War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [316]
Our family life goes on as before, except for the absence of my brother Andrei. As I’ve already written to you, he has changed very much recently. After his grief, it is only now, during this present year, that he has completely revived morally. He has become the way I knew him as a child: kind, affectionate, with that heart of gold of which I do not know the equal. He has understood, it seems to me, that his life is not over. But, along with this moral change, he has grown very weak physically. He has become thinner than before, more nervous. I fear for him, and I am glad he has undertaken this trip abroad which the doctors prescribed for him long ago. I hope this will cure him. You write me that he is spoken of in Petersburg as one of the most active, educated, and intelligent young men. Forgive my family vanity, but I never doubted that. It’s impossible to calculate the good he has done here for everyone, from his peasants to the gentry. On coming to Petersburg, he only received his due. I wonder how rumors generally get from Petersburg to Moscow, and especially such false ones as the one you write to me about—the rumor of the supposed marriage of my brother to the little Rostov girl. I do not think Andrei will every marry anyone, and especially not her. And here is why: first, I know that, though he rarely speaks of his late wife, the grief of that loss is too deeply rooted in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and a stepmother to our little angel. Second, because, as far as I know, this girl does not belong at all to the category that could please Prince Andrei. I do not think that Prince Andrei would choose her for his wife, and I will tell you frankly: I do not wish it. But I am babbling away, coming to the end of my second sheet. Good-bye, my dear friend; may God keep you under His holy and mighty protection. My dear friend, Mlle Bourienne, kisses you.
Marie.
XXVI
In the middle of summer, Princess Marya received an unexpected letter from Prince Andrei in Switzerland, with a strange and unexpected piece of news. Prince Andrei announced his engagement to Miss Rostov. His whole letter breathed a loving rapture for his fiancée and a tender friendship and trust for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved as he loved now, and that only now did he know and understand life. He asked his sister to forgive him for not telling her of this decision during his visit to Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it with his father. He had not told her of it, because Princess Marya would have asked their father to give his consent, and without achieving that goal, would have irritated their father and brought upon herself the whole burden of his displeasure. However, he wrote, the matter had not been as finally decided then as it was now.
Then, father appointed me a year’s term, and now six months, half the appointed term, have gone by, and I remain as firm in my decision as ever. If the doctors did not keep me here at the spa, I would be in Russia myself, but as it is I must put off my return for another three months. You know me and my relations with father. I need nothing from him, I am and always will be independent, but to go against his will, to incur his wrath, when he will perhaps not be with us much longer, would spoil half my happiness. I am now writing a letter to him about the same thing, and I ask you to choose a good moment to give him the letter, and to let me know how he looks at it all and whether there is any hope that he will agree to shorten the term by three months.
After many