‘And how does he look on things now?’ asked Pierre, meaning the old prince. Princess Marya shook her head. ‘Well, it can’t be helped,’ she continued. ‘There are only a few months left now before the year is up. And it can’t go on like this. All I’d like to do is spare my brother the first few minutes. Oh, I do wish they’d come. I’m hoping she and I can get to know each other . . . You’ve known them quite some time, haven’t you?’ asked Princess Marya. ‘Give me your honest opinion, hand on heart. What sort of a girl is she? What do you make of her? But please tell me the whole truth, because, well, Andrey’s taking such a risk going against his father. I just wanted to know . . .’
A vague instinct told Pierre that all this beating about the bush and the repeated insistence on hearing
Princess Marya sighed, and her face seemed to say, ‘Yes, just as I expected, just what I was dreading.’
‘Is she clever?’ asked Princess Marya. Pierre thought about this.
‘I don’t think she is,’ he said. ‘And yet, you know, perhaps she could be. She doesn’t think it’s worthwhile being clever . . . No, no, she’s just fascinating, that’s all.’
Princess Marya shook her head again, showing further disapproval.
‘Oh, I do want to like her! You can tell her that if you see her before I do.’
‘I have heard they’ll be here in a day or two,’ said Pierre.
Princess Marya told him about her plan of action: as soon as the Rostovs arrived she was going to form an attachment with her future sister-in-law and do what she could to bring the old prince round and get him to understand her.
CHAPTER 5
Boris had not succeeded in finding a wealthy heiress to marry in Petersburg, and it was with this in mind that he had come down to Moscow. In Moscow Boris found himself hesitating between the two wealthiest heiresses – Julie Karagin and Princess Marya. Although Princess Marya, for all her plainness, seemed more attractive than Julie, somehow he felt awkward about paying court to her. At their last meeting on the old prince’s name-day every time he had begun to talk sentimentally her responses had been all over the place and she had obviously not been listening to him.
Julie, by contrast, was only too eager to receive his attentions, though she showed it in her own special way. Julie was now twenty-seven. On the death of her two brothers she had become extremely wealthy. By now she had lost what looks she had ever had, though she believed herself to be no less attractive, in fact far prettier than ever before. She had been confirmed in this delusion first by becoming a wealthy heiress but also because as she grew older she became less dangerous to men, which enabled them to approach her more easily and take full advantage of her suppers, her soirées and the lively society that gathered about her without incurring any obligations. A man who, ten years ago, would have been reluctant to visit a house with a seventeen-year-old girl in it for fear of compromising her and tying himself down would now call in cheerfully every day, treating her not as a good match but as a sexless acquaintance.
