Family life goes on in the same old way, except for my brother Andrey being away. As I wrote to you before, he has changed a lot recently. It is only now, this year, that he seems to have got over his grief at long last. He is just as I remember him when he was a boy, nice and kind, and more good-hearted than anyone I know. He seems to realize that his life is not over yet. But, despite the improvement in his morale, he has become very weak physically. He has kept on losing weight and he’s more edgy than he used to be. I worry about him, and I’m so glad he is taking this foreign tour, which the doctors have been prescribing for ages. I hope he’ll come back cured. You write to me that all Petersburg considers him one of the most capable, cultivated and intelligent young men. Forgive my family pride – this is something I have never doubted. The good that he has done here – to his peasants, the local nobility, everyone – is incalculable. When he arrived in Petersburg he simply got what he deserved. I’m amazed at the way rumours find their way from Petersburg to Moscow, especially groundless ones like the story you mentioned about my brother supposedly marrying the little Rostov girl. I don’t think Andrey will ever marry anyone, and certainly not her. I’ll tell you why. Firstly, I know that though he seldom speaks of his late wife, his sadness at her loss has penetrated his heart too deeply for him ever to consider arranging for a successor, and a stepmother for our little angel. And secondly, because, as far as I can tell, that girl is not the sort of woman who would appeal to Prince Andrey. I don’t think Andrey can have chosen her to be his wife, and I must admit that I hope not.
But I’ve rambled on too long. Here I am finishing the second sheet.
Goodbye for now, my dear friend. God Almighty take you to His holy bosom. My dear companion, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends her love.
MARIE
CHAPTER 26
In the middle of the summer Princess Marya was surprised to receive a letter from Prince Andrey in Switzerland with some strange and unexpected news. He informed his sister of his engagement to Natasha Rostov. His whole letter was suffused with ecstatic love for his fiancée, as well as tender and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never been in love like this before, and now at last he had a clear idea of what life meant. He asked her to forgive him for having kept quiet about his plans during his last visit to Bald Hills, though he had mentioned them to his father. He had said nothing because he knew she might go and persuade her father to give his consent, only to fail in the attempt, irritate her father and bring down on herself all the weight of his displeasure. ‘Besides,’ he wrote, ‘things were not definitely settled then, and now they are. At that time our father insisted on a year’s postponement, and now half of it,
After much hesitation, many misgivings and endless prayers, Princess Marya handed the letter to her father. The following day the old prince said to her calmly:
‘Write and tell your brother to wait till I’m dead . . . He won’t have long to wait. I’ll soon set him free.’
The princess made as if to protest, but her father would have none of it, and he ranted on louder and louder. ‘Go on, get yourself married, darling boy . . . Splendid family! . . . Clever people, eh? Plenty of money, eh? Oh yes, a nice little stepmother for Nikolay! Tell him not to wait – get married tomorrow . . . She’ll be a stepmother for our little Nikolay, and I’ll marry the little Bourienne girl! . . . He-he-he, can’t have him doing without his own stepmother! Just one thing, no women-folk around this house from now on. Let him get married and go and live on his own. Why don’t you go and live with him?’ He turned to Princess Marya: ‘Good luck to you! It’s a cold world out there, a very cold world.’
After this outburst the prince never returned to the subject. But all his pent-up fury at his son’s lack of spirit vented itself in the way he treated his daughter. To his former pretexts for taunting her he now added another one – snide remarks about stepmothers and being ever so nice to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
