“Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our dear invalid?” said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look fixed on her.
Prince Vasíli stared at her and at Borís questioningly and perplexed. Borís bowed politely. Prince Vasíli without acknowledging the bow turned to Anna Mikháylovna, answering her query by a movement of the head and lips indicating very little hope for the patient.
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Anna Mikháylovna. “Oh, how awful! It is terrible to think… . This is my son,” she added, indicating Borís. “He wanted to thank you himself.”
Borís bowed again politely.
“Believe me, Prince, a mother’s heart will never forget what you have done for us.”
“I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna Mikháylovna,” said Prince Vasíli, arranging his lace frill, and in tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikháylovna whom he had placed under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he had done in Petersburg at Anna Schérer’s reception.
“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” added he, addressing Borís with severity. “I am glad… . Are you here on leave?” he went on in his usual tone of indifference.
“I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, Your Excellency,” replied Borís, betraying neither annoyance at the prince’s brusque manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.
“Are you living with your mother?”
“I am living at Countess Rostóva’s,” replied Borís, again adding, “Your Excellency.”
“That is, with Ilyá Rostóv who married Nataly Shinshiná,” said Anna Mikháylovna.
“I know, I know,” answered Prince Vasíli in his monotonous voice. “I never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too, I am told.”
“But a very kind man, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a pathetic smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostóv deserved this censure, but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. “What do the doctors say?” asked the princess after a pause, her worn face again expressing deep sorrow.
“They give little hope,” replied the prince.
“And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me and Borís. He is his godson,” she added, her tone suggesting that this fact ought to give Prince Vasíli much satisfaction.
Prince Vasíli became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikháylovna saw that he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezúkhov’s fortune, and hastened to reassure him.
“If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle,” said she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, “I know his character: noble, upright … but you see he has no one with him except the young princesses… . They are still young… .” She bent her head and continued in a whisper: “Has he performed his final duty, Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We women, Prince,” and she smiled tenderly, “always know how to say these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I am used to suffering.”
Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done at Anna Pávlovna’s, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna Mikháylovna.
“Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna Mikháylovna?” said he. “Let us wait until evening. The doctors are expecting a crisis.”
“But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a Christian …”
A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the count’s niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasíli turned to her.
“Well, how is he?”
“Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise …” said the princess, looking at Anna Mikháylovna as at a stranger.
“Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a happy smile, ambling lightly up to the count’s niece. “I have come, and am at your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you have gone through,” and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.
The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as Anna Mikháylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasíli to take a seat beside her.
“Borís,” she said to her son with a smile, “I shall go in to see the count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile and don’t forget to give him the Rostóvs’ invitation. They ask him to dinner. I suppose he won’t go?” she continued, turning to the prince.
“On the contrary,” replied the prince, who had plainly become depressed, “I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young man… . Here he is, and the count has not once asked for him.”
He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Borís down one flight of stairs and up another, to Pierre’s rooms.
4 To err is human.
Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostóv’s was true. Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father’s house. Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be already known in Moscow and that the ladies about his father—who were never favorably disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the count against him, he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his father’s part of the house. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom were sitting at embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the eldest who was reading—the one who had met Anna Mikháylovna. The two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they differed only in that one had a little mole on her lip which made her much prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make out the pattern.
“How do you do, cousin?” said Pierre. “You don’t recognize me?”
“I recognize you only too well, too well.”
“How is the count? Can I see him?” asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual, but unabashed.
“The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you have done your best to increase his mental sufferings.”
“Can I see the count?” Pierre again asked.
“Hm… . If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see him … Olga, go and see whether Uncle’s beef tea is ready—it