War And Peace: Book 8 - CHAPTER II

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

AT THE BEGINNING of the winter Prince Nikolay Andreitch Bolkonsky and his

daughter moved to Moscow. His past, his intellect and originality, and still

more the falling off at about that time of the popular enthusiasm for the rule

of the Tsar Alexander and the anti-French and patriotic sentiments then

prevailing at Moscow, all contributed to make Prince Nikolay Andreitch at once

an object of peculiar veneration and the centre of the Moscow opposition to the

government.

The prince had greatly aged during that year. He had begun to show

unmistakable signs of failing powers, sudden attacks of drowsiness, and

forgetfulness of events nearest in time, and exact memory of remote incidents,

and a childlike vanity in playing the part of leader of the Moscow opposition.

But in spite of that, when the old man came into the drawing-room in the

evenings to tea, in his wig and fur coat, and on being incited to do so by some

one, began uttering abrupt observations on the past, or still more abrupt and

harsh criticisms on the present—he aroused the same feeling of esteem and

reverence in all his guests. For visitors, that old-fashioned house, with its

huge mirrors, pre-revolutionary furniture, and powdered lackeys, and the stern

and shrewd old man, himself a relic of a past age, with the gentle daughter and

the pretty Frenchwoman, both so reverently devoted to him, made a stately and

agreeable spectacle. But those visitors did not reflect that, apart from the

couple of hours during which they saw the household, there were twenty-two hours

of the day and night during which the secret, private life of the house went on

its accustomed way.

That inner life had become very hard for Princess Marya of late in Moscow.

She was deprived in Moscow of her two greatest pleasures—talks with God's folk

and the solitude which had refreshed her spirit at Bleak Hills, and she had none

of the advantages and pleasures of town life. She did not go into society; every

one knew that her father would not allow her to go anywhere without him, and

owing to his failing health he could go nowhere himself. She was not even

invited now to dinner-parties or balls. Princess Marya had laid aside all hopes

of marriage. She saw the coldness and hostility with which the old prince

received and dismissed the young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared

at the house. Friends, Princess Marya now had none; during this stay in Moscow

she had lost all faith in the two friends who had been nearest to her.

Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom she had never been able to be perfectly open,

she now regarded with dislike, and for certain reasons kept at a distance.

Julie, with whom Princess Marya had kept up an unbroken correspondence for five

years, was in Moscow. When Princess Marya renewed her personal relations with

her, she felt her former friend to be utterly alien to her. Julie, who had

become, by the death of her brothers, one of the wealthiest heiresses in Moscow,

was at that time engrossed in a giddy whirl of fashionable amusements. She was

surrounded by young men, whom she believed to have become suddenly appreciative

of her qualities. Julie was at that stage when a young lady is somewhat past her

first youth in society and feels that her last chance of marrying has come, and

that now or never her fate must be decided. With a mournful smile Princess Marya

reflected every Thursday that she had now no one to write to, seeing that Julie

was here and saw her every week, though her friend's actual presence gave her no

sort of pleasure. Like the old French émigré, who declined to marry the

lady with whom he had for so many years spent his evenings, she regretted that

Julie was here and she had no one to write to. In Moscow Princess Marya had no

one to speak to, no one to confide her sorrows to, and many fresh sorrows fell

to her lot about this time. The time for Prince Andrey's return and marriage was

approaching, and his commission to her to prepare her father's mind was so far

from being successfully carried out that the whole thing seemed hopeless; and

any reference to the young Countess Rostov infuriated the old prince, who was

for the most part out of humour at all times now. Another trouble that weighed

on Princess Marya of late was due to the lessons she gave to her six-year-old

nephew. In her relations with little Nikolay she recognised to her consternation

symptoms of her father's irritable character in herself. However often she told

herself that she must not let herself lose her temper, when teaching her nephew,

almost every time she sat down with a pointer showing him the French alphabet,

she so longed to hasten, to make easy the process of transferring her knowledge

to the child, who was by now always afraid his auntie would be angry the next

moment, that at the slightest inattention she was quivering in nervous haste and

vexation, she raised her voice and sometimes pulled him by his little hand and

stood him in the corner. When she had stood him in the corner she would begin to

cry herself over her evil, wicked nature, and little Nikolay, his sobs vying

with hers, would come unbidden out of the corner to pull her wet hands from her

face and try to comfort her. But the greatest, far the greatest of the

princess's burdens was her father's irascibility, which was invariably directed

against his daughter, and had of late reached the point of cruelty. Had he

forced her to spend the night bowing to the ground, had he beaten her, or made

her carry in wood and water, it would never have entered her head that her

position was a hard one. But this loving despot—most cruel of all because he

loved, and for that very reason tortured himself and her—knew not only how to

mortify and humiliate her, but of set purpose, to prove to her that she was

always to blame in everything. Of late he had taken a new departure, which

caused Princess Marya more misery than anything—that was his closer and closer

intimacy with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea, that had occurred to him in jest

at the first moment of receiving the news of his son's intentions, that if

Andrey got married he, too, would marry Mademoiselle Bourienne, obviously

pleased him, and he had of late— simply, as Princess Marya fancied, to annoy

her—persisted in being particularly gracious to Mademoiselle Bourienne and

manifesting his dissatisfaction with his daughter by demonstrations of love for

the Frenchwoman.

One day in Princess Marya's presence (it seemed to her that her father did it

on purpose because she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne's

hand, and drawing her to him embraced her affectionately. Princess Marya flushed

hotly and ran out of the room. A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Bourienne went

into Princess Marya's room, smiling and making some cheerful remarks in her

agreeable voice. Princess Marya hastily wiped away her tears, with resolute

steps went up to the Frenchwoman, and obviously unconscious of what she was

doing, with wrathful haste and breaks in her voice she began screaming at

her:

“It's loathsome, vile, inhuman to take advantage of feebleness…” She could

not go on. “Go out of my room,” she cried, and broke into sobs.

The next day the old prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she

noticed that at dinner he gave orders for the dishes to be handed to

Mademoiselle Bourienne first. When towards the end of dinner, the footman from

habit handed the coffee, beginning with the princess, the old prince flew into a

sudden frenzy of rage, flung his cane at Filipp, and immediately gave orders for

him to be sent for a soldier.

“He won't obey…twice I told him!…and he didn't obey. She's the first person

in this house, she's my best friend,” screamed the old prince. And if you allow

yourself,” he shouted in a fury, for the first time addressing Princess Marya,

“ever again, as you dared yesterday … to forget yourself in her presence, I'll

show you who is master in this house. Away! don't let me set eyes on you! Beg

her pardon!”

Princess Marya begged Amalia Yevgenyevna's pardon and also her father's, both

for herself and the footman Filipp, who implored her intervention.

At such moments the feeling that prevailed in Princess Marya's soul was akin

to the pride of sacrifice. And all of a sudden at such moments, that father whom

she was judging would look for his spectacles, fumbling by them and not seeing

them, or would forget what had just happened, or would take a tottering step

with his weak legs, and look round to see whether any one had noticed his

feebleness, or what was worst of all, at dinner when there were no guests to

excite him, he would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his

shaking head sink over his plate. “He is old and feeble, and I dare to judge

him!” she thought, revolted by herself.