One day, before her very eyes (she couldn’t help thinking her father did it on purpose because she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne on the hand, then drew her close and gave her a passionate hug. Princess Marya blushed to the roots of her hair and fled from the room. A few minutes later Mademoiselle Bourienne breezed into Princess Marya’s room, all smiles and chattering away merrily in her pleasant little voice. Princess Marya dried her tears hastily, marched over to the Frenchwoman and, without realizing what she was doing, turned on her in wild fury, gulping and screaming, ‘You vile thing . . . it’s inhuman . . . taking advantage of a feeble old . . .’
She couldn’t go on. ‘Get out of my room!’ she yelled, breaking down in sobs.
Next day the old prince ignored his daughter, but she noticed that at dinner he gave orders for Mademoiselle Bourienne to be served first. Towards the end of dinner, when the footman served the princess with coffee first, from sheer habit, the old prince flew into a wild rage, flung his cane at Filipp and gave immediate orders for him to be sent off into the army.
‘Insubordination . . . told him twice . . . and he still didn’t obey! She’s the first person in this house, she’s my best friend,’ roared the old prince. ‘And as for you,’ he fulminated, addressing Princess Marya for the first time, ‘you dare ever again to do what you did yesterday . . . forget yourself in her presence, and I’ll show you who’s master in this house. Go on! Get out of my sight! Apologize to her!’
Princess Marya gave her apology to Mademoiselle Bourienne and also to her father, for what she had done and also for the behaviour of the footman, Filipp, who was begging her to intercede.
At moments like this Princess Marya’s soul was afflicted by a sensation not far from the pride of self-sacrifice. And yet all of a sudden at moments like this, the very father she was censuring would either start looking for his spectacles, groping around close to them without seeing them, or completely forget what had just happened, or else he would take a single tottering step on his spindly legs and stare round to see whether anyone had noticed his feebleness, or – worst of all – over dinner, when there were no guests to stimulate him, he would suddenly nod off, dropping his napkin and letting his shaking head droop down over his plate. ‘Oh, he’s so old and feeble, and I have the gall to criticize him!’ she thought at moments like this in hateful self-reproach.
CHAPTER 3
In the year 1811 there lived in Moscow a French doctor by the name of Métivier, who was suddenly all the rage. He was very tall and handsome, he had the nice manners of a true Frenchman, and all Moscow had him down as a very accomplished physician. He was received in the very best houses, not merely as a doctor but as an equal.
Old Prince Bolkonsky had always poured scorn on medicine, but in recent days he had taken Mademoiselle Bourienne’s advice, and allowed this doctor to see him, gradually getting used to his visits. Métivier came to see the old prince two or three times a week.
On St Nicholas’s day, the old prince’s name-day, all Moscow turned up at his front door, but he gave orders for no one to be admitted. Only one or two guests, whose names were on a list that he had given to Princess Marya, were to be invited to lunch.
Métivier turned up that morning with his greetings and considered it proper as the old prince’s doctor to ‘break the embargo’, as he put it to Princess Marya, and go in to see the prince. As it happened, on the morning of his name-day the old prince was in one of his foulest moods. He had spent the whole morning tramping through the house, finding fault with everybody and pretending he couldn’t understand anything that was said to him and nobody understood what he was saying. Princess Marya was all too familiar with this mood of nervous, simmering touchiness, which usually culminated in a furious outburst, and she went about that morning like someone staring down the barrel of a cocked and loaded gun and waiting for the inevitable big bang. The morning had gone off reasonably well – until the doctor arrived. After showing the doctor in, Princess Marya sat down with a book in the drawing-room not far from the door, through which she could hear everything that was going on in the prince’s study.
At first the only voice she could hear was Métivier’s, then came her father’s, then both of them together. Then the door flew open, and in the doorway stood Métivier, a handsome figure of a man with his shock of black hair but terrified out of his wits, and behind him the old prince in skull-cap and dressing-gown, his face hideous with rage and the pupils of his eyes looking down at the floor.
