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They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as
soon as he got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.
"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is
so kind- yes, kind, that is the chief thing," thought Princess
Mary; and fear, which she had seldom experienced, came upon her.
She feared to look round, it seemed to her that someone was there
standing behind the screen in the dark corner. And this someone
was he- the devil- and he was also this man with the white forehead,
black eyebrows, and red lips.
She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.
Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory
for a long time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling
at someone, now working herself up to tears with the imaginary
words of her pauvre mere rebuking her for her fall.
The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was
badly made. She could not lie either on her face or on her side.
Every position was awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed
her now more than ever because Anatole's presence had vividly
recalled to her the time when she was not like that and when everything
was light and gay. She sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket
and nightcap and Katie, sleepy and disheveled, beat and turned
the heavy feather bed for the third time, muttering to herself.
"I told you it was all lumps and holes!" the little
princess repeated. "I should be glad enough to fall asleep,
so it's not my fault!" and her voice quivered like that of
a child about to cry.
The old prince did not sleep either. Tikhon, half asleep,
heard him pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt
as though he had been insulted through his daughter. The insult
was the more pointed because it concerned not himself but another,
his daughter, whom he loved more than himself. He kept telling
himself that he would consider the whole matter and decide what
was right and how he should act, but instead of that he only excited
himself more and more.
"The first man that turns up- she forgets her father
and everything else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags
her tail and is unlike herself! Glad to throw her father over!
And she knew I should notice it. Fr... fr... fr! And don't I see
that that idiot had eyes only for Bourienne- I shall have to get
rid of her. And how is it she has not pride enough to see it?
If she has no pride for herself she might at least have some for
my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks nothing of
her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but I'll
let her see...."
The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making
a mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,
Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not
to be parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with
this thought, he called Tikhon and began to undress.
"What devil brought them here?" thought he, while
Tikhon was putting the nightshirt over his dried-up old body and
gray-haired chest. "I never invited them. They came to disturb
my life- and there is not much of it left."
"Devil take 'em!" he muttered, while his head was
still covered by the shirt.
Tikhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud,
and therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive
expression of the face that emerged from the shirt.
"Gone to bed?" asked the prince.
Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction
of his master's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred
to Prince Vasili and his son.
"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your
excellency."
"No good... no good..." said the prince rapidly,
and thrusting his feet into his slippers and his arms into the
sleeves of his dressing gown, he went to the couch on which he
slept.
Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle
Bourienne, they quite understood one another as to the first part
of their romance, up to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they
understood that they had much to say to one another in private
and so they had been seeking an opportunity since morning to meet
one another alone. When Princess Mary went to her father's room
at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and Anatole met in the
conservatory.
Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation.
It seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate
would be decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought
about it. She read this in Tikhon's face and in that of Prince
Vasili's valet, who made her a low bow when she met him in the
corridor carrying hot water.
The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment
of his daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking
expression of her father's. His face wore that expression when
his dry hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding
a sum in arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk
away from her, repeating in a low voice the same words several
times over.
He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.
"I have had a proposition made me concerning you,"
he said with an unnatural smile. "I expect you have guessed
that Prince Vasili has not come and brought his pupil with him"
(for some reason Prince Bolkonski referred to Anatole as a "pupil")
"for the sake of my beautiful eyes. Last night a proposition
was made me on your account and, as you know my principles, I
refer it to you."
"How am I to understand you, mon pere?" said the
princess, growing pale and then blushing.
"How understand me!" cried her father angrily. "Prince
Vasili finds you to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a
proposal to you on his pupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood!
'How understand it'!... And I ask you!"
"I do not know what you think, Father," whispered
the princess.
"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm
not going to get married. What about you? That's what I want to
know."
The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with
disapproval, but at that moment the thought occurred to her that
her fate would be decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so
as not to see the gaze under which she felt that she could not
think, but would only be able to submit from habit, and she said:
"I wish only to do your will, but if I had to express my
own desire..." She had no time to finish. The old prince
interrupted her.
"That's admirable!" he shouted. "He will take
you with your dowry and take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain.
She'll be the wife, while you..."
The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced
on his daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into
tears.
"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!" he said.
"Remember this, Princess, I hold to the principle that a
maiden has a full right to choose. I give you freedom. Only remember
that your life's happiness depends on your decision. Never mind
me!"
"But I do not know, Father!"
"There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and
will marry you or anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to
your room, think it over, and come back in an hour and tell me
in his presence: yes or no. I know you will pray over it. Well,
pray if you like, but you had better think it over. Go! Yes or
no, yes or no, yes or no!" he still shouted when the princess,
as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the study.
Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father
had said about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue
to be sure, but still it was terrible, and she could not help
thinking of it. She was going straight on through the conservatory,
neither seeing nor hearing anything, when suddenly the well-known
whispering of Mademoiselle Bourienne aroused her. She raised her
eyes, and two steps away saw Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman
and whispering something to her. With a horrified expression on
his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess Mary, but did not
at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle Bourienne
who had not yet seen her.
"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!" Anatole's face
seemed to say. Princess Mary looked at them in silence. She could
not understand it. At last Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream
and ran away. Anatole bowed to Princess Mary with a gay smile,
as if inviting her to join in a laugh at this strange incident,
and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door that led to
his own apartments.
An hour later, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old
prince; he added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon
came to her Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room,
holding the weeping Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently
stroking her hair. The princess' beautiful eyes with all their
former calm radiance were looking with tender affection and pity
at Mademoiselle Bourienne's pretty face.
"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!"
said Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"Why? I love you more than ever," said Princess
Mary, "and I will try to do all I can for your happiness."
"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand
being so carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother..."
"I quite understand," answered Princess Mary, with
a sad smile. "Calm yourself, my dear. I will go to my father,"
she said, and went out.
Prince Vasili, with one leg thrown high over the other and
a snuffbox in his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep
emotion on his face, as if stirred to his heart's core and himself
regretting and laughing at his own sensibility, when Princess
Mary entered. He hurriedly took a pinch of snuff.
"Ah, my dear, my dear!" he began, rising and taking
her by both hands. Then, sighing, he added: "My son's fate
is in your hands. Decide, my dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I
have always loved as a daughter!"
He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.
"Fr... fr..." snorted Prince Bolkonski. "The
prince is making a proposition to you in his pupil's- I mean,
his son's- name. Do you wish or not to be Prince Anatole Kuragin's
wife? Reply: yes or no," he shouted, "and then I shall
reserve the right to state my opinion also. Yes, my opinion, and
only my opinion," added Prince Bolkonski, turning to Prince
Vasili and answering his imploring look. "Yes, or no?"
"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate
my life from yours. I don't wish to marry," she answered
positively, glancing at Prince Vasili and at her father with her
beautiful eyes.
"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried
Prince Bolkonski, frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he
did not kiss her, but only bending his forehead to hers just touched
it, and pressed her hand so that she winced and uttered a cry.
Prince Vasili rose.
"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall
never, never forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little
hope of touching this heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'...
The future is so long. Say 'perhaps.'"
"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart.
I thank you for the honor, but I shall never be your son's wife."
"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very
glad to have seen you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess.
Go!" said the old prince. "Very, very glad to glad to
have seen you," repeated he, embracing Prince Vasili.
"My vocation is a different one," thought Princess
Mary. "My vocation is to be happy with another kind of happiness,
the happiness of love and self-sacrifice. And cost what it may,
I will arrange poor Amelie's happiness, she loves him so passionately,
and so passionately repents. I will do all I can to arrange the
match between them. If he is not rich I will give her the means;
I will ask my father and Andrew. I shall be so happy when she
is his wife. She is so unfortunate, a stranger, alone, helpless!
And, oh God, how passionately she must love him if she could so
far forget herself! Perhaps I might have done the same!..."
thought Princess Mary.
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