world, but we are a different matter..." - without knowing why or how this
bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.
The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and
Bonaparte smiled. "The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor
smile," says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon
turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was
talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his
immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du
Don. *
* "Child of the Don."
The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka.
Lavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that
Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters
promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes
wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be
whipped. "As soon as Napoleon’s interpreter had spoken," says Thiers,
"the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode
on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across
the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and
replaced by a naïve and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after
making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to
its native fields."
Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his
imagination, and "the bird restored to its native fields" galloped to
our outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that
he meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did
not wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He
found the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov’s
detachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostov, quartered
at Yankovo. Rostov was just mounting to go for a ride round the
neighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse and
took him along with him.
CHAPTER VIII
Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew
supposed.
After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly
seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called
up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander in
chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the
last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander in chief’s
discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where
one of Russia’s oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he
announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.
But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of
the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and
thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father’s feverish and
sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to
leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey
him. She refused to go away and her father’s fury broke over her in a
terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on
her. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused
his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making
it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from
his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same
to him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and
warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as
she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her
not to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof
that in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and
had not gone away.
The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his
full uniform and prepared to visit the commander in chief. His caleche
was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in
his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his
armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to
his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came
running up the avenue with frightened faces.
Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and
into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving
toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by
the armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and
decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that
fell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue,
could not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see
was that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one
of timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless
lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he
wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very
couch he had so feared of late.
The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that the
prince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side.
It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and
next day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor accompanying
him.
By the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little prince
had already left for Moscow.
For three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new
house Prince Andrew had built at Bogucharovo, ever in the same state,
getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like
a distorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips
twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was
going on around him or not. One thing was certain - that he was suffering
and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it
might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate
to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.
The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due
to physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell
her something, and the fact that her presence always increased his
restlessness confirmed her opinion.
He was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no
hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do
to let him die on the road. "Would it not be better if the end did come,
the very end?" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly
sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched
him not with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find
symptoms of the approach of the end.
Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet
there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since
her father’s illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with
him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes
that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts
that had not entered her mind for years - thoughts of a life free from
the fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family
happiness - floated continually in her imagination like temptations of the
devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually recurred
to her as to how she would order her life now, after that. These were
temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew that the
sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She assumed
an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words of a
prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had
now taken possession of her - the life of a world of strenuous and free
activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she
had been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer.
She could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of
her.
It was becoming dangerous to remain in Bogucharovo. News of the approach
of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from
Bogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.
The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the
provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary
to persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the
rural police having come to Bogucharovo urged the same thing, saying
that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French
proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess
did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer
for the consequences.
The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation
and giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day.
She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in
the room next to the one where the prince lay. Several times, waking up,
she heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps
of Tikhon and the doctor when they turned him over. Several times she
listened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were
louder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not
sleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter
but not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw
and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him.
She had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look she
sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during
the night at an unusual hour would irritate him.
But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing
him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his
found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these memories
temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of
how things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life
would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward
morning he became quiet and she fell asleep.
She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed her
clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father’s illness. On waking
she listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him
groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same.
"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!" she
cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.
She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In
front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed
into the vehicles.
It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch, still
horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts
before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to
her.
"He is a little better today," said he. "I was looking for you. One can
make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in,
he is asking for you...."
Princess Mary’s heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale
and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk to
him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with
those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror.
"Come," said the doctor.
Princess Mary entered her father’s room and went up to his bed. He was
lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with
their knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed
straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips
motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face
seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller.
Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers
so that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He
twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.
She looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When
she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he
calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips
and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and
imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand.
Straining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic
efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with
difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something,
repeating the same words several times. She could not understand them,
but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words
he uttered.
"Mmm...ar...ate...ate..." he repeated several times.
It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought
he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: "Mary, are you afraid?"
The prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds.
"My mind, my mind aches?" questioned Princess Mary.
He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and
began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find
the right place for it.
"Always thoughts... about you... thoughts..." he then uttered much
more clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being
understood.
Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs
and tears.
He moved his hand over her hair.
"I have been calling you all night..." he brought out.
"If only I had known..." she said through her tears. "I was afraid to
come in."
He pressed her hand.
"Weren’t you asleep?"
"No, I did not sleep," said Princess Mary, shaking her head.
Unconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself as
he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move
with difficulty.
"Dear one... Dearest..." Princess Mary could not quite make out what he
had said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender
caressing word such as he had never used to her before. "Why didn’t you
come in?"
"And I was wishing for his death!" thought Princess Mary.
He was silent awhile.
"Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank
you!... forgive!... thank you!..." and tears began to flow from his
eyes. "Call Andrew!" he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression
of doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.
He himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it
seemed to Princess Mary.
"I have a letter from him," she replied.
He glanced at her with timid surprise.
"Where is he?"
"He’s with the army, Father, at Smolensk."
He closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in
answer to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and
remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.
"Yes," he said, softly and distinctly. "Russia has perished. They’ve
destroyed her."
And he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess Mary
could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face.
Again he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and
Tikhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.
Then he again opened his eyes and said something none of them could
understand for a long time, till at last Tikhon understood and repeated
it. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in
which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia,
or Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and
so she could not guess his words.
"Put on your white dress. I like it," was what he said.
Having understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the doctor
taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to
persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room the
prince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and about the
Emperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and
then he had a second and final stroke.
Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot and
sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel nothing,
except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had
never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as
far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had
planted.
"Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end
quicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me? What
use will peace be when he is no longer here?" Princess Mary murmured,
pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom
which heaved with convulsive sobs.
When she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her
again to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne - who had remained
at Bogucharovo and did not wish to leave it - coming toward her with a
stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who
had come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her
prompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she
led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then,
excusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince’s room. The
doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter.
"Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!"
She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the
slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how
long she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman’s
footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyasha her maid,
who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in
alarm on seeing her mistress.
"Please come, Princess... The Prince," said Dunyasha in a breaking
voice.
"Immediately, I’m coming, I’m coming!" replied the princess hurriedly,
not giving Dunyasha time to finish what she was saying, and trying to
avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.
"Princess, it’s God’s will! You must be prepared for everything," said
the Marshal, meeting her at the house door.
"Let me alone; it’s not true!" she cried angrily to him.
The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her
father’s door. "Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me?
I don’t want any of them! And what are they doing here?" she thought.
She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened
room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all
drew back from the bed, making way for her. He was still lying on the
bed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face made Princess
Mary stop short on the threshold.
"No, he’s not dead - it’s impossible!" she told herself and approached
him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips
to his cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the
tenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was
replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. "No, he
is no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and
hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!" And hiding
her face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor,
who held her up.
In the presence of Tikhon and the doctor the women washed what had been
the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should
not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the
legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform
with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table.
Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done
as if of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning round his
coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of
juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a
corner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms.
Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the
inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room round
the coffin - the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women - and all with
fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed the old
prince’s cold and stiffened hand.
CHAPTER IX
Until Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always been
absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from
those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and
disposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to
approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills
to help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he disliked
them for their boorishness.
Prince Andrew’s last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced hospitals
and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not
softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in
them the traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various
obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that
they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to
which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the
Tsar’s and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which
it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had
stopped it), then of Peter Fedorovich’s return to the throne in seven
years’ time, when everything would be made free and so "simple" that
there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and
his invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague
notions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and "pure freedom."
In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the
crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they
pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood
and also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the
peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of
the Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to
contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among
others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was
a movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown "warm rivers."
Hundreds of peasants, among them the Bogucharovo folk, suddenly began
selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast.
As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their
wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of
them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one
by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the "warm rivers." Many
of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and
hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement
died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason.
But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new
forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and
at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone
living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these
undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.
Alpatych, who had reached Bogucharovo shortly before the old prince’s
death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to
what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of
forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages
to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region
round Bogucharovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French,
received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not
migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant
Karp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had
recently been away driving a government transport, had returned with
news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the
French did not harm them. Alpatych also knew that on the previous day
another peasant had even brought from the village of Visloukhovo, which
was occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no
harm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would
be paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had
brought from Visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that
they were false) paid to him in advance for hay.
More important still, Alpatych learned that on the morning of the
very day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the
princess’ luggage from Bogucharovo, there had been a village meeting at
which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no
time to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince’s death,
the Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary’s leaving at once, as it was
becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could
not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the
old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for
the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that
the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his
own family and valuables from his estate.
For some thirty years Bogucharovo had been managed by the village Elder,
Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive "Dronushka."
Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow
big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they
are sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as
straight and strong at sixty as at thirty.
Soon after the migration to the "warm rivers," in which he had taken
part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of
Bogucharovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for
twenty-three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their
master. The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward
respected him and jestingly called him "the Minister." During the
whole time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after
sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue,
and though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money
account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless
cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn
crop on any single acre of the Bogucharovo fields.
Alpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his
Dron on the day of the prince’s funeral and told him to have twelve
horses got ready for the princess’ carriages and eighteen carts for
the things to be removed from Bogucharovo. Though the peasants paid
quitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about complying
with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at
work in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the
order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpatych named certain
peasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts.
Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.
Alpatych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses
available: some horses were carting for the government, others were too
weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses
could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.
Alpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model
village Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince’s estates for
twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest
degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt
with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did
not express his personal views but the general mood of the Bogucharovo
commune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also
knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune,
must be hesitating between the two camps: the masters’ and the serfs’.
He noticed this hesitation in Dron’s look and therefore frowned and
moved closer up to him.
"Now just listen, Dronushka," said he. "Don’t talk nonsense to me. His
excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people
away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the
Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you
hear?"
"I hear," Dron answered without lifting his eyes.
Alpatych was not satisfied with this reply.
"Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!" he said, shaking his head.
"The power is in your hands," Dron rejoined sadly.
"Eh, Dron, drop it!" Alpatych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his
bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron’s feet. "I can see
through you and three yards into the ground under you," he continued,
gazing at the floor in front of Dron.
Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpatych and again lowered
his eyes.
"You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their
homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning
for the princess’ things. And don’t go to any meeting yourself, do you
hear?"
Dron suddenly fell on his knees.
"Yakov Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me,
for Christ’s sake!"
"Stop that!" cried Alpatych sternly. "I see through you and three yards
under you," he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his
knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had
been able to retain the old prince’s favor for twenty years had long
since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of
seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.
Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpatych interrupted
him.
"What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking
of, eh?"
"What am I to do with the people?" said Dron. "They’re quite beside
themselves; I have already told them..."
"‘Told them,’ I dare say!" said Alpatych. "Are they drinking?" he asked
abruptly.
"Quite beside themselves, Yakov Alpatych; they’ve fetched another
barrel."
"Well, then, listen! I’ll go to the police officer, and you tell them
so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready."
"I understand."
Alpatych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time
and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion
that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive "I understand"
from Dron, Alpatych contented himself with that, though he not only
doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the
carts would not be forthcoming.
And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the
village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which
decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the
carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the
princess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which
had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for
the princess’ carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police
authorities.
CHAPTER X
After her father’s funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and
did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpatych was
asking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with
Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been
lying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go
away and begged to be left in peace.
The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She
lay on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the
leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused
thoughts were centered on one subject - the irrevocability of death and
her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had
shown itself during her father’s illness. She wished to pray but did not
dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God.
She lay for a long time in that position.
The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays
shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco
cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts
suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up,
and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the
clear but windy evening.
"Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will
hinder you," she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her
head fall on the window sill.
Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and
kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black
dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed
her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All
their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind.
But she remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle
Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were
the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. "Besides,
is it for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?" she
thought.
Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle
Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was
dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her
and held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle
Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of
the princess’ sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her
only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her
sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but
this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone,
and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess
heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and
listening to the sound of her voice.
"Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess," said Mademoiselle
Bourienne after a pause. "I understand that you could not, and cannot,
think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has
Alpatych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?" she asked.
Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or
where to. "Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not
all the same?" she thought, and did not reply.
"You know, chere Marie," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "that we are in
danger - are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now.
If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows..."
Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was
talking about.
"Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now," she said.
"Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpatych
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, chere 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 Mary 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 Mary, 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 Andrew’s
study.
"Dunyasha, send Alpatych, or Dronushka, or somebody to me!" she said,
"and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne 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 Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That
I, the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, 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 General Rameau would occupy
Prince Andrew’s study and amuse himself by looking through and reading
his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of
Bogucharovo 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 Mary,
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 Andrew. 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 Andrew’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 Michael
Ivanovich and now for Tikhon or Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and the other
maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne’s statement was
correct. Alpatych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither
could the architect Michael Ivanovich, who on being sent for came in
with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary 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 Mary, so that nothing definite could be got from his
answers. The old valet Tikhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the
stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: "Yes, Princess" to all Princess
Mary’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 Mary came to a halt by the doorpost.
Princess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him.
"Dronushka," she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka who
always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the
fair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, "Dronushka, 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.
"Dronushka, Alpatych 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 Mary and said: "There are no
horses; I told Yakov Alpatych 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 Mary 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, Dronushka? Isn’t it possible to help them?
I’ll do all I can...."
To Princess Mary 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 nor her brother would
refuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make some
mistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished to
give. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her
without scruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about the
peasants’ needs and what there was in Bogucharovo that belonged to the
landlord.
"But we have grain belonging to my brother?" she said.
"The landlord’s grain is all safe," replied Dron proudly. "Our prince
did not order it to be sold."
"Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave
in my brother’s name," said she.
Dron made no answer but sighed deeply.
"Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I
give this order in my brother’s name; and tell them that what is ours is
theirs. We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so."
Dron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking.
"Discharge me, little mother, for God’s sake! Order the keys to be taken
from me," said he. "I have served twenty-three years and have done no
wrong. Discharge me, for God’s sake!"
Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he was
asking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his
devotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the
peasants.
CHAPTER XI
An hour later Dunyasha came to tell the princess that Dron had come, and
all the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess’ order and
wished to have word with their mistress.
"But I never told them to come," said Princess Mary. "I only told Dron
to let them have the grain."
"Only, for God’s sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don’t go
out to them. It’s all a trick," said Dunyasha, "and when Yakov Alpatych
returns let us get away... and please don’t..."
"What is a trick?" asked Princess Mary in surprise.
"I know it is, only listen to me for God’s sake! Ask nurse too. They say
they don’t agree to leave Bogucharovo as you ordered."
"You’re making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away," said
Princess Mary. "Call Dronushka."
Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha’s words; the peasants had come by the
princess’ order.
"But I never sent for them," declared the princess. "You must have given
my message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the grain."
Dron only sighed in reply.
"If you order it they will go away," said he.
"No, no. I’ll go out to them," said Princess Mary, and in spite of
the nurse’s and Dunyasha’s protests she went out into the porch; Dron,
Dunyasha, the nurse, and Michael Ivanovich following her.
"They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to
remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the
French," thought Princess Mary. "I will offer them monthly rations and
housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in
my place," she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd
standing on the pasture by the barn.
The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their
hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came
close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed
on her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not
distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all
at once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she
represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly
began her speech.
"I am very glad you have come," she said without raising her eyes, and
feeling her heart beating quickly and violently. "Dronushka tells me
that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I
shall grudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it
is dangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you
everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain,
so that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am
giving you the grain to keep you here - that is not true. On the contrary,
I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near Moscow, and
I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for nothing.
You shall be given food and lodging."
The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd.
"I am not doing this on my own account," she continued, "I do it in the
name of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother
and his son."
Again she paused. No one broke the silence.
"Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that is
mine is yours," she concluded, scanning the faces before her.
All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She
could not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or
apprehension and distrust - but the expression on all the faces was
identical.
"We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won’t do for us to
take the landlord’s grain," said a voice at the back of the crowd.
"But why not?" asked the princess.
No one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found that
every eye she met now was immediately dropped.
"But why don’t you want to take it?" she asked again.
No one answered.
The silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch
someone’s eye.
"Why don’t you speak?" she inquired of a very old man who stood just
in front of her leaning on his stick. "If you think something more is
wanted, tell me! I will do anything," said she, catching his eye.
But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:
"Why should we agree? We don’t want the grain."
"Why should we give up everything? We don’t agree. Don’t agree.... We
are sorry for you, but we’re not willing. Go away yourself, alone..."
came from various sides of the crowd.
And again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression,
though now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude,
but of angry resolve.
"But you can’t have understood me," said Princess Mary with a sad smile.
"Why don’t you want to go? I promise to house and feed you, while here
the enemy would ruin you...."
But her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd.
"We’re not willing. Let them ruin us! We won’t take your grain. We don’t
agree."
Again Princess Mary tried to catch someone’s eye, but not a single eye
in the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to avoid
her look. She felt strange and awkward.
"Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses
and go into bondage! I dare say! ‘I’ll give you grain, indeed!’ she
says," voices in the crowd were heard saying.
With drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to the
house. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for her
departure next morning, she went to her room and remained alone with her
own thoughts.
CHAPTER XII
For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of her
room hearing the sound of the peasants’ voices that reached her from
the village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that she
could not understand them however much she might think about them. She
thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break caused
by cares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she
could remember it and weep or pray.
After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh. Toward
midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full moon began
to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mist began to
rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.
Pictures of the near past - her father’s illness and last moments - rose
one after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now lingered
over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the
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