As always when you are out on the road, Princess Marya fixed her mind exclusively on the actual journey, and lost track of its purpose. But as they got near to Yaroslavl and she had a new vision of what was in store for her, not at some future date but that very evening, her anxiety knew no bounds.
A courier had been sent on ahead to find out where the Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl and what sort of condition Prince Andrey was in, and when he met the huge travelling coach at the city gate, he was dismayed by the sight of the ashen face that looked out at him through the window.
‘I’ve got it all, your Excellency. The Rostovs are staying in the square, at the Bronnikovs’ house – he’s a merchant. Not far away, just down there by the Volga,’ said the courier.
Princess Marya stared at him with a scared and quizzical look, taking nothing in. Why didn’t he answer the only question that mattered: How was her brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put the question for her.
‘How is the prince?’ she asked.
‘His Excellency is staying with them in the same house.’
‘He must be alive, then,’ the princess thought to herself, and she asked in a quiet voice, ‘How is he?’
‘The servants said there was no change.’
She didn’t ask what ‘no change’ was supposed to mean. With a fleeting, barely perceptible glance at little seven-year-old Nikolay, who was sitting opposite, much enjoying the sight of a new town, she looked down, and didn’t look up again until the great rumbling carriage stopped jolting and swaying and came to a standstill. The carriage steps came clattering down.
The carriage doors were opened. There was water on the left, a broad expanse of river; on the right, the entrance steps. There was a welcoming party that included the servants and a rosy-cheeked girl with a thick coil of black hair, who was looking at her with an unpleasant, rather forced smile on her face, or so it seemed to Princess Marya. (This was Sonya.) The princess ran up the steps, and the girl with the forced smile said, ‘Here you are! Come in here!’ and the princess found herself in the hall looking at an elderly woman with oriental features distorted with anguish, who was advancing rapidly to meet her. It was the countess. She put her arms round Princess Marya, and proceeded to kiss her.
‘My dear child,’ she said, ‘I love you. I have known you for such a long time.’ Princess Marya was thoroughly distraught, but she knew this was the countess, and she ought to say something. Without knowing how she did it, she managed to get out a few polite French phrases pitched in the same tone as those addressed to her, and then she asked, ‘How is he?’
‘The doctor says he’s out of danger,’ replied the countess, but even as she said it, she sighed and her eyes rolled upwards, negating her own words.
‘Where is he? Please can I see him?’ asked the princess.
‘Yes, of course, Princess. Directly, my dear. Is this his son?’ she said, turning to little Nikolay, who was on his way in with Dessalles. ‘There’s plenty of room for everybody. It’s a nice big house. Oh, what a delightful boy!’
The countess conducted the princess into the drawing-room. Sonya spoke to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess petted the little boy. The old count came in to welcome the princess. He had changed enormously since Princess Marya had last seen him. Then he had been a bouncy, cheery, confident little old man; now he looked like some pathetic creature that had lost its way. As he talked to the princess he glanced round shiftily all the time, as if to check with other people that he was behaving himself properly. After the destruction of Moscow and the loss of his property, knocked out of his usual groove, he had clearly lost all sense of his own importance, and now felt he no longer had a place in life.
Despite all her anguish, her one desire to see her brother without further ado, and her sense of annoyance that at a time like this, when all she wanted was to go and see him, they were exchanging pleasantries and saying nice things about her nephew, the princess was taking everything in, and she could see that for the time being she had no alternative but to fall in with the new system she was now entering. She realized it was unavoidable, and this was hard to bear, but she didn’t hold it against them.
‘This is my niece,’ said the count, introducing Sonya. ‘You haven’t met her, have you, Princess?’
Princess Marya turned towards her, doing her best to stifle a rising feeling of hostility at the sight of this girl, and kissed her.
But the strain of feeling that her mood was different from everybody else’s was beginning to tell.
‘Where is he?’ she asked again, turning to face them all.
‘He’s downstairs. Natasha is with him,’ answered Sonya, colouring up. ‘We’ve sent someone to ask . . . Princess, you must be very tired.’
