War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [353]
brides in Moscow, was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young men who, she thought, had suddenly come to appreciate her merits. Julie had reached that stage when a young lady of society feels that her last chance to marry has come and her fate must be decided now or never. On Thursday, Princess Marya remembered with a sad smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie, Julie whose presence brought her no joy, was there, and she saw her every week. Like the old émigré who refused to marry a lady with whom he had been spending his evenings for several years, because, once married, he would not know where to spend his evenings, she was sorry that Julie was there and that she had no one to write to. Princess Marya had no one in Moscow with whom she could talk, no one to whom she could confide her grief, and many new griefs had been added on during that time. The date of Prince Andrei’s return and marriage was approaching, and his request that she prepare their father for it had not only not been fulfilled, but the matter, on the contrary, seemed to have deteriorated completely, and any reminder of Countess Rostov put the old prince beside himself, and he was almost always in a bad mood as it was. A new grief recently added to Princess Marya’s burden was the lessons she gave to her six-year-old nephew. In her relations with Nikolushka, she recognized in herself with horror the quality of her father’s irritability. No matter how many times she told herself that she must not allow herself to get angry while teaching her nephew, almost every time she sat down with a pointer over the French reader, she wanted so much to pour her knowledge quickly and easily from herself into the child, who was already afraid that his aunt was about to get angry, that at the least inattention on the boy’s part, she jumped, hurried, became angry, raised her voice, sometimes pulled his arm, and made him stand in the corner. Having stood him in the corner, she herself would begin to weep over her wicked, bad character, and Nikolushka, imitating her weeping, would leave the corner without permission, come over to her, pull her wet hands away from her face, and comfort her. But the greatest, the greatest of all the princess’s griefs, came from her father’s irritability, which was always directed against her and lately had reached the point of cruelty. If he had made her bow to the ground all night, if he had beaten her, made her carry firewood and water, it would not even have occurred to her that her position was difficult; but this loving tormentor—the more cruel because he loved her and because of that tormented himself and her—knew not only how to insult and humiliate her deliberately, but also how to prove to her that she was always to blame for everything. Lately a new feature had appeared in him which tormented Princess Marya most of all—this was his increasing intimacy with Mlle Bourienne. The thought, which had occurred to him as a joke when he received news of his son’s intention, that if Andrei got married, he himself would marry Bourienne, was evidently to his liking, and lately, only in order to insult her (as it seemed to Princess Marya), he had stubbornly shown a special affection for Mlle Bourienne, and had shown his displeasure with his daughter by showing his liking for Bourienne.
One day in Moscow, in Princess Marya’s presence (it seemed to her that he did it in front of her on purpose), the old prince kissed Mlle Bourienne’s hand, pulled her to him, and embraced her affectionately. Princess Marya flared up and ran out of the room. A few moments later, Mlle Bourienne came into Princess Marya’s room smiling and talking about something cheerfully in her pleasant voice. Princess Marya hastily wiped her tears, went up to Bourienne with resolute steps, and, apparently not realizing it herself, began shouting at the Frenchwoman with wrathful haste and a breaking voice:
“It’s vile, low, inhuman to take advantage of the weakness…” She did not finish. “Get out of my room,” she cried and burst into sobs.