Suddenly a gust of wind blew on one of the window-frames (by the prince's decree tire double frames were always taken out of ever}' window when the larks returned). and flinging open a badly fastened window bolt, set the stuff curtain fluttering; and tire chill, snowy draught blew out the candle. Princess Mary a shuddered; the nurse, putting down her stocking, went to the window, and putting her head out tried to catch the open frame. The cold wind flapped tire ends of her kerchief and the grey locks of her hair.
‘Princess, my dearie, there's some one driving up the avenue!’ she said, holding tire window-frame and not closing it. ‘With lanterns; it must be the doctor. . .
‘.Ah. my God! Thank God!' said the Princess Marya. T must go and meet him; he does not know Russian.'
Priircess Marya flung on a shawl and ran to meet the stranger. As she passed through the ante-room, she saw through the window a carriage and lanterns standing at the entrance. She w r nt out on to the stairs. At the post of the balustrade stood a tallow-candle guttering in tire draught. The footman Filipp, looking scared, stood below on the first landing of the staircase, with another candle in his hand. Still lower down, at the turn of the winding stairs, steps in thick overshoes could be heard coming up. And a voice—familiar it seemed to Princess Marya— was saying something.
'Thank God.” said the voice. 'And father?’
'He has gone to bed,’ answered the voice of the butler, Denryan, who was below.
Then the voice said something more, Demyan answered something,
and the steps in thick overshoes began approaching more rapidly up the unseen part of the staircase.
‘It is Andrey!’ thought Princess Marya. ‘Xo, it cannot be, it would be too extraordinary/ she thought; and at the very instant she was thinking so, on the landing where the footman stood with a candle, there came into sight the face and figure of Prince Andrey, in a fur coat, with a deep collar covered with snow. Yes, it was he, but pale and thin, and ■with a transformed, strangely softened, agitated expression on his face. He went up the stairs and embraced his sister.
‘You did not get my letter, then?’ he asked; and not waiting for an answer, which he would not have received, for the princess could not speak, he turned back, and with the doctor who was behind him (they had met at the last station), he ran again rapidly upstairs and again embraced his sister.
‘What a strange fate!’ he said, ‘Masha, darling!’ And flinging off his fur coat and overboots, he w T ent towards the little princess’s room.
IX
The little princess was lying on the pillows in her white nightcap (the agony had only a moment left her). Her black hair lay in curls about her swollen and perspiring cheeks; her rosy, charming little mouth, with the downy lip, was open, and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrey went into the room, and stood facing her at the foot of the bed on which she lay. The glittering eyes, staring in childish terror and excitement, rested on him with no change in their expression. ‘I love you all, I have done no one any harm; why am I suffering? help me,’ her f2ce seemed to say. She saw her husband, but she did not take in the meaning of his appearance now before her. Prince Andrey went round the bed and kissed her on the forehead.
‘My precious,’ he said, a word he had never used speaking to her before. ‘God is merciful. . . .’ She stared at him with a face of inquiry, of childish reproach.
‘I hoped for help from you, and nothing, nothing, you too!’ her eyes said. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not understand that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her agony and its alleviation. The pains began again, and Marya Bogdanovna advised Prince Andrey to go out of the room.
The doctor went into the room. Prince Andrey came out, and, meeting Princess Marya, -went to her again. They talked in whispers, but every’ moment their talk was hushed. They were waiting and listening.
‘Go, mon ami ’ said Princess Marya. Prince Andrey went again to his wife and sat down in the adjoining room, waiting. A woman ran out of the bedroom with a frightened face, and was disconcerted on seeing Prince Andrey. He hid his face in his hands and sat so for some miniftes. Piteous, helpless, animal groans came from the next room. Prince Andrey got up,
went to the door, and would have opened it. Some one was holding the door.
‘Can't come in, can’t!’ a frightened voice said from within. He began walking about the room. The screams ceased; several seconds passed. Suddenly a fearful scream—not her scream, could she scream like that?— came from the room. Prince Andrey ran to the door; the scream ceased; he heard the cry of a baby.
‘What have they taken a baby in there for?’ Prince Andrey wondered for the first second.‘A baby? What baby? . . . Why a baby there? Or is the baby born?’
