‘Please change your hairstyle,’ said the little princess. ‘I told you,’ she said reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne, ‘that Marie has the kind of face that this style doesn’t suit. It really doesn’t. Change it, please!’
‘Just leave me alone, I tell you. None of this makes any difference,’ said a voice near to tears.
Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to admit to themselves that Princess Marya looked awful dolled up like this, far worse than usual, but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they knew all too well, one that was thoughtful and sad. The expression wasn’t frightening – she was incapable of frightening anyone, but they knew that when that expression came over her face she was going to be mute and immovable in anything she decided.
‘You will alter it, won’t you?’ asked Liza, and when Princess Marya refused to reply Liza went out of the room.
Princess Marya was left alone. She didn’t do what Liza had wanted, she didn’t rearrange her hair, she didn’t even glance at the mirror. With her eyes and hands drooping helplessly, she sat there daydreaming in silence. She dreamed of a husband, a man strong and masterful, an unimaginably attractive creature, come to bear her off into an entirely different world of his own, a world of happiness. She dreamt of a child,
‘Tea is served. The prince will be going in immediately,’ came the maid’s voice through the door. She gave a start, horrified at what she had been thinking. And before going downstairs she rose, went to her icons, fixed her eyes on one gently illuminated black countenance, a large image of the Saviour, and stood before it for several minutes with her hands together. Princess Marya’s soul was racked with doubt. Could she ever know the joy of love, earthly love for a man? In her thoughts about marriage, Princess Marya dreamt of family happiness, a home with children, but her first, her strongest, her most secret desire was for earthly love. This feeling was at its strongest when she was trying hardest to conceal it from others, and even from herself. ‘O Lord God,’ she said, ‘how am I to subdue in my heart these thoughts that come from the devil? How am I to renounce for ever all evil thinking, so as to live at peace and fulfil thy will?’ And the moment she formed this question God’s answer came to her in her own heart. ‘Desire nothing for thyself, seek for nothing, be not disturbed, envy not. Man’s future and thy destiny shall be unknown to thee; but live in readiness for anything. If it be God’s will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be prepared to do his will.’ With this soothing thought in mind (though also hoping that her forbidden earthly dream still might come true), Princess Marya crossed herself with a sigh and went downstairs, with no thought for her dress, or how her hair was done, or how she would go in, or what she would find to say. What could all of this signify beside the predestined will of God, without whom not a hair falls from the head of man?
CHAPTER 4
