‘If you want my opinion,’ said Prince Andrey, avoiding his father’s eyes (now that he was about to find fault with him for the very first time), ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but if you want my opinion I’ll be quite candid about the whole thing. If there’s any misunderstanding or incompatibility between you and Masha, I don’t think it’s her fault. I know how she loves you and respects you. If you want my opinion,’ Prince Andrey went on, flying off the handle, as he had been doing all too easily in recent days, ‘there’s only one thing to be said: if there are any misunderstandings, they’re caused by that worthless woman, who is no fit companion for my sister.’
The old man’s darting eyes settled into a fixed stare directed at his son, and his forced smile revealed the gap of his lost tooth, something Prince Andrey had not yet managed to get used to.
‘So, it’s companion, is it, my dear fellow? Aha! You’ve been talking about it, haven’t you? Eh?’
‘Father, I had no wish to pass judgement,’ said Prince Andrey in a hard and bitter tone, ‘but you put me up to it, and I’ve said what I shall always say – it’s not Marie’s fault, it’s other people . . . it’s that Frenchwoman’s fault . . .’
‘But this is judgement! . . . It is judgement!’ said the old man in a low voice, and Prince Andrey thought he detected some embarrassment, but suddenly the old man leapt to his feet and yelled at him, ‘Get out! Go on, get out of my house!’
Prince Andrey was all for setting off at once, but Princess Marya persuaded him to stay on one more day. During that day Prince Andrey didn’t see his father, who stayed in his room and wouldn’t let anyone in but Mademoiselle Bourienne and Tikhon, though he kept asking whether his son had gone. Next morning before setting out Prince Andrey went over to his son’s part of the house. The little boy, curly-haired like his mother and a picture of good health, sat on his knee. Prince Andrey started telling him the story of Bluebeard, but his mind began to wander before he got to the end. He wasn’t thinking about the pretty little boy sitting on his knee who was his son – he was thinking about himself. He cast around in his mind and was horrified not to discover the slightest feeling of remorse for upsetting his father, or any regret at leaving him with bad blood between them for the first time in his life. Worst of all, he also failed to discover in himself any trace of the tender affection he used to feel for his boy, and had hoped to rekindle by cuddling him on his knee.
‘Well, go on,’ said the little boy. Prince Andrey put him down without a word and walked out of the room.
The moment Prince Andrey had given up his daily pursuits, and especially when he had gone back to the old surroundings in which he had once been so happy, his old world-weariness had returned with all its intensity, and he now felt an urgent need to flee from these memories and find something to do as soon as possible.
‘Are you really going, Andrey?’ his sister said to him.
‘Thank God I can,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘I’m just sorry you can’t.’
‘How can you say such a thing?’ said Princess Marya. ‘How can you say that, when you’re off to that awful war, and he’s so old? Mademoiselle Bourienne has told me he keeps on asking about you . . .’ At the very mention of these things her lips trembled and tears fell from her eyes. Prince Andrey turned away and began to pace up and down the room.
‘Oh, my God! My God!’ he said. ‘Just think . . . what . . . who . . . what trash can cause so much misery!’ he said in a venomous outburst that alarmed Princess Marya.
She understood that when he said ‘trash’ he meant not only Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also the man who had ruined his own happiness.
‘Andrey, please, one thing I beg of you,’ she said, catching him by the elbow and looking at him with eyes shining through tears. ‘I understand you.’ (She looked down.) ‘You mustn’t think sorrow is the work of men. Men are His instruments.’ Her eyes darted across slightly above Prince Andrey’s head; it was the kind of easy, familiar glance with which you glance over to a place where a favourite portrait hangs. ‘Sorrow is sent by Him, and not by men. Men are His instruments. The fault is not theirs. If you think someone has done you wrong you must forgive and forget. We have no right to punish others. And you will know the joy of forgiveness.’
‘If I was a woman, Marie, I would do that. It’s a woman’s virtue. But a man must not, and cannot, forgive and forget,’ he said, and although until then he had not been thinking of Kuragin, all his unassuaged fury surged up again in his heart. ‘Marie’s trying to talk me into forgiveness – that means I ought to have punished him ages ago,’ he thought.
And with no further response to Princess Marya, he let his mind stray to the happy moment of vindictive delight when he caught up with Kuragin. He knew he was in the army.
