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

did say something about going.⁠ ⁠… Speak to him; I can do nothing, nothing, and don’t want to.⁠ ⁠…”

“I’ve spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow, but I think it would now be better to stay here,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne. “Because, you will agree, chère Marie, to fall into the hands of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible.”

Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau’s, telling people not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford them proper protection. She handed this to the princess.

“I think it would be best to appeal to that general,” she continued, “and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you.”

Princess Márya read the paper, and her face began to quiver with stifled sobs.

“From whom did you get this?” she asked.

“They probably recognized that I am French, by my name,” replied Mademoiselle Bourienne blushing.

Princess Márya, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with a pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince Andréy’s study.

“Dunyásha, send Alpátych, or Drónushka, or somebody to me!” she said, “and tell Amálya Karlóvna not to come to me,” she added, hearing Mademoiselle Bourienne’s voice. “We must go at once, at once!” she said, appalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the French.

“If Prince Andréy heard that I was in the power of the French! That I, the daughter of Prince Nikoláy Andréevich Bolkónski, asked General Rameau for protection and accepted his favor!” This idea horrified her, made her shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never experienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all that was humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. “They, the French, would settle in this house: M. le Général Rameau would occupy Prince Andréy’s study and amuse himself by looking through and reading his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of Boguchárovo for him. I should be given a small room as a favor, the soldiers would violate my father’s newly dug grave to steal his crosses and stars, they would tell me of their victories over the Russians, and would pretend to sympathize with my sorrow⁠ ⁠…” thought Princess Márya, not thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to think like her father and her brother. For herself she did not care where she remained or what happened to her, but she felt herself the representative of her dead father and of Prince Andréy. Involuntarily she thought their thoughts and felt their feelings. What they would have said and what they would have done she felt bound to say and do. She went into Prince Andréy’s study, trying to enter completely into his ideas, and considered her position.

The demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her father’s death, all at once rose before her with a new, previously unknown force and took possession of her.

Agitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Mikháil Ivánovich and now for Tíkhon or Dron. Dunyásha, the nurse, and the other maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne’s statement was correct. Alpátych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither could the architect Mikháil Ivánovich, who on being sent for came in with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Márya anything. With just the same smile of agreement with which for fifteen years he had been accustomed to answer the old prince without expressing views of his own, he now replied to Princess Márya, so that nothing definite could be got from his answers. The old valet Tíkhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: “Yes, Princess” to all Princess Márya’s questions and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her.

At length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep bow to Princess Márya came to a halt by the doorpost.

Princess Márya walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him.

“Drónushka,” she said, regarding as a sure friend this Drónushka who always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the fair at Vyázma every year and smilingly offer it to her, “Drónushka, now since our misfortune⁠ ⁠…” she began, but could not go on.

“We are all in God’s hands,” said he, with a sigh.

They were silent for a while.

“Drónushka, Alpátych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can’t even go away?”

“Why shouldn’t you go away, your excellency? You can go,” said Dron.

“I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go away tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

Dron paused. He looked askance at Princess Márya and said: “There are no horses; I told Yákov Alpátych so.”

“Why are there none?” asked the princess.

“It’s all God’s scourge,” said Dron. “What horses we had have been taken for the army or have died⁠—this is such a year! It’s not a case of feeding horses⁠—we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go three days without eating. We’ve nothing, we’ve been ruined.”

Princess Márya listened attentively to what he told her.

“The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?” she asked.

“They’re dying of hunger,” said Dron. “It’s not a case of carting.”

“But why didn’t you tell me, Drónushka? Isn’t it possible to help them? I’ll do all I can.⁠ ⁠…”

To Princess Márya it was strange that now, at a moment when such sorrow was filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the rich could refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that there was such a thing as “landlord’s corn” which was sometimes given to the peasants. She also knew that neither her father