In December 1805 old Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky received a letter from Prince Vasily proposing a visit with his son. (‘I am going on a tour of inspection, and it will only mean a little detour of seventy miles for me to visit you, my honoured benefactor,’ he had written. ‘My Anatole is coming with me on his way to the army, and I hope you will allow him to express to you in person the high esteem in which, following his father’s example, he holds you.’)
‘Well, there’s obviously no need to wheel Marie out. The suitors are coming here,’ the little princess said rather crudely when she heard this. Prince Nikolay frowned and said nothing.
Two weeks after the letter Prince Vasily’s servants arrived one evening in advance of him, and the next day he and his son arrived.
Old Bolkonsky had never had a high opinion of Prince Vasily’s character, especially in recent years under the new reigns of Paul and Alexander when Prince Vasily had risen high in rank and honour. Now he could see from the letter and the little princess’s insinuations what was afoot, and his low opinion of Prince Vasily turned into hostility and contempt. He couldn’t mention his name without an indignant snort. On the day when Prince Vasily was due to arrive the old prince was unhappy and in a particularly bad mood. Whether he was in a bad mood because Prince Vasily was coming, or whether his being in a bad mood exacerbated his unhappiness at Prince Vasily’s visit, the fact is he was in a bad mood, and early that morning Tikhon had advised the architect against reporting to the prince.
‘Listen to him stamping about,’ said Tikhon, nodding towards the sound of the prince’s footsteps. ‘Banging down on his heels . . . we all know what that means . . .’
Nevertheless at nine o’clock the old prince went for his usual walk, wearing his short, velvet coat with the sable collar and a sable cap. Snow had fallen overnight. Prince Nikolay’s favourite path down to the conservatories had been cleared; there were broom marks in the swept snow and a spade had been left sticking out of one of the loosely piled snowbanks on either side of the path. The prince strode through the conservatories, the servants’ quarters and the outbuildings, scowling and silent.
‘Can a sledge get through?’ he asked a venerable old steward rather like his master in looks and manner, who was escorting him back to the house.
‘The snow is deep, your Excellency. I’m having the avenoo cleared.’
The prince nodded, walking towards the steps.
‘Thank heaven for that!’ thought the steward. ‘The storm has passed! . . . It would have been a hard drive, your Excellency,’ he added. ‘And I did hear tell, sir, there’s a minister coming to visit your Excellency.’ The prince turned to the steward and glared at him scowling.
‘You what? A minister? What minister? Who told you to do that?’ he began in his thin, harsh voice. ‘You don’t clear the road for the princess my daughter, but you do for a minister! There are no ministers in my house!’
‘Your Excellency, I just thought . . .’
‘You just thought?’ roared the prince, speaker faster and faster, and more and more incoherently. ‘You just thought! You’re all crooks and villains! . . . I’ll give you just thought.’ He brandished his stick at Alpatych and was going to hit him, but the steward instinctively dodged away. ‘Just thought! . . . You villains!’ He was still gabbling. But although Alpatych, shocked at his own temerity in dodging the blow, moved closer to the prince, bowing his bald head submissively (or perhaps it was because of this), the prince kept his stick down and ran off to his room, still yelling, ‘Villains! . . . Put that snow back where it came from!’
Princess Marya and Mademoiselle Bourienne stood waiting for the old prince, just before lunch, well aware of his bad mood. Mademoiselle Bourienne’s beaming face seemed to say, ‘I don’t know anything, I’m just the same as ever,’ but Princess Marya looked down, pale-faced and terrified. The worst thing for Princess Marya was that she knew that she ought to do what Mademoiselle Bourienne did at times like this, but she simply couldn’t. She felt, ‘If I pretend not to have noticed anything, he’ll think I’m not sympathetic. But if I pretend to be depressed and in a bad mood myself, he’ll say’ (as he often did) ‘that I’m sulking . . .’ and so on.
The prince glanced at his daughter’s apprehensive face and gave a snort.
‘Pfooh!’ he muttered, or it may have been, ‘Little fool! . . . And she’s not here! What have they been saying to her?’ he thought, noticing that the little princess was not in the dining-room.
‘Where’s Princess Liza?’ he asked. ‘Hiding away?’
‘She’s not very well,’ said Mademoiselle Bourienne with a bright smile. ‘She won’t be coming down. It’s quite natural in her condition.’
