Book Three: 1805 - Chapter 3

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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?

Read next: Book Three: 1805#Chapter 4

Read previous: Book Three: 1805#Chapter 2

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