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AT THE BEGINNING of the winter Princess Marya arrived in Moscow. From the
gossip of the town she heard of the position of the Rostovs, and of how “the
son was sacrificing himself for his mother,” as the gossips said. “It is just
what I expected of him,” Princess Marya said to herself, finding in it a
delightful confirmation of her love for him. Remembering her intimate relations
with the whole family—almost as one of themselves—she thought it her duty to
call on them. But thinking of her relations with Nikolay in Voronezh, she was
afraid of doing so. A few weeks after her arrival in Moscow, she did, however,
make an effort, and went to see the Rostovs.
Nikolay was the first to meet her, since it was impossible to reach the
countess's room without passing through his room. Instead of the expression of
delight Princess Marya had expected to see on his face at the first glance at
her, he met her with a look of chilliness, stiffness, and pride that she had
never seen before. Nikolay inquired after her health, conducted her to his
mother, and, after staying five minutes, went out of the room.
When Princess Marya left the countess, Nikolay again met her, and with marked
formality and stiffness led her to the hall. He made no reply to her remarks
about the countess's health. “What is it to you? Leave me in peace,” his
expression seemed to say.
“And why should she stroll in here? What does she want? I can't endure these
ladies and all these civilities!” he said aloud before Sonya, obviously unable
to restrain his vexation, after the princess's carriage had rolled away from the
house.
“Oh, how can you talk like that, Nicolas,” said Sonya, hardly able
to conceal her delight. “She is so kind, and maman is so fond of
her.”
Nikolay made no reply, and would have liked to say no more about Princess
Marya. But after her visit the old countess talked about her several times every
day.
She sang her praises; insisted that her son should go and see her; expressed
a wish to see more of her; and yet was always out of temper when she had been
talking of her.
Nikolay tried to say nothing when his mother talked of Princess Marya, but
his silence irritated her.
“She is a very good and conscientious girl,” she would say, “and you must
go and call on her. Anyway, you will see some one; and it is dull for you, I
expect, with us.”
“But I don't at all wish to, mamma.”
“Why, you wanted to see people and now you don't wish it. I really don't
understand you, my dear. At one minute you are dull, and the next you suddenly
don't care to see any one.”
“Why, I never said I was dull.”
“Why, you said yourself you did not even wish to see her. She is a very good
girl, and you always liked her; and now all of a sudden you have some reasons or
other. Everything is kept a secret from me.”
“Not at all, mamma.”
“If I were to beg you to do something unpleasant, but as it is, I simply beg
you to drive over and return her call. Why, civility demands it, I should
suppose … I have begged you to do so, and now I will meddle no further since you
have secrets from your mother.”
“But I will go, if you wish it.”
“It's nothing to me; it's for your sake I wish it.”
Nikolay sighed, and bit his moustache, and dealt the cards, trying to draw
his mother's attention to another subject.
Next day, and the third, and the fourth, the same conversation was repeated
again and again.
After her visit to the Rostovs, and the unexpectedly cold reception she had
met with from Nikolay, Princess Marya acknowledged to herself that she had been
right in not wanting to be the first to call.
“It was just what I expected,” she said to herself, summoning her pride to
her aid. “I have no concern with him, and I only wanted to see the old lady,
who was always kind to me, and to whom I am under obligation for many
things.”
But she could not tranquillise herself with these reflections: a feeling akin
to remorse fretted her, when she thought of her visit. Although she was firmly
resolved not to call again on the Rostovs, and to forget all about it, she was
continually feeling herself in an undefined position. And when she asked herself
what it was that worried her, she was obliged to admit that it was her relation
to Rostov. His cold, ceremonious tone did not proceed from his feeling for her
(of that she was convinced), but that tone covered something. What that
something was, she wanted to see clearly, and till then she felt that she could
not be at peace.
In the middle of the winter she was sitting in the schoolroom, supervising
her nephew's lessons, when the servant announced that Rostov was below. With the
firm determination not to betray her secret, and not to manifest any
embarrassment, she summoned Mademoiselle Bourienne, and with her went into the
drawing-room.
At the first glance at Nikolay's face, she saw that he had come merely to
perform the obligations of civility, and she determined to keep to the tone he
adopted towards her.
They talked of the health of the countess, of common acquaintances, of the
latest news of the war, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had
elapsed, Nikolay got up to say good-bye.
With the aid of Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Marya had kept up the
conversation very well. But at the very last moment, just when he was getting
up, she was so weary of talking of what did not interest her, and she was so
absorbed in wondering why to her alone so little joy had been vouchsafed in
life, that in a fit of abstraction, she sat motionless gazing straight before
her with her luminous eyes, and not noticing that he was getting up.
Nikolay looked at her, and anxious to appear not to notice her abstraction,
he said a few words to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and again glanced at the
princess. She was sitting in the same immovable pose, and there was a look of
suffering on her soft face. He felt suddenly sorry for her, and vaguely
conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness he saw in her face. He
longed to help her, to say something pleasant to her, but he could not think
what to say to her.
“Good-bye, princess,” he said. She started, flushed, and sighed
heavily.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said, as though waking from sleep. “You are
going already, count; well, good-bye! Oh, the cushion for the countess?”
“Wait a minute, I will fetch it,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she left
the room.
They were both silent, glancing at each other now and then.
“Yes, princess,” said Nikolay at last, with a mournful smile, “it seems
not long ago, but how much has happened since the first time we met at
Bogutcharovo. We all seemed in such trouble then, but I would give a great deal
to have that time back … and there's no bringing it back.”
Princess Marya was looking intently at him with her luminous eyes, as he said
that. She seemed trying to divine the secret import of his words, which would
make clear his feeling towards her.
“Yes, yes,” she said, “but you have no need to regret the past, count. As
I conceive of your life now, you will always think of it with satisfaction,
because the self-sacrifice in which you are now …”
“I cannot accept your praises,” he interrupted hurriedly; “on the
contrary, I am always reproaching myself; but it is an uninteresting and
cheerless subject.”
And again the stiff and cold expression came back into his face. But Princess
Marya saw in him again now the man she had known and loved, and it was to that
man only she was speaking now.
“I thought you would allow me to say that,” she said. “I have been such
intimate friends with you … and with your family, and I thought you would not
feel my sympathy intrusive; but I made a mistake,” she said. Her voice suddenly
shook. “I don't know why,” she went on, recovering herself, “you used to be
different, and …”
“There are thousands of reasons why.” (He laid special stress on the
word why.) “I thank you, princess,” he added softly. “It is sometimes
hard …”
“So that is why! That is why!” an inner voice was saying in Princess
Marya's soul. “Yes, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank gaze, not only
that handsome exterior I loved in him; I divined his noble, firm, and
self-sacrificing soul,” she said to herself.
“Yes, he is poor now, and I am rich … Yes, it is only that … Yes, if it were
not for that …” And recalling all his former tenderness, and looking now at his
kind and sad face, she suddenly understood the reason of his coldness.
“Why! count, why?” she almost cried all at once, involuntarily moving
nearer to him. “Why, do tell me. You must tell me.” He was mute. “I do not
know, count, your why,” she went on. “But I am sad, I … I will own that
to you. You mean for some reason to deprive me of our old friendship. And that
hurts me.” There were tears in her eyes and in her voice. “I have had so
little happiness in my life that every loss is hard for me … Excuse me,
good-bye,” she suddenly burst into tears, and was going out of the room.
“Princess! stay, for God's sake,” he cried, trying to stop her.
“Princess!”
She looked round. For a few seconds they gazed mutely in each other's eyes,
and the remote and impossible became all at once close at hand, possible and
inevitable.
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