War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [143]
“Enough nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and sensible with the old prince.”
“If he starts being abusive, I’ll leave,” said Anatole. “I can’t stand these old men. Eh?”
“Remember, for you everything depends on this.”
By that time in the maids’ quarters not only was everything known about the arrival of the minister and his son, but their external appearance had already been described in detail. Princess Marya sat alone in her room, vainly trying to overcome her inner excitement.
“Why did they write, why did Liza tell me about it all? It just can’t be!” she kept saying to herself, looking in the mirror. “How will I come out to the drawing room? Even if I liked him, I couldn’t be myself with him now.” The mere thought of her father’s gaze terrified her.
The little princess and Mlle Bourienne had already received all the necessary information from the maid Masha about what a ruddy, dark-browed, handsome fellow the minister’s son was, and how his papa could barely drag his feet up the stairs, while he, like an eagle, ran up after him taking three steps at a time. On receiving this information, the little princess and Mlle Bourienne, their animatedly chattering voices heard already from the corridor, came into Princess Marya’s room.
“Ils sont arrivés, Marie,*239 do you know?” said the little princess, waddling in with her belly and lowering herself heavily into an armchair.
She was no longer in the smock she had on that morning, but was wearing one of her best gowns; her hair was carefully done, and in her face there was animation, which, however, did not conceal the sagging and deadened contours of her face. In a costume she used to wear in Petersburg society, it was still more noticeable how far she had lost her good looks. Mlle Bourienne’s costume had also undergone some sort of inconspicuous improvement, which made her fresh, pretty face still more attractive.
“Et bien, et vous restez comme vous êtes, chère princesse?” she said. “On va venir annoncer que ces messieurs sont au salon; il faudra descendre, et vous ne faites pas un petit brin de toilette!”†240
The little princess got up from the armchair, rang for the maid, and began hurriedly and cheerfully devising a costume for Princess Marya and carrying it out. Princess Marya felt insulted in her sense of her own dignity, because the arrival of the promised suitor excited her, and she was still more insulted that her two friends did not suppose it could be otherwise. To tell them how ashamed she was of herself and of them would mean to betray her excitement; besides, to refuse the dressing-up they suggested would lead to prolonged bantering and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes faded, her face became covered with blotches, and, with that unattractive expression of a victim which most often lingered on her face, she gave herself into the power of Mlle Bourienne and Liza. The two women concerned themselves in all sincerity with making her beautiful. She was so plain that the thought of rivalry with her did not occur to either of them; they therefore undertook to dress her up in all sincerity, with that naïve and firm conviction of women that clothes can make a face beautiful.
“No, really, ma bonne amie, this dress won’t do,” Liza said, looking sideways at the princess from a distance, “have them bring the maroon one you’ve got there! Really! Why, this may just be the deciding of your fate in life. And this is too light, it won’t do, no, it won’t do!”
What would not do was not the dress, but the face and the whole figure of the princess, but neither Mlle Bourienne nor the little princess sensed that; it seemed to them that if a blue ribbon was put in the hair, done up high, and a blue scarf hung down on the brown dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that the frightened face and figure could not be changed, and therefore, no matter how they changed the frame and decoration of that face, the face itself remained pitiful and unattractive. After two or three changes, to which Princess Marya submitted obediently, when