“I dislike her very much, your Bourienne,” said Prince Andrei.
“Oh, no! She’s a very dear and kind, and, above all, a pitiful girl. She has nobody, nobody. To tell the truth, she’s not only unnecessary to me, she’s even an inconvenience. You know, I’ve always been a wild creature, and now more than ever. I like being alone…Mon père likes her very much. She and Mikhail Ivanovich are the two persons with whom he’s always gentle and kind, because he’s their benefactor. As Sterne52 says: ‘We love people not so much for the good they’ve done us, as for the good we’ve done them.’ Mon père took her as an orphan sur le pavé,†172 and she’s very kind. And mon père likes her way of reading. She reads aloud to him in the evenings. She reads beautifully.”
“Well, but in truth, Marie, I wonder if father’s character isn’t sometimes hard on you?” Prince Andrei asked suddenly.
Princess Marya was first surprised, then frightened by this question.
“On me?…On me?! Hard on me?!” she said.
“He’s always been tough, but now I think he’s becoming difficult,” said Prince Andrei, probably speaking so lightly of their father on purpose, to puzzle or test his sister.
“You’re good in every way, André, but you have a sort of mental pride,” the princess said, following her own train of thought more than the course of the conversation, “and that is a great sin. Is it possible to judge one’s father? And even if it were possible, what other feeling than vénération can a man like mon père evoke? And I am so content and happy with him. I only wish everyone could be as happy as I am.”
Her brother shook his head mistrustfully.
“The one thing that’s hard for me—to tell you the truth, André—is father’s way of thinking in the religious respect. I don’t understand how a man with such an enormous intellect cannot see what is clear as day and can be so deluded. That constitutes my one unhappiness. But here, too, I’ve seen a shade of improvement recently. His mockery recently hasn’t been so biting, and there’s a monk whom he received and with whom he spoke for a long time.”
“Well, my friend, I’m afraid you and this monk are wasting your powder,” Prince Andrei said mockingly but affectionately.
“Ah, mon ami. I only pray to God and hope He will hear me. André,” she said timidly, after a moment’s silence, “I have a big request to make of you.”
“What is it, my friend?”
“No, promise me you won’t refuse. It won’t be any trouble for you, and there won’t be anything in it that’s unworthy of you. Only you’ll comfort me. Promise, Andryusha,” she said, putting her hand into her reticule and taking hold of something in it, but not showing it yet, as if what she was holding constituted the object of her request, and before she got his promise to fulfill her request, she could not take this something out of her reticule.
She looked at her brother with a timid, pleading gaze.
“Even if it was a great deal of trouble for me…” Prince Andrei said, as if guessing what it was about.
“You can think what you like! I know you’re the same as mon père. Think what you like, but do it for me. Do it, please! Father’s father, our grandfather, wore it through all the wars…” She still would not take what she was holding out of the reticule. “So promise me?…”
“Of course, what is it?”
“André, I’m going to bless you with an icon, and you promise me never to take it off…Do you promise?”
“Of course, if it doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds and pull my neck down…To give you pleasure…” said Prince Andrei, but that same second, noticing the distressed look that came to his sister’s face at this joke, he instantly repented. “I’m very glad, truly, very glad, my friend,” he added.
“Against your will He will save you and have mercy on you and turn you to Him, because in Him alone there is truth and peace,” she said in a voice trembling from emotion, with a solemn gesture holding up in both hands before her brother an old oval icon of the Savior with a blackened face, in a silver setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.
She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and gave it to Andrei.
“Please, André, for me…”
From her big eyes shone rays of a kindly and timid light. These eyes lit up her whole thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother wanted to take the icon, but she stopped him. Andrei understood, made the sign of the cross, and kissed the icon. His face was at the same time tender (he was touched) and mocking.
“Merci, mon ami.”
She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again on the sofa. They were silent.
“So as I was saying to you, André, be kind and magnanimous, as you’ve always been. Don’t judge Lise too severely,” she began. “She’s so dear, so kind, and her position is very hard now.”
“I don’t believe I’ve said anything to you, Masha, about reproaching my wife for anything or being displeased with her. Why are you saying all this to me?”
Princess Marya broke out in red blotches and said nothing, as if she felt guilty.
“I haven’t said anything to you, but it has already been said to you. And that makes me sad.”
The red blotches stood out still more on Princess Marya’s forehead, neck, and cheeks. She wanted to say something, but could not bring it out. Her brother had guessed right: the little princess had wept after dinner, had said she had a foreboding of a bad delivery, was afraid of it, and had complained about her life, her father-in-law, and her husband. After her tears, she had fallen asleep. Prince Andrei felt sorry for his sister.
“Know one thing, Masha, I cannot, have not, and never will reproach my wife for anything, nor can I reproach myself for anything in relation to her; and that will always be so, whatever circumstances I find myself in. But if you want to know the truth…if you want to know whether I’m happy? No. Is she happy? No. Why is that? I don’t know…”
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.