Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm, gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment, rested on Prince Andrew’s face.
The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary and drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had had on the Spasski Hill which might have been serious for her in her condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty Odyntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary, a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of thought independent of her sister-in-law’s words. In the midst of a description of the last Petersburg fête she addressed her brother:
“So you are really going to the war, Andrew?” she said sighing.
Lise sighed too.
“Yes, and even tomorrow,” replied her brother.
“He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had promotion …”
Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.
“Is it certain?” she said.
The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: “Yes, quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful …”
Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law’s and unexpectedly again began to cry.
“She needs rest,” said Prince Andrew with a frown. “Don’t you, Lise? Take her to your room and I’ll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?”
“Yes, just the same. Though I don’t know what your opinion will be,” answered the princess joyfully.
“And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the lathe?” asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was aware of his weaknesses.
“The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my geometry lessons,” said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.
When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old prince to get up, Tíkhon came to call the young prince to his father. The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his son’s arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew entered his father’s dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tíkhon.
“Ah! here’s the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?” said the old man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tíkhon was holding fast to plait, would allow.
“You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this he’ll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?” And he held out his cheek.
The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He used to say that a nap “after dinner was silver—before dinner, golden.”) He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the spot indicated to him. He made no reply on his father’s favorite topic—making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly of Bonaparte.
“Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is pregnant,” said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his father’s face with an eager and respectful look. “How is your health?”
“Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well.”
“Thank God,” said his son smiling.
“God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on,” he continued, returning to his hobby; “tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte by this new science you call ‘strategy.’”
Prince Andrew smiled.
“Give me time to collect my wits, Father,” said he, with a smile that showed that his father’s foibles did not prevent his son from loving and honoring him. “Why, I have not yet had time to settle down!”
“Nonsense, nonsense!” cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to see whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. “The house for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and show her over, and they’ll talk nineteen to the dozen. That’s their woman’s way! I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About Mikhelson’s army I understand—Tolstoy’s too … a simultaneous expedition… . But what’s the southern army to do? Prussia is neutral … I know that. What about Austria?” said he, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room followed by Tíkhon, who ran after him, handing him different articles of clothing. “What of Sweden? How will they cross Pomerania?”
Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began—at first reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on—to explain the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army, ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: “The white one, the white one!”
This meant that Tíkhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted. Another time he interrupted, saying:
“And will she soon be confined?” and shaking his head reproachfully said: “That’s bad! Go on, go on.”
The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age: “Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra.” [15]
His son only smiled.
“I don’t say it’s a plan I approve of,” said the son; “I am only telling you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse than this one.”
“Well, you’ve told me nothing new,” and the old man repeated, meditatively and rapidly:
“Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room.”
15 “Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he’ll return.”
At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle Bourienne were