‘Our fashions are French, our ideas are French, our feelings are French! Look here, you sent Métivier packing because he’s a Frenchman and a scoundrel, but our ladies go down on their knees and crawl after him. I was at a party yesterday evening, and, do you know, out of five ladies three were Catholics and they had a papal dispensation that allows them to do their embroidery on Sundays. And they sat there virtually naked, like signboards in a public bath-house – pardon me for saying so. Oh dear me, when you look at our young people today, Prince, you feel like taking Peter the Great’s old cudgel3 out of the museum and cracking a few ribs with it. Do it the Russian way! Soon knock the nonsense out of them!’
Nobody spoke. The old prince looked across at Rostopchin with a grin on his face and shook his head approvingly.
‘Well, goodbye, your Excellency. Keep well,’ said Rostopchin, jumping to his feet with his usual alacrity and extending a hand to the prince.
‘Goodbye, my dear fellow . . . Music to my ears. What a man – always worth listening to!’ said the old prince, holding on to the hand and offering his cheek. The others rose when Rostopchin did.
CHAPTER 4
Sitting there in the drawing-room listening to the old men’s chatter and tittle-tattle, Princess Marya couldn’t understand a word of what she was hearing. The only thing she could think about was whether or not all the guests were aware of her father’s hostility towards her. She hadn’t even noticed that Drubetskoy – now on his third visit to their house – had been particularly attentive and amiable towards to her all through dinner.
Princess Marya turned to Pierre with a far-away, inquiring look in her eyes, he being the last to go, after the prince had departed, leaving them alone together in the drawing-room. He had come over to her, hat in hand, with a smiling face.
‘Can I stay on a bit?’ he said, depositing his great bulk into a low chair alongside Princess Marya.
‘Please do,’ she said, but her eyes asked him, ‘Didn’t you notice?’
Pierre was in a happy after-dinner mood. He looked straight ahead and smiled a sweet smile. ‘Have you known that young man very long, Princess?’ he said.
‘Which one?’
‘Drubetskoy.’
‘No, not very long . . .’
‘Do you like him?’
‘Yes, he’s a very nice young man. Why do you ask?’ said Princess Marya, still thinking of her conversation that morning with her father.
‘Because in my experience, when a young man comes from Petersburg to Moscow on leave, it is usually with the object of marrying an heiress.’
‘Is that your experience?’ said Princess Marya.
‘Oh yes,’ Pierre went on with a smile, ‘and that young man is carrying on in such a way that wherever there are wealthy heiresses – that’s where he is. I can read him like a book. At this moment he’s wondering whether to mount an assault on you or Mademoiselle Julie Karagin. He’s paying her a lot of attention.’
‘Does he go there?’
‘Yes, very often. And do you know the latest way of courting a woman?’ said Pierre, beaming breezily, and obviously enjoying that jovial mood of ironical banter for which he had reproached himself so many times in his diary.
‘No,’ said Princess Marya.
‘Well, nowadays, in order to please the girls in Moscow, you have to be melancholic. He’s very melancholic just now with Mademoiselle Karagin,’ said Pierre.
‘Is he really?’ said Princess Marya, staring into Pierre’s kindly face but constantly preoccupied with her own troubles. ‘I’d feel a bit better,’ she was thinking, ‘if I could just confide in somebody and tell them how I feel. And Pierre’s the one to confide in. He’s so kind and generous. I think I’d feel better. He would tell me what to do.’
‘Would you ever marry him?’ asked Pierre.
‘Oh heavens, Count! There are times when I’d marry anybody,’ Princess Marya said with tears in her voice, much to her own surprise. ‘Oh! It’s so hard when you love someone close to you and you feel . . .’ she went on in a tremulous voice, ‘you can’t do anything for him that won’t cause trouble, and you know you can’t do anything about it. There’s only one thing to do – go away, but where can I go?’
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened, princess?’
But Princess Marya, instead of going into explanations, burst into tears.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Please don’t take any notice. Forget what I’ve said.’
Pierre’s breezy attitude was gone. He questioned the princess anxiously, begging her to make a clean breast of it and tell him all her troubles, but she just kept on repeating the same things – she wanted him to forget what she had said, she couldn’t remember what she had said, and the only worry she had was the one he knew about – Prince Andrey’s marriage, which looked like setting father against son.
‘Have you heard anything about the Rostovs?’ she asked, changing the subject. ‘I believe they’re due here soon. I’m expecting Andrey, too, any day now. I should have liked them to have their first meeting here.’
