IV
When Princess Marya came in, Prince Vassily and his son were already in the drawing room, talking with the little princess and Mlle Bourienne. When she came in with her heavy step, planting her heels, the men and Mlle Bourienne rose, and the little princess, pointing to her, said, “Voilà Marie!” Princess Marya saw them all, and saw them in detail. She saw the face of Prince Vassily, momentarily freezing in a serious expression at the sight of the princess, and the face of the little princess, curiously reading on the faces of the guests the impression Marie made. She also saw Mlle Bourienne with her ribbon, and her beautiful face, and her gaze—lively as never before—directed at him; but she could not see him, she saw only something big, bright, and beautiful, which moved towards her as she came into the room. Prince Vassily went up to her first, and she kissed the bald head that bowed over her hand, and to his words replied that, on the contrary, she remembered him very well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still did not see him. She only felt a gentle hand firmly take hold of her hand, and barely touched the white forehead with beautiful, pomaded blond hair above it. When she looked at him, his beauty struck her. Anatole, the thumb of his right hand placed behind a fastened button of his uniform, chest thrust out, shoulders back, swinging his free leg slightly, and inclining his head a little, gazed silently and cheerfully at the princess, obviously without thinking of her at all. Anatole was not resourceful, not quick and eloquent in conversation, but he had instead a capacity, precious in society, for composure and unalterable assurance. When an insecure man is silent at first acquaintance and shows an awareness of the impropriety of this silence and a wish to find something to say, it comes out badly; but Anatole was silent, swung his leg, and cheerfully observed the princess’s hairstyle. It was clear that he could calmly remain silent like that for a very long time. “If anyone feels awkward because of this silence, speak up, but I don’t care to,” his look seemed to say. Besides that, in Anatole’s behavior with women there was a manner which more than any other awakens women’s curiosity, fear, and even love—a manner of contemptuous awareness of his own superiority. As if he were saying to them with his look: “I know you, I know, but why should I bother with you? And you’d be glad if I did!” Perhaps he did not think that when he met women (and it is even probable that he did not, because he generally thought little), but such was his look and manner. The princess felt it, and, as if wishing to show him that she dared not even think of interesting him, turned to the old prince. The conversation was general and lively, thanks to the little princess’s voice and the lip with its little mustache which kept rising up over her white teeth. She met Prince Vassily in that jocular mode often made use of by garrulously merry people, which consists in the fact that, between the person thus addressed and oneself, there are supposed to exist some long-established jokes and merry, amusing reminiscences, not known to everyone, when in fact there are no such reminiscences, as there were none between the little princess and Prince Vassily. Prince Vassily readily yielded to this tone; the little princess also involved Anatole, whom she barely knew, in this reminiscence of never-existing funny incidents. Mlle Bourienne also shared in these common reminiscences, and even Princess Marya enjoyed feeling herself drawn into this merry reminiscence.
“So at least we can make full use of you now, dear Prince,” the little princess said, in French, of course, to Prince Vassily. “It won’t be as at our soirées at Annette’s, where you always run away. Remember cette chère Annette!”
“Ah, but you won’t go talking politics with me, like Annette!”
“And our little tea table?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Why did you never come to Annette’s?” the little princess asked Anatole. “Ah! I know, I know,” she said, winking, “your brother Ippolit has told me about your affairs. Oh!” she shook her finger at him. “I even know your Parisian pranks!”
“But he, Ippolit, didn’t he tell you?” said Prince Vassily, turning to his son and seizing the princess by the hand as if she was about to run away and he had barely managed to hold her back, “didn’t he tell you how he himself, Ippolit, pined for the dear princess and how she le mettait à la porte? Oh! C’est la perle des femmes, princesse!”*247 he said, turning to Princess Marya.
For her part, Mlle Bourienne did not miss her chance, at the word Paris, to enter as well into the general conversation of reminiscences.
She permitted herself to ask whether Anatole had left Paris long ago and how he liked the city. Anatole answered the Frenchwoman quite willingly and, gazing at her with a smile, conversed with her about her fatherland. Seeing the pretty Bourienne, Anatole decided that even here, at Bald Hills, it would not be boring. “Not bad at all!” he thought, looking her over. “She’s not bad at all, this demoiselle de compagnie. I hope she’ll bring her along when she marries me,” he thought, “la petite est gentille.”†248
The old prince was dressing unhurriedly in his study, frowning and thinking over what he was going to do. The arrival of these guests angered him. “What are Prince Vassily and his boy to me? Prince Vassily’s an empty babbler, so the son must also be a fine one,” he grumbled to himself. He was angry because the arrival of these guests raised in his soul an unresolved, constantly stifled question—a question in regard to which the old prince always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever resolve to part with Princess Marya and give her to a husband. The prince had never ventured to ask himself this question directly, knowing beforehand that he would answer it in all fairness, and fairness contradicted more than feeling, it contradicted the whole possibility of his life. For Prince Nikolai Andreich, life without Princess Marya, despite the fact that he seemed to value her little, was unthinkable. “And why should she marry?” he thought. “She’s sure to be unhappy. Liza’s married to Andrei (a better husband would seem hard to find these days), but is she pleased with her fate? And who’s going to take her out of love? She’s plain, awkward. She’ll be taken for her connections, for her wealth. Don’t girls live unmarried? And all the happier!” So thought Prince Nikolai Andreich as he dressed, but at the same time the ever-deferred question called for immediate resolution. Prince Vassily had obviously brought his son with the intention of making a proposal, and would probably ask for a direct answer today or tomorrow. His name, his position in society were decent. “Well, I’m not against it,” the prince said to himself, “but he must be worthy of her. We’ll see about that.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said aloud. “We’ll see about that.”