The little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had by now obtained all the necessary intelligence from the maid, Masha. They knew what a dashing fellow the minister’s son was, with his rosy face and black eyebrows. They knew that whereas his father had struggled up the steps he had flown up them three at a time like a young eagle. Furnished with this intelligence, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose eager voices had reached her from the hallway, went into Princess Marya’s room.
‘They’re here, Marie. Didn’t you know?’ said the little princess, waddling in and sinking heavily into an armchair. She was wearing a different gown, not the one she had had on that morning, but one of her finest dresses. Her hair had been beautifully done, and her face was excited, though it still looked wasted and drawn. Dressed in the fine clothes which she used to wear in Petersburg society, she showed the loss of her good looks all the more noticeably. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, had added one or two nice finishing touches, which made her sweet fresh face look even prettier. ‘So, you’re staying like that, are you, Princess? They’ll be here in a minute to tell us the gentlemen are in the drawing-room,’ she began. ‘We’ll have to go down, and you haven’t done anything to yourself!’
The little princess got up from her chair, rang for the maid, scurrying to work out what Princess Marya should wear, and then eagerly getting it all done. Princess Marya’s self-respect had been offended by her own agitation at the arrival of a prospective suitor, and she was even more offended by the fact that her two companions couldn’t conceive of anything different. To speak of the embarrassment she felt on her own account and theirs would have been to admit just how agitated she was, and to refuse to be dolled up as they were proposing would have led to no end of ridicule and to further persuasion. She flushed, the light went out of her lovely eyes, her face went blotchy, resuming its all too familiar and unpleasant look of victimization, and she gave herself up to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Liza. Both women strove
‘No, no, dear, that dress won’t do,’ said Liza, backing off and looking obliquely at Princess Marya. ‘Get her to fetch your maroon velvet. I mean it! You do realize this could decide your whole future. No, this one’s too light. It won’t do at all.’
It wasn’t the dress that wouldn’t do, but the princess’s face and her figure, but this didn’t occur to Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess. They still imagined that if they just swept her hair up and put a blue ribbon in it, and arranged the blue sash down a little on her maroon dress, and so on, then all would be well. They were forgetting that nothing could change Princess Marya’s frightened face and her figure, and however much they tinkered with its setting and adornment, the face itself would still look pathetically unattractive. Princess Marya submitted like a lamb, and after two or three failed attempts her hair was scraped up on top of her head (which changed her completely and ruined her looks), and on went the best maroon velvet dress with the blue sash. The little princess walked around her a couple of times, straightened a fold here and eased the sash down there, and then looked at her, tilting her head first on one side and then the other.
‘No, it’s still not right,’ she said firmly, throwing up her hands. ‘No, Marie, it just doesn’t suit you. I like you better in your everyday frock, the little grey one. No, please do it for me. Katya,’ she said to the maid, ‘bring the princess her grey dress, and, Mademoiselle Bourienne, you watch me arrange it,’ she said, smiling as she looked forward to an artistic pleasure. But when Katya brought the dress Princess Marya was still sitting stolidly before the mirror, looking at her face, and in the mirror she could see her eyes brimming with tears and her mouth trembling – she was on the verge of breaking down and sobbing.
‘Come on, dear Princess,’ said Mademoiselle Bourienne, ‘just one more little try.’
The little princess took the dress from the maid and went over to Princess Marya. ‘Now, we’re going to do something nice and straightforward,’ she said. And the three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s and the giggling Katya’s, blended into a kind of happy babble like birds twittering.
‘No, leave me alone,’ said the princess, and there was so much urgency and suffering in her voice that the twittering stopped abruptly. They looked at the big beautiful eyes, full of tears and of thoughts, looking back at them imploringly and they saw that resistance would be useless, even cruel.
