War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [241]
On the twenty-sixth of February, 1807, the old prince left on his rounds. Prince Andrei stayed at Bald Hills, as he did most often during his father’s absence. Little Nikolushka had been ill for three days now. The coachman who drove the old prince came back from town bringing papers and letters for Prince Andrei.
The valet with the letters did not find the young prince in his study and went to Princess Marya’s side; but he was not there either. The valet was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.
“If you please, Your Excellency, Petrusha has come with papers,” said one of the maids who assisted the nanny, addressing Prince Andrei, who was sitting on a child’s little chair, frowning, his hands trembling, pouring drops of medicine from a vial into a glass half filled with water.
“What’s that?” he said crossly, and his hand carelessly twitched, pouring an extra number of drops from the vial into the glass. He dumped the medicine on the floor and asked for more water. The maid gave it to him.
In the room stood a baby’s crib, two trunks, two armchairs, a table, and a child’s table with the little chair on which Prince Andrei was sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a candle burned on the table, screened by a bound music book to shield the bed from the light.
“My friend,” said Princess Marya, addressing her brother from beside the crib where she was standing, “it’s better to wait…later…”
“Ah, for pity’s sake, you keep saying stupid things, and you keep wanting to wait—see, we’ve waited,” said Prince Andrei in a spiteful whisper, clearly with the wish to sting his sister.
“My friend, really, it’s better not to wake him, he’s asleep,” the princess said in a pleading voice.
Prince Andrei got up and, holding the glass, tiptoed towards the crib.
“So you really think we shouldn’t wake him?” he said hesitantly.
“As you wish—really…I think…but as you wish,” said Princess Marya, clearly abashed and ashamed that her opinion had triumphed. She pointed to the maid, who was calling to her brother in a whisper.
It was the second night that the two of them had not slept, looking after the boy, who was burning with fever. For two whole days, not trusting their house doctor and expecting the one they had sent for from town, they had been trying now one, now another remedy. Worn out by sleeplessness and anxiety, they shifted their grief onto each other, reproached each other, and quarreled.
“Petrusha’s here with papers from your father,” the girl whispered. Prince Andrei stepped out.
“Well, what now!” he said crossly and, having listened to the verbal orders from his father and taking the envelopes and his father’s letter, he went back to the nursery.
“Well, how is he?” asked Prince Andrei.
“Still the same, just wait, for God’s sake. Karl Ivanych always says that sleep is best of all,” Princess Marya whispered with a sigh. Prince Andrei went over to the baby and felt him. He was burning.
“Devil take you and your Karl Ivanych!” He picked up the glass with the drops of medicine in it and went back again.
“André, don’t!” said Princess Marya.
But he glowered at her angrily and at the same time sufferingly, and bent over the baby with the glass.
“But I want it,” he said. “Well, give it to him, I beg you.”
Princess Marya shrugged her shoulders, but took the glass obediently and, calling to the nanny, began to administer the medicine. The baby cried and wheezed. Prince Andrei, wincing, clutched his head, went out, and sat on a sofa in the next room.
He still had the letters in his hand. He opened them mechanically and began to read. On blue paper, in his large, elongated hand, occasionally using abbreviations, the old prince wrote the following:
I have this moment received most joyful news through a courier. If it is not a lie, Bennigsen is supposed to have won a full victory over Bonapartius at Preussisch-Eylau.13 In Petersburg there is general rejoicing, and no end of rewards have been