War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [466]
But, while staying in Bald Hills himself, the prince gave orders for the princess and Dessales to be sent with the little prince to Bogucharovo, and from there to Moscow. Princess Marya, frightened at her father’s feverish, sleepless activity, which replaced his former inertia, would not risk leaving him alone, and for the first time in her life allowed herself to disobey him. She refused to leave, and the terrible thunder of the prince’s wrath fell upon her. He reminded her of everything in which he had been unfair to her. Trying to accuse her, he told her that she had worn him out, that she had caused him to quarrel with his son, that she had had nasty suspicions of him, that she had made it the goal of her life to poison his life, and he drove her out of his study, telling her that it was all the same to him whether she left or not. He said that he did not want to know of her existence, but gave her fair warning beforehand that she dare not show her face to him. The fact that, contrary to her apprehensions, he did not have her taken away by force, but only ordered her not to show her face to him, gladdened Princess Marya. She knew it proved that, in his heart of hearts, he was glad that she was staying at home and not leaving.
The day after Nikolushka’s departure, the old prince put on his full uniform in the morning and prepared to go to the commander in chief. The carriage was already at the porch. Princess Marya saw him leave the house, in his uniform and all his decorations, and go to the garden to hold a review of the armed peasants and domestics. Princess Marya was sitting by the window, listening to his voice coming from the garden. Suddenly several people with frightened faces came running up the avenue.
Princess Marya ran out to the porch, down the garden path, and into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics was moving towards her, and in the middle of this crowd several men were dragging under the arms a little old man in a uniform and decorations. Princess Marya ran to him, and in the play of light falling in small circles through the shade of the linden avenue, she could not account to herself for the change that had come over his face. The one thing she saw was that the former stern and resolute expression of his face had been replaced by an expression of timidity and submission. Seeing his daughter, he moved his strengthless lips and made a wheezing sound. It was impossible to tell what he wanted. They picked him up, carried him to his study, and laid him on that very couch which he had feared so much lately.
The doctor brought that same evening let his blood and announced that the prince had had a stroke on the right side.
To remain in Bald Hills was becoming more and more dangerous, and the day after the stroke the prince was taken to Bogucharovo. The doctor went with them.
When they arrived in Bogucharovo, Dessales and the little prince had already left for Moscow.
In the same condition, neither better nor worse, stricken with paralysis, the old prince lay for three weeks in Bogucharovo, in the new house built by Prince Andrei. The old prince was unconscious; he lay like a disfigured corpse. He ceaselessly muttered something, his eyebrows and lips twitching, and it was impossible to know whether or not he understood what was going on around him. One thing could be known for certain—that he was suffering and still felt a need to express something. But what it was, no one could understand: was it some whim of a sick and half-demented man, did it have to do with the general course of things, or did it have to do with family circumstances?
The doctor said that the anxiousness he showed meant nothing, that it had physical causes; but Princess Marya thought (and the fact that her presence always increased his anxiousness