kept putting things off, and see what’s come of it!’ said Prince Andrey in an exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.
‘My dear, it’s really better not to wake him, he has fallen asleep,’ said the princess in a voice of entreaty.
Prince Andrey got up and went on tiptoe to the crib with the glass in his hand.
‘Should we really not wake him?’ he said, hesitating.
‘As you think—really ... I believe so . . . but as you think,’ said Princess Marya, obviously intimidated and ashamed that her opinion should triumph. She drew her brother’s attention to the maid, who was summoning him in a whisper.
It was the second night that they had been without sleep looking after the baby who was feverish. Mistrusting their own household doctor and expecting the doctor they had sent from the town, they had spent all that time trying first one remedy and then another. Agitated and worn out by sleeplessness, they vented their anxiety on each other, found fault with each other, and ouarrelled.
‘Petrusha with papers from your papa,’ whispered the maid. Prince Andrey went out.
‘Damn them all!’ he commented angrily, and after listening to the ■ verbal instructions sent him from his father, and taking the correspondence and his father’s letter, he went back to the nursery. ‘Well?’ queried ■ Prince Andrey.
‘No change, wait a little, for God’s sake. Karl Ivanitch always says sleep is better than anything,’ Princess Marya whispered with a sigh. Prince Andrey went up to the baby and felt him. He was burning hot. <; ‘Bother you and your Karl Ivanitch!’ He took the glass with the drops . of medicine in it and again went up to the crib.
‘Andryusha, you shouldn’t!’ said Princess Marya. But he scowled at her with an expression of anger and at the same time of anguish, and >i bent over the child with the glass.
‘But I wish it,’ he said. ‘Come, I beg you, give it him . . .’
Princess Marya shrugged her shoulders, but obediently she took the glass, and calling the nurse, began giving the child the medicine. The baby screamed and wheezed. Prince Andrey, scowling and clutching at his head, went out of the room and sat down on the sofa in the adjoining one.
The letters were still in his hand. Mechanically he opened them and i began to read. The old prince in his big, sprawling hand, making use of < occasional abbreviations, wrote on blue paper as follows:
‘I have this moment received, through a special messenger, very joyful news, if it’s not a falsehood. Bennigsen has gained it seems a complete victory over Bonaparte near Eylau. In Petersburg every one’s jubilant and rewards have been sent to the army without stint. Though he’s a German—I congratulate him. Commander in Kortchevo, a certain Handrikov, I can’t make out what he’s about; full contingent of men and regulation provision not yet arrived. Gallop over at once and say I’ll
have his head off if it’s not all here within the week. I have a letter too about the Prussian battle at Preussisch-Eylau from Petenka, he took part in it,—it’s all true. If people don’t meddle who’ve no business to meddle, even a German beats Bonaparte. They say he’s running away in great disorder. Mind you gallop over to Kortchevo and do the business without delay! ’
Prince Andrey sighed and broke open the other letter. It was a letter from Bilibin, two sheets covered with fine handwriting. He folded it up without reading it, and read through once more his father’s letter, ending with the words: 'Mind you gallop over to Kortchevo and do the business without delay!’
‘No, excuse me, I’m not going now till the child is better,’ he thought, and going to the door he glanced into the nursery. Princess Marya was still standing at the crib, softly rocking the baby. ‘Oh, and what was the other unpleasant thing he writes about?’ Prince Andrey thought of the contents of his father’s letter. ‘Yes. Our troops have gained a victory over Bonaparte precisely when I’m not in the army. Yes, yes, everything mocks at me . . . well and welcome too . . .’ and he began reading the letter in French from Bilibin. He read, not understanding half of it, read simply to escape for one moment from thinking of what he had too long, too exclusively and too anxiously been dwelling upon.
IX
Bilibin was now in a diplomatic capacity at the headquarters of the army, and though he wrote in French, with French jests, and French turns of speech, he described the whole campaign with an impartial self- criticism and self-mockery exclusively Russian. Bilibin wrote that the obligation of diplomatic discretion was a torture to him, and that he was happy to have in Prince Andrey a trustworthy correspondent to whom he could pour out all the spleen that had been accumulating in him at the sight of what was going on in the army. The letter was dated some time back, before the battle of Eylau.
