War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [476]
“Only for God’s sake, dear princess, order them chased away and don’t go out to them. It’s all a trick,” said Dunyasha, “but Yakov Alpatych will come back, and we’ll leave…and please don’t…”
“What sort of trick?” the princess said in surprise.
“Only listen to me, for God’s sake, I do know. You can ask the nanny. They say they don’t agree to leave on your orders.”
“There’s something wrong in what you’re saying. I never ordered them to leave…” said Princess Marya. “Call Dronushka.”
Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha’s words: the muzhiks had come on the princess’s orders.
“But I never called them,” said the princess. “You must have made a mistake in what you told them. I only said that you should give them grain.”
Dron sighed and did not reply.
“If you order it, they’ll go away,” he said.
“No, no, I’ll go to them,” said Princess Marya.
Despite the protests of Dunyasha and the nanny, Princess Marya went out to the porch. Dron, Dunyasha, the nanny, and Mikhail Ivanych followed her.
“They probably think I’m offering them grain so that they’ll stay here, and that I’ll leave myself, abandoning them to the mercy of the French,” thought Princess Marya. “I’ll promise them monthly rations and quarters on the estate near Moscow; I’m sure André would do still more in my place,” she thought, approaching in the twilight the crowd standing on the green by the barn.
The crowd, clustering together, stirred, and hats were quickly taken off. Princess Marya, her eyes lowered, her legs getting tangled in her dress, went up close to them. So many different old and young eyes were directed at her, and there were so many different faces, that Princess Marya did not see any one face, and feeling it necessary to talk to all of them at once, she did not know what to do. But again the awareness of being the representative of her father and brother gave her strength, and she boldly began her speech:
“I am very glad that you have come,” Princess Marya began, without raising her eyes and feeling how fast and hard her heart was pounding. “Dronushka told me that you have been devastated by the war. That is our common grief, and I will spare nothing to help you. I am leaving myself, because it’s dangerous here now, and the enemy is close…because…I am giving you everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain, so that you won’t be in need. And if you were told that I am giving you grain so that you will stay here, that is not true. On the contrary, I beg you to leave with all your possessions for our estate near Moscow, and there I take it upon myself and promise you that you will not be in need. You will be given houses and grain.” The princess stopped. Nothing but sighs came from the crowd.
“I am not doing it of myself,” the princess went on, “I am doing it in the name of my late father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother and his son.”
She stopped again. No one broke her silence.
“Ours is a common grief, and we shall share everything. All that is mine is yours,” she said, looking at the faces that stood before her.
All eyes were looking at her with the same expression, the meaning of which she could not understand. Whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or fear and mistrust, the expression on all the faces was the same.
“Much obliged for your goodness, only it’s not for us to go taking the master’s grain,” said a voice at the back.
“But why not?” said the princess.
No one answered, and Princess Marya, looking over the crowd, noticed that now all the eyes she met were lowered at once.
“Why don’t you want to?” she asked again. No one answered.
Princess Marya began to be oppressed by this silence; she tried to catch someone’s eyes.
“Why don’t you speak?” the princess addressed an old man who stood in front of her, leaning on a stick. “Tell me if you think something else is needed. I’ll do everything,” she said, catching his eyes. But he, as if angered by that, lowered his head altogether and said:
“What’s there to agree to, we don’t need