Book Four: 1806 - Chapter IX

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap onher head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hairlay round her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosymouth with its downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. PrinceAndrew entered and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa onwhich she was lying. Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fearand excitement, rested on him without changing their expression. "Ilove you all and have done no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so?Help me!" her look seemed to say. She saw her husband, but did notrealize the significance of his appearance before her now. PrinceAndrew went round the sofa and kissed her forehead.

　　"My darling!" he said- a word he had never used to her before."God is merciful...."

　　She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.

　　"I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!"said her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did notrealize that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with hersufferings or with their relief. The pangs began again and MaryBogdanovna advised Prince Andrew to leave the room.

　　The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting PrincessMary, again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talkbroke off at every moment. They waited and listened.

　　"Go, dear," said Princess Mary.

　　Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the roomnext to hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face andbecame confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face withhis hands and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless,animal moans came through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went tothe door, and tried to open it. Someone was holding it shut.

　　"You can't come in! You can't!" said a terrified voice from within.

　　He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few moreseconds went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek- it could not behers, she could not scream like that- came from the bedroom. PrinceAndrew ran to the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail ofan infant.

　　"What have they taken a baby in there for?" thought Prince Andrew inthe first second. "A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Oris the baby born?"

　　Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail;tears choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill be beganto cry, sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with hisshirt sleeves tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a tremblingjaw, came out of the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctorgave him a bewildered look and passed by without a word. A womanrushed out and seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on thethreshold. He went into his wife's room. She was lying dead, in thesame position he had seen her in five minutes before and, despitethe fixed eyes and the pallor of the cheeks, the same expression wason her charming childlike face with its upper lip covered with tinyblack hair.

　　"I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what haveyou done to me?"- said her charming, pathetic, dead face.

　　In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt andsquealed in Mary Bogdanovna's trembling white hands.

　　Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into hisfather's room. The old man already knew everything. He was standingclose to the door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closedlike a vise round his son's neck, and without a word he began to soblike a child.

　　Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrewwent up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her thefarewell kiss. And there in the coffin was the same face, thoughwith closed eyes. "Ah, what have you done to me?" it still seemed tosay, and Prince Andrew felt that something gave way in his soul andthat he was guilty of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget. Hecould not weep. The old man too came up and kissed the waxen littlehands that lay quietly crossed one on the other on her breast, andto him, too, her face seemed to say: "Ah, what have you done to me,and why?" And at the sight the old man turned angrily away.

　　Another five days passed, and then the young Prince NicholasAndreevich was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with herwhile the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy's little redand wrinkled soles and palms.

　　His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid ofdropping him, carried the infant round the battered tin font andhanded him over to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew satin another room, faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned inthe font, and awaited the termination of the ceremony. He looked upjoyfully at the baby when the nurse brought it to him and noddedapproval when she told him that the wax with the baby's hair had notsunk in the font but had floated.