The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God
be thanked," thought the overseer, "the storm has blown
over!"
"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor,"
he added. "I heard, your honor, that a minister is coming
to visit your honor."
The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes
on him, frowning.
"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?"
he said in his shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept
for the princess my daughter, but for a minister! For me, there
are no ministers!"
"Your honor, I thought..."
"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming
more and more rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!...
Rascals! Blackgaurds!... I'll teach you to think!" and lifting
his stick he swung it and would have hit Alpatych, the overseer,
had not the latter instinctively avoided the blow. "Thought...
Blackguards..." shouted the prince rapidly.
But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding
the stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly
before him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though
he continued to shout: "Blackgaurds!... Throw the snow back
on the road!" did not lift his stick again but hurried into
the house.
Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who
knew that the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle
Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing,
I am the same as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened,
and with downcast eyes. What she found hardest to bear was to
know that on such occasions she ought to behave like Mademoiselle
Bourienne, but could not. She thought: "If I seem not to
notice he will think that I do not sympathize with him; if I seem
sad and out of spirits myself, he will say (as he has done before)
that I'm in the dumps."
The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.
"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered.
"And the other one is not here. They've been telling
tales," he thought- referring to the little princess who
was not in the dining room.
"Where is the princess?" he asked. "Hiding?"
"She is not very well," answered Mademoiselle Bourienne
with a bright smile, "so she won't come down. It is natural
in her state."
"Hm! Hm!" muttered the prince, sitting down.
His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a
spot he flung it away. Tikhon caught it and handed it to a footman.
The little princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering
fear of the prince that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had
decided not to appear.
"I am afraid for the baby," she said to Mademoiselle
Bourienne: "Heaven knows what a fright might do."
In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant
fear, and with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she
did not realize because the fear was so much the stronger feeling.
The prince reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered
by his contempt for her. When the little princess had grown accustomed
to life at Bald Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle
Bourienne, spent whole days with her, asked her to sleep in her
room, and often talked with her about the old prince and criticized
him.
"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?" remarked
Mademoiselle Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy
fingers. "His Excellency Prince Vasili Kuragin and his son,
I understand?" she said inquiringly.
"Hm!- his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment
in the service," said the prince disdainfully. "Why
his son is coming I don't understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth
and Princess Mary know. I don't want him." (He looked at
his blushing daughter.) "Are you unwell today? Eh? Afraid
of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this morning?"
"No, mon pere."
Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in
her choice of a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered
about the conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just
opened, and after the soup the prince became more genial.
After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little
princess was sitting at a small table, chattering with Masha,
her maid. She grew pale on seeing her father-in-law.
She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty.
Her cheeks had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn
down.
"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression," she said in
reply to the prince's question as to how she felt.
"Do you want anything?"
"No, merci, mon pere."
"Well, all right, all right."
He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych
stood with bowed head.
"Has the snow been shoveled back?"
"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake...
It was only my stupidity."
"All right, all right," interrupted the prince,
and laughing his unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for
Alpatych to kiss, and then proceeded to his study.
Prince Vasili arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue
by coachmen and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs
up to one of the lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.
Prince Vasili and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.
Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo
before a table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly
fixed his large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life
as a continual round of amusement which someone for some reason
had to provide for him. And he looked on this visit to a churlish
old man and a rich and ugly heiress in the same way. All this
might, he thought, turn out very well and amusingly. "And
why not marry her if she really has so much money? That never
does any harm," thought Anatole.
He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which
had become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered
his father's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural
to him. Prince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing him, and
he looked round with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his
son as the latter entered, as if to say: "Yes, that's how
I want you to look."
"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?"
Anatole asked, as if continuing a conversation the subject of
which had often been mentioned during the journey.
"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful
and cautious with the old prince."
"If he starts a row I'll go away," said Prince Anatole.
"I can't bear those old men! Eh?"
"Remember, for you everything depends on this."
In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants'
rooms that the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance
of both had been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting
alone in her room, vainly trying to master her agitation.
"Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It
can never happen!" she said, looking at herself in the glass.
"How shall I enter the drawing room? Even if I like him I
can't now be myself with him." The mere thought of her father's
look filled her with terror. The little princess and Mademoiselle
Bourienne had already received from Masha, the lady's maid, the
necessary report of how handsome the minister's son was, with
his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with what difficulty the
father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son had followed
him like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received this
information, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose
chattering voices had reached her from the corridor, went into
Princess Mary's room.
"You know they've come, Marie?" said the little
princess, waddling in, and sinking heavily into an armchair.
She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in
the morning, but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was
carefully done and her face was animated, which, however, did
not conceal its sunken and faded outlines. Dressed as she used
to be in Petersburg society, it was still more noticeable how
much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch had been added
to Mademoiselle Bourienne's toilet which rendered her fresh and
prettyface yet more attractive.
"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?"
she began. "They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are
in the drawing room and we shall have to go down, and you have
not smartened yourself up at all!"
The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly
and merrily began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess
Mary should be dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded
by the fact that the arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still
more so by both her companions' not having the least conception
that it could be otherwise. To tell them that she felt ashamed
for herself and for them would be to betray her agitation, while
to decline their offers to dress her would prolong their banter
and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes grew dim, red
blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive martyrlike
expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to Mademoiselle
Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried to
make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them could
think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect
sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that
dress can make a face pretty.
"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty,"
said Lise, looking sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance.
"You have a maroon dress, have it fetched. Really! You know
the fate of your whole life may be at stake. But this one is too
light, it's not becoming!"
It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess
Mary that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor
the little princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue
ribbon were placed in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue
scarf arranged lower on the best maroon dress, and so on, all
would be well. They forgot that the frightened face and the figure
could not be altered, and that however they might change the setting
and adornment of that face, it would still remain piteous and
plain. After two or three changes to which Princess Mary meekly
submitted, just as her hair had been arranged on the top of her
head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her looks) and she
had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the little princess
walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the dress with
her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her with
her head bent first on one side and then on the other.
"No, it will not do," she said decidedly, clasping
her hands. "No, Mary, really this dress does not suit you.
I prefer you in your little gray everyday dress. Now please, do
it for my sake. Katie," she said to the maid, "bring
the princess her gray dress, and you'll see, Mademoiselle Bourienne,
how I shall arrange it," she added, smiling with a foretaste
of artistic pleasure.
But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained
sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and
saw in the mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering,
ready to burst into sobs.
"Come, dear princess," said Mademoiselle Bourienne,
"just one more little effort."
The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came
up to Princess Mary.
"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming,"
she said.
The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's,
who was laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like
the chirping of birds.
"No, leave me alone," said Princess Mary.
Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping
of the birds was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful,
large, thoughtful eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly
and imploringly at them, and understood that it was useless and
even cruel to insist.
"At least, change your coiffure," said the little
princess. "Didn't I tell you," she went on, turning
reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne, "Mary's is a face
which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not in the least!
Please change it."
"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite
the same to me," answered a voice struggling with tears.
Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own
to themselves that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain,
worse than usual, but it was too late. She was looking at them
with an expression they both knew, an expression thoughtful and
sad. This expression in Princess Mary did not frighten them (she
never inspired fear in anyone), but they knew that when it appeared
on her face, she became mute and was not to be shaken in her determination.
"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And
as Princess Mary gave no answer, she left the room.
Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's
request, she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even
look in her glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with
downcast eyes and pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant
and strangely attractive being rose in her imagination, and carried
her into a totally different happy world of his own. She fancied
a child, her own- such as she had seen the day before in the arms
of her nurse's daughter- at her own breast, the husband standing
by and gazing tenderly at her and the child. "But no, it
is impossible, I am too ugly," she thought.
"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment,"
came the maid's voice at the door.
She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been
thinking, and before going down she went into the room where the
icons hung and, her eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon
of the Saviour lit by a lamp, she stood before it with folded
hands for a few moments. A painful doubt filled her soul. Could
the joy of love, of earthly love for a man, be for her? In her
thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of happiness and of
children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing was for
earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from others
and even from herself, the stronger it grew. "O God,"
she said, "how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations
of the devil? How am I to renounce forever these vile fancies,
so as peacefully to fulfill Thy will?" And scarcely had she
put that question than God gave her the answer in her own heart.
"Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be not anxious
or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden from
thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it
be God's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready
to fulfill His will." With this consoling thought (but yet
with a hope for the fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing)
Princess Mary sighed, and having crossed herself went down, thinking
neither of her gown and coiffure nor of how she would go in nor
of what she would say. What could all that matter in comparison
with the will of God, without Whose care not a hair of man's head
can fall?
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