War and Peace (20 page)

“Even if it were a great trouble …” answered Prince Andrey, seeming to guess what the favour was.

“You may think what you please about it. I know you are like
mon père
. Think what you please, but do this for my sake. Do, please. The father of my father, our grandfather, always wore it in all his wars …” She still did not take out what she was holding in her reticule. “You promise me, then?”

“Of course, what is it?”

“Andrey, I am blessing you with the holy image, and you must promise me you will never take it off.… You promise?”

“If it does not weigh a ton and won’t drag my neck off … To please
you,” said Prince Andrey. The same second he noticed the pained expression that came over his sister’s face at this jest, and felt remorseful. “I am very glad, really very glad, dear,” he added.

“Against your own will He will save and will have mercy on you and turn you to Himself, because in Him alone is truth and peace,” she said in a voice shaking with emotion, and with a solemn gesture holding in both hands before her brother an old-fashioned, little, oval holy image of the Saviour with a black face in a silver setting, on a little silver chain of delicate workmanship. She crossed herself, kissed the image, and gave it to Andrey.

“Please, Andrey, for my sake.”

Rays of kindly, timid light beamed from her great eyes. Those eyes lighted up all the thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother would have taken the image, but she stopped him. Andrey understood, crossed himself, and kissed the image. His face looked at once tender (he was touched) and ironical.

“
Merci, mon ami
.” She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again on the sofa. Both were silent.

“So as I was telling you, Andrey, you must be kind and generous as you always used to be. Don’t judge Liza harshly,” she began; “she is so sweet, so good-natured, and her position is a very hard one just now.”

“I fancy I have said nothing to you, Masha, of my blaming my wife for anything or being dissatisfied with her. What makes you say all this to me?”

Princess Marya coloured in patches, and was mute, as though she felt guilty.

“I have said nothing to you, but you have been
talked to
. And that makes me sad.”

The red patches grew deeper on the forehead and neck and cheeks of Princess Marya. She would have said something, but could not utter the words. Her brother had guessed right: his wife had shed tears after dinner, had said that she had a presentiment of a bad confinement, that she was afraid of it, and had complained of her hard lot, of her father-in-law and her husband. After crying she had fallen asleep. Prince Andrey felt sorry for his sister.

“Let me tell you one thing, Masha, I can’t reproach
my wife
for anything, I never have and I never shall, nor can I reproach myself for anything in regard to her, and that shall always be so in whatever circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth … if
you want to know if I am happy. No. Is she happy? No. Why is it so? I don’t know.”

As he said this, he went up to his sister, and stooping over her kissed her on the forehead. His fine eyes shone with an unaccustomed light of intelligence and goodness. But he was not looking at his sister, but towards the darkness of the open door, over her head.

“Let us go to her; I must say good-bye. Or you go alone and wake her up, and I’ll come in a moment. Petrushka!” he called to his valet, “come here and take away these things. This is to go in the seat and this on the right side.”

Princess Marya got up and moved toward the door. She stopped. “Andrey, if you had faith, you would have appealed to God, to give you the love that you do not feel, and your prayer would have been granted.”

“Yes, perhaps so,” said Prince Andrey. “Go, Masha, I’ll come immediately.”

On the way to his sister’s room, in the gallery that united one house to the other, Prince Andrey encountered Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling sweetly. It was the third time that day that with an innocent and enthusiastic smile she had thrown herself in his way in secluded passages.

“Ah, I thought you were in your own room,” she said, for some reason blushing and casting down her eyes. Prince Andrey looked sternly at her. A sudden look of wrathful exasperation came into his face. He said nothing to her, but stared at her forehead and her hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the Frenchwoman crimsoned and went away without a word. When he reached his sister’s room, the little princess was awake and her gay little voice could be heard through the open door, hurrying one word after another. She talked as though, after being long restrained, she wanted to make up for lost time, and, as always, she spoke French.

“No, but imagine the old Countess Zubov, with false curls and her mouth full of false teeth as though she wanted to defy the years.
Ha, ha, ha, Marie!
”

Just the same phrase about Countess Zubov and just the same laugh Prince Andrey had heard five times already from his wife before outsiders. He walked softly into the room. The little princess, plump and rosy, was sitting in a low chair with her work in her hands, trotting out her Petersburg reminiscences and phrases. Prince Andrey went up,
stroked her on the head, and asked if she had got over the fatigue of the journey. She answered him and went on talking.

The coach with six horses stood at the steps. It was a dark autumn night. The coachman could not see the shafts of the carriage. Servants with lanterns were running to and fro on the steps. The immense house glared with its great windows lighted up. The house-serfs were crowding in the outer hall, anxious to say good-bye to their young prince. In the great hall within stood all the members of the household: Mihail Ivanovitch, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Marya, and the little princess. Prince Andrey had been summoned to the study of his father, who wanted to take leave of him alone. All were waiting for him to come out again. When Prince Andrey went into the study, the old prince was in his old-age spectacles and his white dressing-gown, in which he never saw any one but his son. He was sitting at the table writing. He looked round.

“Going?” And he went on writing again.

“I have come to say good-bye.”

“Kiss me here,” he touched his cheek; “thanks, thanks!”

“What are you thanking me for?”

“For not lingering beyond your fixed time, for not hanging about a woman’s petticoats. Duty before everything. Thanks, thanks!” And he went on writing, so that ink spurted from the scratching pen.

“If you want to say anything, say it. I can do these two things at once,” he added.

“About my wife … I’m ashamed as it is to leave her on your hands.…”

“Why talk nonsense? Say what you want.”

“When my wife’s confinement is due, send to Moscow for an
accoucheur
 … Let him be here.”

The old man stopped and stared with stern eyes at his son, as though not understanding.

“I know that no one can be of use, if nature does not assist,” said Prince Andrey, evidently confused. “I admit that out of a million cases only one goes wrong, but it’s her fancy and mine. They’ve been telling her things; she’s had a dream and she’s frightened.”

“H’m … h’m …” the old prince muttered to himself, going on with his writing. “I will do so.” He scribbled his signature, and suddenly turned quickly to his son and laughed.

“It’s a bad business, eh?”

“What’s a bad business, father?”

“Wife!” the old prince said briefly and significantly.

“I don’t understand,” said Prince Andrey.

“But there’s no help for it, my dear boy,” said the old prince; “they’re all like that, and there’s no getting unmarried again. Don’t be afraid, I won’t say a word to any one, but you know it yourself.”

He grasped his hand with his thin, little, bony fingers, shook it, looked straight into his son’s face with his keen eyes, that seemed to see right through any one, and again he laughed his frigid laugh.

The son sighed, acknowledging in that sigh that his father understood him. The old man, still busy folding and sealing the letters with his habitual rapidity, snatched up and flung down again the wax, the seal, and the paper.

“It can’t be helped. She’s pretty. I’ll do everything. Set your mind at rest,” he said jerkily, as he sealed the letter.

Andrey did not speak; it was both pleasant and painful to him that his father understood him. The old man got up and gave his son the letter.

“Listen,” said he. “Don’t worry about your wife; what can be done shall be done. Now, listen; give this letter to Mihail Ilarionovitch. I write that he is to make use of you on good work, and not to keep you long an adjutant; a vile duty! Tell him I remember him and like him. And write to me how he receives you. If he’s all right, serve him. The son of Nikolay Andreitch Bolkonsky has no need to serve under any man as a favour. Now, come here.”

He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half of his words, but his son was used to understanding him. He led his son to the bureau, opened it, drew out a drawer, and took out of it a manuscript book filled with his bold, big, compressed handwriting.

“I am sure to die before you. See, here are my notes, to be given to the Emperor after my death. Now here, see, is a bank note and a letter: this is a prize for any one who writes a history of Suvorov’s wars. Send it to the academy. Here are my remarks, read them after I am gone for your own sake; you will find them profitable.”

Andrey did not tell his father that he probably had many years before him. He knew there was no need to say that.

“I will do all that, father,” he said.

“Well, now, good-bye!” He gave his son his hand to kiss and embraced him. “Remember one thing, Prince Andrey, if you are killed, it will be a grief to me in my old age …” He paused abruptly, and all at
once in a shrill voice went on: “But if I learn that you have not behaved like the son of Nikolay Bolkonsky, I shall be … ashamed,” he shrilled.

“You needn’t have said that to me, father,” said his son, smiling.

The old man did not speak.

“There’s another thing I wanted to ask you,” went on Prince Andrey; “if I’m killed, and if I have a son, don’t let him slip out of your hands, as I said to you yesterday; let him grow up with you … please.”

“Not give him up to your wife?” said the old man, and he laughed.

They stood mutually facing each other. The old man’s sharp eyes were fixed on his son’s eyes. A quiver passed over the lower part of the old prince’s face.

“We have said good-bye … go along!” he said suddenly. “Go along!” he cried in a loud and wrathful voice, opening the study door.

“What is it, what’s the matter?” asked the two princesses on seeing Prince Andrey, and catching a momentary glimpse of the figure of the old man in his white dressing-gown, wearing his spectacles and no wig, and shouting in a wrathful voice.

Prince Andrey sighed and made no reply.

“Now, then,” he said, turning to his wife, and that “now then” sounded like a cold sneer, as though he had said, “Now, go through your little performance.”

“Andrey? Already!” said the little princess, turning pale and looking with dismay at her husband. He embraced her. She shrieked and fell swooning on his shoulder.

He cautiously withdrew the shoulder, on which she was lying, glanced into her face and carefully laid her in a low chair.

“Good-bye, Masha,” he said gently to his sister, and they kissed one another’s hands, then with rapid steps he walked out of the room.

The little princess lay in the arm-chair; Mademoiselle Bourienne rubbed her temples. Princess Marya, supporting her sister-in-law, still gazed with her fine eyes full of tears at the door by which Prince Andrey had gone, and she made the sign of the cross at it. From the study she heard like pistol shots the repeated and angry sounds of the old man blowing his nose. Just after Prince Andrey had gone, the door of the study was flung open, and the stern figure of the old man in his white dressing-gown peeped out.

“Gone? Well, and a good thing too!” he said, looking furiously at the fainting princess. He shook his head reproachfully and slammed the door.

PART TWO