War And Peace: Book 8 - CHAPTER IV

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PRINCESS MARYA, sitting in the drawing-room, and hearing the old men's talk

and criticisms, did not understand a word of what she was hearing. She thought

of nothing but whether all their guests were noticing her father's hostile

attitude to her. She did not even notice the marked attention and amiability

shown her during the whole of dinner by Drubetskoy, who was that day paying them

his third visit.

Princess Marya turned with an absent-minded, questioning glance to Pierre,

who, with a smile on his face, came up to her, hat in hand, the last of the

guests, after the prince had gone out, and they were left alone together in the

drawing-room.

“Can I stay a little longer?” he said, dropping his bulky person into a low

chair beside Princess Marya.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You noticed nothing?” her eyes asked.

Pierre was in an agreeable, after-dinner mood. He looked straight before him

and smiled softly. “Have you known that young man long, princess?” he

said.

“Which one?”

“Drubetskoy.”

“No, not long.…”

“Well, do you like him?”

“Yes; he's a very agreeable young man. Why do you ask me?” said Princess

Marya, still thinking of her conversation in the morning with her father.

“Because I have observed, that when a young man comes from Petersburg to

Moscow on leave, it is invariably with the object of marrying an heiress.”

“Have you observed that?” said Princess Marya.

“Yes,” Pierre went on with a smile, “and that young man now manages matters

so that wherever there are wealthy heiresses—there he is to be found. I can read

him like a book. He is hesitating now which to attack, you or Mademoiselle Julie

Karagin. He is very attentive to her.”

“Does he visit them?”

“Yes, very often. And do you know the new-fashioned method of courting?” said

Pierre, smiling good-humouredly, and obviously feeling in that light-hearted

mood of good-natured irony, for which he had so often reproached himself in his

diary.

“No,” said Princess Marya.

“To please the Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very

melancholy with Mademoiselle Karagin,” said Pierre.

“Really!” said Princess Marya, looking at the kindly face of Pierre, and

thinking all the time of her own trouble. “It would ease my heart,” she was

thinking, “if I could make up my mind to confide all I am feeling to some one.

And it is just Pierre I should like to tell it all to. He is so kind and

generous. It would ease my heart. He would give me advice.”

“Would you marry him?” asked Pierre.

“O my God, count! there are moments when I would marry any one”—to her own

surprise Princess Marya said, with tears in her voice. “Ah! how bitter it is to

love some one near to one and to feel,” she went on in a shaking voice, “that

you can do nothing for him, but cause him sorrow, and when you know you cannot

alter it. There's only one thing—to go away, and where am I to go?”

“What is wrong? what is the matter with you, princess?”

But Princess Marya, without explaining further, burst into tears.

“I don't know what is the matter with me to-day. Don't take any notice of me,

forget what I said to you.”

All Pierre's gaiety had vanished. He questioned the princess anxiously,

begged her to speak out, to confide her trouble to him. But she would only

repeat that she begged him to forget what she had said, that she did not

remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble except the one he

knew—her anxiety lest Prince Andrey's marriage should cause a breach between him

and his father.

“Have you heard anything of the Rostovs?” she asked to change the subject. “I

was told they would soon be here. I expect Andrey, too, every day. I should have

liked them to see each other here.”

“And how does he look at the matter now?” said Pierre, meaning by he

the old prince. Princess Marya shook her head.

“But it can't be helped. There are only a few months left now before the year

is over. And it can't go on like this. I should only have liked to spare my

brother the first minutes. I could have wished they were coming sooner. I hope

to get to know her well.…You have known them a long while,” said Princess Marya.

“Tell me the whole truth, speaking quite seriously. What sort of a girl is she,

and how do you like her? But the whole truth, because, you see, Andrey is

risking so much in doing this against our father's will, that I should like to

know …”

A vague instinct told Pierre that these pleas and repeated requests to him to

tell her the whole truth betrayed Princess Marya's ill-will towards her

future sister-in-law, that she wanted Pierre not to approve of Prince Andrey's

choice; but Pierre said what he felt rather than what he thought. “I don't know

how to answer your question,” said he, blushing though he could not have said

why himself. “I really don't know what kind of girl she is. I can't analyse her.

She's fascinating; and why she is, I don't know; that's all that one can say

about her.”

Princess Marya sighed, and her face expressed: “Yes; that's what I expected

and feared.”

“Is she clever?” asked Princess Marya. Pierre thought a moment.

“I suppose not,” he said. “Yes, though. She does not think it worth while to

be clever.…Yes, no; she is fascinating, and nothing more.”

Princess Marya again shook her head disapprovingly.

“Ah, I do so want to like her! You tell her so if you see her before I

do.”

“I have heard that they will be here in a few days,” said Pierre.

Princess Marya told Pierre her plan of getting to know her future

sister-in-law as soon as the Rostovs arrived, and trying to get the old prince

accustomed to her.

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1. Ebooks list page : 83
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER V
3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
6. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER IV
7. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIX
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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