Book Four: 1806 - Chapter VIII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　"Dearest," said the little princess after breakfast on the morningof the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit,but as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word,and even every footstep in that house since the terrible news hadcome, so now the smile of the little princess- influenced by thegeneral mood though without knowing its cause- was such as to remindone still more of the general sorrow.

　　"Dearest, I'm afraid this morning's fruschtique*- as Foka the cookcalls it- has disagreed with me."

　　*Fruhstuck: breakfast.

　　"What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you arevery pale!" said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.

　　"Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?" saidone of the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwifefrom the neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the lastfortnight.)

　　"Oh yes," assented Princess Mary, "perhaps that's it. I'll go.Courage, my angel." She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.

　　"Oh, no, no!" And besides the pallor and the physical suffering onthe little princess' face, an expression of childish fear ofinevitable pain showed itself.

　　"No, it's only indigestion?... Say it's only indigestion, say so,Mary! Say..." And the little princess began to cry capriciously like asuffering child and to wring her little hands even with someaffectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch MaryBogdanovna.

　　"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!" she heard as she left the room.

　　The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small,plump white hands with an air of calm importance.

　　"Mary Bogdanovna, I think it's beginning!" said Princess Marylooking at the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.

　　"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess," said Mary Bogdanovna, nothastening her steps. "You young ladies should not know anythingabout it."

　　"But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?" said theprincess. (In accordance with Lise's and Prince Andrew's wishes theyhad sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him atany moment.)

　　"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed," said Mary Bogdanovna."We'll manage very well without a doctor."

　　Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavybeing carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying thelarge leather sofa from Prince Andrew's study into the bedroom. Ontheir faces was a quiet and solemn look.

　　Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in thehouse, now and then opening her door when someone passed andwatching what was going on in the passage. Some women passing withquiet steps in and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess andturned away. She did not venture to ask any questions, and shut thedoor again, now sitting down in her easy chair, now taking herprayer book, now kneeling before the icon stand. To her surprise anddistress she found that her prayers did not calm her excitement.Suddenly her door opened softly and her old nurse, Praskovya Savishna,who hardly ever came to that room as the old prince had forbiddenit, appeared on the threshold with a shawl round her head.

　　"I've come to sit with you a bit, Masha," said the nurse, "andhere I've brought the prince's wedding candles to light before hissaint, my angel," she said with a sigh.

　　"Oh, nurse, I'm so glad!"

　　"God is merciful, birdie."

　　The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down bythe door with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and beganreading. Only when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at oneanother, the princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging.Everyone in the house was dominated by the same feeling thatPrincess Mary experienced as she sat in her room. But owing to thesuperstition that the fewer the people who know of it the less a womanin travail suffers, everyone tried to pretend not to know; no onespoke of it, but apart from the ordinary staid and respectful goodmanners habitual in the prince's household, a common anxiety, asoftening of the heart, and a consciousness that something great andmysterious was being accomplished at that moment made itself felt.

　　There was no laughter in the maids' large hall. In the men servants'hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs'quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The oldprince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sentTikhon to ask Mary Bogdanovna what news.- "Say only that 'the princetold me to ask,' and come and tell me her answer."

　　"Inform the prince that labor has begun," said Mary Bogdanovna,giving the messenger a significant look.

　　Tikhon went and told the prince.

　　"Very good!" said the prince closing the door behind him, and Tikhondid not hear the slightest sound from the study after that.

　　After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and,seeing the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed hisperturbed face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissedhim on the shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candlesor saying why he had entered. The most solemn mystery in the worldcontinued its course. Evening passed, night came, and the feeling ofsuspense and softening of heart in the presence of the unfathomabledid not lessen but increased. No one slept.

　　It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resumeits sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. Arelay of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the Germandoctor from Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horsebackwith lanterns were sent to the crossroads to guide him over thecountry road with its hollows and snow-covered pools of water.

　　Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, herluminous eyes fixed on her nurse's wrinkled face (every line ofwhich she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped fromunder the kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.

　　Nurse Savishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcelyhearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundredsof times before: how the late princess had given birth to PrincessMary in Kishenev with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help insteadof a midwife.

　　"God is merciful, doctors are never needed," she said.

　　Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of thewindow, from which the double frame had been removed (by order ofthe prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as thelarks returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set thedamask curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill,snowy draft. Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down thestocking she was knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried tocatch the open casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of herkerchief and her loose locks of gray hair.

　　"Princess, my dear, there's someone driving up the avenue! " shesaid, holding the casement and not closing it. "With lanterns. Mostlikely the doctor."

　　"Oh, my God! thank God!" said Princess Mary. "I must go and meethim, he does not know Russian."

　　Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet thenewcomer. As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through thewindow a carriage with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She wentout on the stairs. On a banister post stood a tallow candle whichguttered in the draft. On the landing below, Philip, the footman,stood looking scared and holding another candle. Still lower, beyondthe turn of the staircase, one could hear the footstep of someone inthick felt boots, and a voice that seemed familiar to Princess Marywas saying something.

　　"Thank God!" said the voice. "And Father?"

　　"Gone to bed," replied the voice of Demyan the house steward, whowas downstairs.

　　Then the voice said something more, Demyan replied, and the steps inthe felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase morerapidly.

　　"It's Andrew!" thought Princess Mary. "No it can't be, that would betoo extraordinary," and at the very moment she thought this, theface and figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar ofwhich covered with snow, appeared on the landing where the footmanstood with the candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changedand strangely softened but agitated expression on his face. He came upthe stairs and embraced his sister.

　　"You did not get my letter?" he asked, and not waiting for areply- which he would not have received, for the princess was unableto speak- he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with thedoctor who had entered the hall after him (they had met at the lastpost station), and again embraced his sister.

　　"What a strange fate, Masha darling!" And having taken off his cloakand felt boots, he went to the little princess' apartment.