In female company Anatole usually adopted the pose of a man weary of being chased by women, but his vanity was pleasantly tickled by the effect he was having on these three women. More than that, he was beginning to feel towards the pretty and seductive Mademoiselle Bourienne the kind of animal passion that sometimes swept over him with amazing speed and urged him to indulge in the most reckless and boorish behaviour.
After tea the party moved into the sitting-room, and Princess Marya was asked to play the clavichord. Anatole leant on one elbow opposite her and close to Mademoiselle Bourienne; his eyes, full of fun and laughter, were fixed on Princess Marya. She was agonized and delighted to feel his eyes upon her. Her favourite sonata bore her away to a world of soulful poetry, and the feeling of his eyes upon her brought even more poetry into that world. But the look in Anatole’s eyes which seemed to be directed at her had rather more to do with the writhing of Mademoiselle’s little foot, entwined with his under the piano. Mademoiselle Bourienne was also gazing at Princess Marya, and her lovely eyes also shone with a mixture of alarm, joy and longing that was new to the princess.
‘Oh, she does love me!’ Princess Marya was thinking. ‘How happy I am now and shall be in the future with such a friend and such a husband! Dare I say husband?’ she thought, not bold enough to glance at his face but still sensing his eyes fixed upon her.
When the party broke up after supper, Anatole kissed Princess Marya’s hand. Where she got the strength from she would never know, but as the handsome face came close to her she managed to squint straight at it with her short-sighted eyes. After the princess, he went to kiss the hand of Mademoiselle Bourienne (this was discourteous, but he acted with composure and simplicity), and Mademoiselle Bourienne coloured, glancing in dismay at the princess.
‘She’s so sensitive!’ thought Princess Marya. ‘How could Amélie’ (Mademoiselle’s name) ‘possibly imagine I might be jealous of her, and not value her tenderness and devotion to me?’ She went over to Mademoiselle Bourienne and gave her a particularly warm kiss. Anatole moved towards the little princess.
‘Oh no you don’t, sir! When your father writes and tells me that you’re being a good boy, then I shall give you my hand to kiss. But not before.’ And wagging her tiny finger at him, she left the room smiling.
CHAPTER 5
They went to their rooms, and everyone except Anatole, who dropped off the moment he got into bed, took a long time to get to sleep that night. ‘Is he really going to be my husband, that stranger, that good, handsome man. He is good – that’s the most important thing,’ thought Princess Marya, and she was struck by the kind of terror she had scarcely ever felt before. She was afraid to turn her head – was that someone standing there behind the screen in the corner? It might be the devil – and he might be that man with the white forehead, black eyebrows and red lips.
She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.
Mademoiselle Bourienne strolled about the winter garden for a long time that evening, waiting in vain for someone, smiling at someone or else weepy at the thought of her ‘poor mother’ reproaching her for her fall.
The little princess was uncomfortable in bed and complained to her maid. She couldn’t lie on her side or on her front. She felt weighed down and awkward in every position. Her big lump got in the way – got in the way more than ever that night, because Anatole’s presence had transported her vividly back to another time when she didn’t have it and had been light and carefree. She went and sat in a low chair in her dressing jacket and nightcap. Katya, sleepy and with dishevelled hair, turned the heavy feather bed and plumped it up for the third time, grumbling as she did so.
‘I told you it was all bumps and hollows,’ the little princess insisted. ‘I want to get to sleep, so it can’t be my fault.’ She spoke with a quavering voice like a child on the verge of tears.
The old prince also found sleep difficult. Tikhon, half-asleep, could hear him stamping about and snorting in his anger. The old prince felt as though his daughter had been used to insult him. The insult was all the more hurtful for being levelled not at him but at someone else, his daughter, whom he loved more than himself. He told himself to reconsider the whole business and decide what was right and what must be done, but instead of that all he did was work himself up more and more.
