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

I don’t sleep at night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his skill?” he concluded.

“That would take too long to tell,” answered the son.

“Well, then go off to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here’s another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours,” he exclaimed in excellent French.

“You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!”

“Dieu sait quand reviendra.” hummed the prince out of tune and, with a laugh still more so, he quitted the table.

The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of the dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her father-in-law and now at Princess Márya. When they left the table she took her sister-in-law’s arm and drew her into another room.

“What a clever man your father is,” said she; “perhaps that is why I am afraid of him.”

“Oh, he is so kind!” answered Princess Márya.

XXVIII

Prince Andréy was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in her sister-in-law’s room. Prince Andréy in a traveling coat without epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him. After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted with silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber⁠—a present from his father who had brought it from the siege of Ochákov. All these traveling effects of Prince Andréy’s were in very good order: new, clean, and in cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.

When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andréy’s face looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was he sad at leaving his wife?⁠—perhaps both, but evidently he did not wish to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the cover of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Márya that he heard.

“I hear you have given orders to harness,” she cried, panting (she had apparently been running), “and I did so wish to have another talk with you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not angry with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrúsha,” she added, as if to explain such a question.

She smiled as she uttered his pet name, “Andrúsha.” It was obviously strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be Andrúsha⁠—the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in childhood.

“And where is Liza?” he asked, answering her question only by a smile.

“She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh, André! What a treasure of a wife you have,” said she, sitting down on the sofa, facing her brother. “She is quite a child: such a dear, merry child. I have grown so fond of her.”

Prince Andréy was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.

“One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them, André? Don’t forget that she has grown up and been educated in society, and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into everyone’s situation. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner.16 Think what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her condition! It’s very hard.”

Prince Andréy smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we think we thoroughly understand.

“You live in the country and don’t think the life terrible,” he replied.

“I⁠ ⁠… that’s different. Why speak of me? I don’t want any other life, and can’t, for I know no other. But think, André: for a young society woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all alone⁠—for Papa is always busy, and I⁠ ⁠… well, you know what poor resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society. There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne.⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all,” said Prince Andréy.

“No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she’s much to be pitied. She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don’t need her, and she’s even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am even more so. I like being alone.⁠ ⁠… Father likes her very much. She and Mikháil Ivánovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and kind, because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says: ‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them.’ Father took her when she was homeless after losing her own father. She is very good-natured, and my father likes her way of reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads splendidly.”

“To be quite frank, Marie, I expect Father’s character sometimes makes things trying for you, doesn’t it?” Prince Andréy asked suddenly.

Princess Márya was first surprised and then aghast at this question.

“For me? For me?⁠ ⁠… Trying for me!⁠ ⁠…” said she.

“He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he’s getting very trying,” said Prince Andréy, apparently speaking lightly of their father in order to puzzle or test his sister.

“You are good in every way, André, but you have a