War And Peace: Book 10 - CHAPTER X

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AFTER HER FATHER'S FUNERAL Princess Marya locked herself in her room and

would not let any one come near her. A maid came to the door to say that

Alpatitch had come to ask for instructions in regard to the journey. (This was

before Alpatitch had talked to Dron.) Princess Marya got up from the sofa on

which she was lying, and through the closed door replied that she was never

going away, and begged to be left in peace.

The windows of the room in which Princess Marya lay looked to the west. She

lay on the sofa facing the wall, and fingering the buttons on the leather

bolster, she saw nothing but that bolster, and her thoughts were concentrated

obscurely on one subject. She thought of the finality of death and of her

spiritual baseness, of which she had had no idea till it showed itself during

her father's illness. She longed to pray, but dared not; dared not, in the

spiritual state she was in, turn to God. For a long while she lay in that

position.

The sun was setting, and the slanting rays lighted up the room through the

open window, and threw a glow on part of the morocco cushion at which Princess

Marya was looking. The current of her thoughts was suddenly arrested. She

unconsciously sat up, smoothed her hair, stood up, and walked to the window,

involuntarily drawing a deep breath of the refreshing coolness of the clear,

windy evening.

“Yes, now you can admire the sunset at your ease! He is not here, and there

is no one to hinder you,” she said to herself, and sinking into a chair, she let

her head fall on the window-sill.

Some one spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and kissed

her on the head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black dress

and pleureuses. She softly approached Princess Marya, kissed her with a

sigh, and promptly burst into tears. Princess Marya looked round at her. All her

old conflicts with her, her jealousy of her, recurred to Princess Marya's mind.

She remembered too that he had changed of late to Mademoiselle Bourienne,

could not bear the sight of her, and therefore how unjust had been the censure

that she had in her heart passed upon her. “Yes, and is it for me, for me, after

desiring his death, to pass judgment on any one?” she thought.

Princess Marya pictured vividly to herself Mademoiselle Bourienne's position,

estranged from her of late, though dependent on her, and living among strangers.

And she felt sorry for her. She looked at her in gentle inquiry and held out her

hand to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne at once began kissing her hand with tears

and talking of the princess's sorrow, making herself a partner in that sorrow.

She said that her only consolation in her sorrow was that the princess permitted

her to share it with her. She said that all their former misunderstandings must

sink into nothing before their great sorrow: that she felt herself guiltless in

regard to every one, and that he from above saw her love and gratitude.

The princess heard her without heeding her words, though she looked at her now

and then and listened to the sound of her voice.

“Your position is doubly dreadful, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle

Bourienne. “I know you could not and cannot think of yourself; but with my love

for you I am bound to do so.…Has Alpatitch been with you? Has he spoken to you

of moving?” she asked.

Princess Marya did not answer. She did not understand who was to move and

where. “Was it possible to undertake anything now, to think of anything? Could

anything matter?” she wondered. She made no reply.

“Do you know, chère Marie,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “that we are

in danger, that we are surrounded by the French; it is dangerous to move now. If

we move, we are almost certain to be taken prisoner, and God knows …”

Princess Marya looked at her companion, with no notion what she was

saying.

“Oh, if any one knew how little anything matters to me now,” she said. “Of

course, I would not on any account move away from him…Alpatitch said

something about going away.…You talk to him … I can't do anything, and I don't

want …”

“I have been talking to him. He hopes that we may manage to get away

to-morrow; but I think it would be better now to remain here,” said Mademoiselle

Bourienne. “Because you will agree, chère Marie, that to fall into the

hands of the soldiers or of rioting peasants on the road would be awful.”

Mademoiselle Bourienne took out of her reticule a document, not on the usual

Russian paper. It was the proclamation of General Rameau, announcing that

protection would be given by the French commanders to all inhabitants who did

not abandon their homes. She handed it to the princess.

“I imagine the best thing would be to appeal to this general,” said

Mademoiselle Bourienne. “I am convinced that all proper respect would be shown

you.”

Princess Marya read the document and her face worked with tearless

sobs.

“Through whom did you get this?” she asked.

“They probably found out I was French from my name,” said Mademoiselle

Bourienne, flushing.

With the proclamation in her hand, Princess Marya got up from the window, and

with a pale face walked out of the room into Prince Andrey's former study.

“Dunyasha! send Alpatitch to me, Dronushka, or somebody!” said Princess

Marya. “And tell Amalya Karlovna not to come to me,” she added, hearing

Mademoiselle Bourienne's voice. “To set off at once! as quick as possible!” said

Princess Marya, appalled at the idea that she might be left in the power of the

French.

“That Prince Andrey should know that she was in the power of the French! That

she, the daughter of Prince Nikolay Andreitch Bolkonsky, should stoop to ask

General Rameau to grant her his protection, and should take advantage of his

good offices.” The idea appalled her, made her shudder and turn crimson. She

felt a rush of vindictive wrath and pride of which she had had no conception.

All the bitterness, and still more the humiliation of her position rose vividly

to her imagination. “They, the French, would take up their quarters in the

house: M. le Général Rameau would occupy Prince Andrey's study; would amuse

himself by looking through and reading his letters and papers; Mademoiselle

Bourienne would do the honours of Bogutcharovo; I should be given a room as a

favour; the soldiers would break open my father's newly dug grave to take his

crosses and decorations; they would tell me of their victories over the

Russians, would affect hypocritical sympathy with my grief, …” thought Princess

Marya, thinking not the thoughts natural to her, but feeling it a duty to think

as her father and brother would have done. To her personally it did not matter

where she stayed and what happened to her, but, at the same time, she felt

herself the representative of her dead father and Prince Andrey. Unconsciously

she thought their thoughts and felt their feelings. What they would have said,

what they would have done now, she felt it incumbent upon her to do. She went

into Prince Andrey's study, and trying to enter completely into his ideas,

thought over her situation.

The exigencies of life, which she had regarded as of no consequence since her

father's death, all at once rose up about Princess Marya with a force she had

known nothing of before, and swept her away with them.

Flushed and excited she walked about the room, sending first for Alpatitch,

then for Mihail Ivanitch, then for Tihon, then for Dron. Dunyasha, the old

nurse, and the maids could not tell her how far Mademoiselle Bourienne's

statements had been correct. Alpatitch was not in the house; he had gone to the

police authorities. Mihail Ivanitch, the architect, came with sleepy eyes on

being sent for, but could tell Princess Marya nothing. With the same smile of

acquiescence with which he had been accustomed during the course of fifteen

years to meet the old prince's remarks without committing himself, he now met

the princess's questions, so that there was no getting any definite answer out

of him. The old valet, Tihon, whose wan and sunken face wore the stamp of

inconsolable grief, answered “Yes, princess,” to all Princess Marya's questions,

and could scarcely restrain his sobs as he looked at her.

Lastly, the village elder, Dron, came into the room, and bowing low to the

princess, took up his position near the doorway.

Princess Marya walked up and down the room and stood still facing him.

“Dronushka,” she said, seeing in him a staunch friend, the Dronushka who had

every year brought back from the fair at Vyazma the same gingerbreads she

connected with him, and had presented them to her with the same smile,

“Dronushka, now, after our misfortune,” … she began, and paused, unable to

proceed.

“We are all in God's hands,” he said, with a sigh.

They were silent.

“Dronushka, Alpatitch has gone off somewhere, I have no one to turn to. Is it

true, as I'm told, that it is impossible for me to go away?”

“Why shouldn't you go away, your excellency? You can go,” said Dron.

“I have been told there is danger from the enemy. My good friend, I can do

nothing, I know nothing about it, I have nobody. I want to set off without fail

to-night or to-morrow morning early.”

Dron did not speak. He looked up from under his brows at Princess

Marya.

“There are no horses,” he said. “I have told Yakov Alpatitch so

already.”

“How is that?” said the princess.

“It's all the visitation of the Lord,” said Dron. “Some horses have been

carried off for the troops, and some are dead; it's a bad year, it is. If only

we don't die of hunger ourselves, let alone feeding the horses! Here they've

been three days without a bit of bread. There's nothing, they have been

plundered to the last bit.”

Princess Marya listened attentively to what he said to her.

“The peasants have been plundered? They have no bread?” she asked.

“They are dying of hunger,” said Dron; “no use talking of horses and

carts.”

“But why didn't you say so, Dronushka? Can't they be helped? I'll do

everything I can …” It was strange to Princess Marya to think that at such a

moment, when her heart was overflowing with such a sorrow, there could be rich

people and poor, and that the rich could possibly not help the poor. She vaguely

knew that there was a store of “seignorial corn,” and that it was sometimes

given to the peasants. She knew, too, that neither her brother nor her father

would refuse the peasants in their need; she was only afraid of making some

mistake in the wording of the order for this distribution. She was glad that she

had an excuse for doing something in which she could, without scruple, forget

her own grief. She began to question Dronushka about the peasants' needs, and to

ask whether there was a “seignorial store” at Bogutcharovo.

“I suppose we have a store of wheat of my brother's?” she asked.

“The wheat is all untouched,” Dron declared with pride. “The prince gave me

no orders about selling it.”

“Give it to the peasants, give them all they need; I give you leave in my

brother's name,” said Princess Marya.

Dron heaved a deep sigh and made no answer.

“You distribute the corn among them, if it will be enough for them.

Distribute it all. I give you the order in my brother's name; and tell them,

what's ours is theirs. We would grudge nothing for them. Tell them so.”

Dron watched the princess intently all the while she was speaking.

“Discharge me, ma'am, for God's sake, bid them take the keys from me,” said

he. “I have served twenty-three years, and done no wrong; discharge me, for

God's sake.”

Princess Marya had no notion what he wanted of her and why he asked her to

discharge him. She answered that she had never doubted his fidelity, and that

she was ready to do everything for him and for the peasants.

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1. Ebooks list page : 84
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3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
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8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XVI
9. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XV
10. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIV
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12. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER VI
13. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIX
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