When she had arrived in Moscow not long after her encounter with Rostov at Bogucharovo, Princess Marya had found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrey telling her how to get to her aunt, Madame Malvintsev, in Voronezh. The whole business of making arrangements for the journey while worrying about her brother, the organization of her life in a new home, new people, bringing her nephew up – all these things had drowned out the siren voices that had called to Princess Marya’s heart and tormented her during her father’s illness and after his death, especially in the aftermath of her encounter with Rostov. She felt depressed. Now after a month spent in quiet seclusion she began to feel the loss of her father more and more poignantly, and in her heart it was bound up with the downfall of Russia. She was terribly anxious; the thought of the danger to which her brother was now exposed – he being the only close contact left to her now – was a source of continual torment. She was also worried about bringing her nephew up properly, a task she constantly felt she wasn’t up to. But at the bottom of her heart she was at peace with herself, conscious that she had managed to suppress the dreams and hopes of personal happiness that had threatened to erupt in relation to her encounter with Nikolay Rostov.
When the governor’s wife called on Madame Malvintsev the day after her evening reception, she outlined her plans and talked them over, insisting that although present circumstances precluded the usual processes of matchmaking, there was nothing to stop them bringing the young people together, and letting them get to know one another, and so, with the full approval of the aunt, she began to talk about Rostov in Princess Marya’s presence, singing his praises, and describing how he had coloured up at the mention the princess’s name, though this caused Princess Marya more pain than joy. Her inner peace was gone; desires, doubts, self-reproach and hope had risen again.
For two whole days before Rostov called, Princess Marya never stopped thinking about the best way to react to his visit. First she would make up her mind not to come down into the drawing-room when he came to see her aunt; it would be improper for her to receive visitors while she was still in deep mourning. Then she thought no, this would be churlish after what he had done for her. Then the possibility occurred to her that her aunt and the governor’s wife were cooking something up for her and Rostov, a suspicion seemingly confirmed at times by particular words of theirs and some odd looks. Then she would tell herself that only her own depravity could have led her to think this of them: surely they must realize that in her situation, still wearing the heaviest mourning, that kind of matchmaking would be an offence both to her and to her father’s memory. Working on the supposition that she would go down to see him, Princess Marya tried to anticipate what he would say to her, and what she would say to him, but her words either seemed too frigid, something he didn’t deserve, or else they struck her as fraught with too much meaning. Worst of all she dreaded the embarrassment that was sure to overwhelm her, and betray her, the moment she saw him.
But when Sunday came and the footman entered the drawing-room after matins to announce the arrival of Count Rostov, the princess showed no sign of embarrassment, nothing more than a slight reddening of the cheeks, and her eyes gleamed with a radiance that was new.
‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you, Auntie?’ Princess Marya asked in a calm voice, not knowing herself how she could put on such a good show of being so calm and natural.
When Rostov came in the princess looked down for a moment, giving their visitor time to exchange greetings with her aunt, but then, at the precise moment when Nikolay turned to her, she looked up again and met his gaze with shining eyes. Smiling with pleasure, she half-rose in a single movement full of dignity and grace, offered a slender, delicate hand, and spoke to him in a vibrant contralto new to her repertoire. Mademoiselle Bourienne was there with them, and she stared at Princess Marya in total amazement. Skilled as she was in matters of flirtation, she couldn’t have improved on this tactical display of how to greet a man you want to win over.
‘Either black is her colour, or else she’s grown quite pretty, and I never noticed. Where did she get that poise and style?’ thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.
