War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [72]
As he was saying this, he got up, went over to his sister, and, bending down, kissed her on the forehead. His fine eyes shone with an intelligent and kindly, unhabitual light, but he was looking not at his sister but into the darkness of the open doorway, over her head.
“Let’s go to her, I must say good-bye! Or you go alone, wake her up, and I’ll come presently. Petrushka!” he called to his valet. “Come here, take these things out. This goes under the seat, this to the right-hand side.”
Princess Marya got up and went to the door. She paused.
“André, si vous avez la foi, vous vous seriez adressé à Dieu, pour qu’il vous donne l’amour que vous ne sentez pas, et votre prière aurait été exaucée.”*173
“Yes—there’s always that!” said Prince Andrei. “Go, Masha, I’ll come presently.”
On the way to his sister’s room, in the gallery that connected one house to the other, Prince Andrei met the sweetly smiling Mlle Bourienne, who three times that day had already run into him with her rapturous and naïve smile in secluded passages.
“Ah! je vous croyais chez vous,”*174 she said, blushing and lowering her eyes for some reason.
Prince Andrei looked at her sternly. A spiteful look suddenly came to Prince Andrei’s face. He said nothing to her, but, avoiding her eyes, looked at her forehead and hair with such scorn that the Frenchwoman blushed and left without saying anything. When he approached his sister’s room, the princess was already awake, and her merry little voice could be heard through the open door hurriedly sending out one word after another. She was talking as if, after a long abstinence, she wanted to make up for lost time.
“Non, mais figurez-vous, la vieille comtesse Zouboff avec des fausses boucles et la bouche pleine de fausses dents, comme si elle voulait défier les années…†175 Ha, ha, ha, Marie!”
Five times already, with other people, Prince Andrei had heard exactly the same phrase about the countess Zubov and the same laughter from his wife. He quietly went into the room. The princess, round, rosy, with her work in her hands, was sitting in an armchair and talking non-stop, telling over her Petersburg memories and even phrases. Prince Andrei went to her, stroked her head, and asked whether she had rested from the journey. She made a reply and went on with the same talk.
The coach and six was standing at the porch. Outside it was a dark autumn night. The coachman could not see the shafts of the carriage. On the porch people with lanterns bustled about. Lights shone through the big windows of the immense house. The domestic servants crowded in the front hall, wishing to say good-bye to the young prince; in the reception room stood the whole household: Mikhail Ivanovich, Mlle Bourienne, Princess Marya, and the little princess. Prince Andrei had been summoned to his father’s study, where the old prince wanted to say good-bye to him man to man. Everyone was waiting for them to emerge.
When Prince Andrei went into the study, the old prince, in his old man’s spectacles and his white smock, in which he received no one except his son, was sitting at the table and writing. He looked up.
“You’re leaving?” And he started writing again.
“I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“Kiss me here,” he pointed to his cheek. “Thank you, thank you!”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“For not overstaying and clinging to a woman’s skirt. Service before all. Thank you, thank you!” And he went on writing, so that spatters flew from his scratching pen. “If you want to say something, speak. I can do the two things at once,” he added.
“About my wife…I’m so ashamed to be leaving her on your hands…”
“What’s this drivel? Say what you want.”
“When it’s time for my wife to give birth, send to Moscow for an accoucheur*176 …So that he’ll be here.”
The old prince stopped and, as if unable to understand, stared with stern eyes at his son.
“I know no one can help if nature doesn’t help,” Prince Andrei said, visibly embarrassed. “I agree that only one case in a million ends badly, but it’s her and my fantasy. People have said things