War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📕

of her father’s face, not sad, not crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst in life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and incomprehensible⁠—the death of one she loved.

“Father! André!”⁠—said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.

“Bad news! He’s not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutúzov writes⁠ ⁠…” and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the princess away by that scream⁠ ⁠… “Killed!”

The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy⁠—a supreme joy apart from the joys and sorrows of this world⁠—overflowed the great grief within her. She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.

“Father,” she said, “do not turn away from me, let us weep together.”

“Scoundrels! Blackguards!” shrieked the old man, turning his face away from her. “Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go, go and tell Liza.”

The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took leave of her and of Liza, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. “Did he believe? Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms of eternal peace and blessedness?” she thought.

“Father, tell me how it happened,” she asked through her tears.

“Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia’s glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Márya. Go and tell Liza. I will follow.”

When Princess Márya returned from her father, the little princess sat working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see Princess Márya but were looking within⁠ ⁠… into herself⁠ ⁠… at something joyful and mysterious taking place within her.

“Marie,” she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back, “give me your hand.” She took her sister-in-law’s hand and held it below her waist.

Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained lifted in childlike happiness.

Princess Márya knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her sister-in-law’s dress.

“There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know, Márya, I am going to love him very much,” said Liza, looking with bright and happy eyes at her sister-in-law.

Princess Márya could not lift her head, she was weeping.

“What is the matter, Márya?”

“Nothing⁠ ⁠… only I feel sad⁠ ⁠… sad about Andréy,” she said, wiping away her tears on her sister-in-law’s knee.

Several times in the course of the morning Princess Márya began trying to prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at Princess Márya, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women, and suddenly began to cry.

“Has anything come from Andréy?” she asked.

“No, you know it’s too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I feel afraid.”

“So there’s nothing?”

“Nothing,” answered Princess Márya, looking firmly with her radiant eyes at her sister-in-law.

She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected within a few days. Princess Márya and the old prince each bore and hid their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope: he made up his mind that Prince Andréy had been killed, and though he sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Márya hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news of his return.

VIII

“Dearest,” said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and even every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so now the smile of the little princess⁠—influenced by the general mood though without knowing its cause⁠—was such as to remind one still more of the general sorrow.

“Dearest, I’m afraid this morning’s fruschtique48⁠—as Fóka the cook calls it⁠—has disagreed with me.”

“What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are very pale!” said Princess Márya in alarm, running with her soft, ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.

“Your excellency, should not Márya Bogdánovna be sent for?” said one of the maids who was present. (Márya Bogdánovna was a midwife from the neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.)

“Oh yes,” assented Princess Márya, “perhaps that’s it. I’ll go. Courage, my angel.” She kissed Liza and was about to leave the room.

“Oh, no, no!” And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on the little princess’ face,