War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [635]
As always happens during a journey, Princess Marya thought only about the journey itself, forgetting its goal. But as they approached Yaroslavl, when there again emerged what she might face, and not after many days, but that same evening, Princess Marya’s agitation reached the utmost limits.
When the footman who had been sent ahead to find out where the Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl, and what condition Prince Andrei was in, met the big coach entering town, he was horrified to see the princess’s terribly pale face thrust out at him through the window.
“I’ve found out everything, Your Excellency. The Rostovs are staying on the square, in the house of the merchant Bronnikov. It’s not far, just on the bank of the Volga,” said the footman.
Princess Marya looked fearfully and questioningly into his face, not understanding why he did not answer the main question: how was her brother? Mlle Bourienne put this question instead of the princess.
“How is the prince?” she asked.
“His excellency is staying in the same house with them.”
“That means he’s alive,” thought the princess, and she asked softly how he was.
“The people said he’s still in the same condition.”
What “still in the same condition” meant, the princess did not ask, but with only a fleeting, imperceptible glance at the seven-year-old Nikolushka, who sat facing her and was happy to see the city, she lowered her head and did not raise it until the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking, and heaving, stopped somewhere. The footboards banged as they were thrown down.
The doors were opened. To the left there was water—a big river; to the right was a porch; on the porch there were people, servants, and a red-cheeked girl with a big black braid, who smiled unpleasantly and falsely, as it seemed to Princess Marya (this was Sonya). The princess ran up the steps, the girl with the false smile said, “This way, this way!” and the princess found herself in a front room before an old woman with an Oriental type of face, who, with a moved expression, was quickly coming to meet her. It was the countess. She embraced Princess Marya and started kissing her.
“Mon enfant!” she said. “Je vous aime et je vous connais depuis longtemps.”*683
Despite all her agitation, Princess Marya realized that this was the countess and that she had to say something to her. Not knowing why herself, she uttered some polite French words in the same tone in which she had been spoken to, and asked, “How is he?”
“The doctor says there’s no danger,” said the countess, but as she said it, she lifted up her eyes with a sigh, and the expression of this gesture contradicted her words.
“Where is he? May I see him? May I?” asked the princess.
“At once, Princess, at once, my dear friend. Is this his son?” she said, turning to Nikolushka, who was coming in with Dessales. “There’s room for us all, the house is big. Oh, what a lovely boy!”
The countess led the princess into the drawing room. Sonya was talking with Mlle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy. The old count came into the room and greeted the princess. The old count had changed greatly since the princess had last seen him. Then he had been a sprightly, cheerful, self-confident old man; now he seemed a pitiful, lost person. Talking with the princess, he constantly looked around, as if asking everyone if he was doing the right thing. After the devastation of Moscow and his property, thrown out of his usual rut, he had clearly lost the awareness of his significance and felt that he no longer had any place in life.
Despite all her agitation, despite her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible and her vexation that, at that moment, when all she wanted was to see him, they distracted her and pretended to praise her nephew, the