the appearance of both had been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room, vainly trying to
master her agitation.
‘Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can
never happen!’ she said, looking at herself in the glass. ‘How
shall I enter the drawing room? Even if I like him I can’t
now be myself with him.’ The mere thought of her father’s
look filled her with terror. The little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received from Masha, the lady’s
maid, the necessary report of how handsome the minister’s son was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and
with what difficulty the father had dragged his legs upstairs
while the son had followed him like an eagle, three steps at
a time. Having received this information, the little princess
and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose chattering voices had
reached her from the corridor, went into Princess Mary’s
room.
‘You know they’ve come, Marie?’ said the little princess,
waddling in, and sinking heavily into an armchair.
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She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore
in the morning, but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair
was carefully done and her face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded outlines. Dressed
as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still more
noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne’s
toilet which rendered her fresh and prettyface yet more attractive.
‘What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?’ she began. ‘They’ll be announcing that the gentlemen
are in the drawing room and we shall have to go down, and
you have not smartened yourself up at all!’
The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily began to devise and carry out a plan of
how Princess Mary should be dressed. Princess Mary’s selfesteem was wounded by the fact that the arrival of a suitor
agitated her, and still more so by both her companions’ not
having the least conception that it could be otherwise. To tell
them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be
to betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress
her would prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed,
her beautiful eyes grew dim, red blotches came on her face,
and it took on the unattractive martyrlike expression it so
often wore, as she submitted herself to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried to
make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them
could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with
perfect sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction
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women have that dress can make a face pretty.
‘No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty,’ said Lise,
looking sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance.
‘You have a maroon dress, have it fetched. Really! You know
the fate of your whole life may be at stake. But this one is too
light, it’s not becoming!’
It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of
Princess Mary that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little princess felt this; they still
thought that if a blue ribbon were placed in the hair, the
hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on the
best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot
that the frightened face and the figure could not be altered,
and that however they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it would still remain piteous and plain.
After two or three changes to which Princess Mary meekly
submitted, just as her hair had been arranged on the top of
her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her looks)
and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf,
the little princess walked twice round her, now adjusting
a fold of the dress with her little hand, now arranging the
scarf and looking at her with her head bent first on one side
and then on the other.
‘No, it will not do,’ she said decidedly, clasping her hands.
‘No, Mary, really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you
in your little gray everyday dress. Now please, do it for my
sake. Katie,’ she said to the maid, ‘bring the princess her
gray dress, and you’ll see, Mademoiselle Bourienne, how I
shall arrange it,’ she added, smiling with a foretaste of ar
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tistic pleasure.
But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess
Mary remained sitting motionless before the glass, looking
at her face, and saw in the mirror her eyes full of tears and
her mouth quivering, ready to burst into sobs.
‘Come, dear princess,’ said Mademoiselle Bourienne,
‘just one more little effort.’
The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came
up to Princess Mary.
‘Well, now we’ll arrange something quite simple and becoming,’ she said.
The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s, and
Katie’s, who was laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping of birds.
‘No, leave me alone,’ said Princess Mary.
Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping
of the birds was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful eyes full of tears and of thoughts,
gazing shiningly and imploringly at them, and understood
that it was useless and even cruel to insist.
‘At least, change your coiffure,’ said the little princess.
‘Didn’t I tell you,’ she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne, ‘Mary’s is a face which such a coiffure
does not suit in the least. Not in the least! Please change it.’
‘Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the
same to me,’ answered a voice struggling with tears.
Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to
own to themselves that Princess Mary in this guise looked
very plain, worse than usual, but it was too late. She was
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looking at them with an expression they both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess
Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they knew that when it appeared on her face, she
became mute and was not to be shaken in her determination.
‘You will change it, won’t you?’ said Lise. And as Princess
Mary gave no answer, she left the room.
Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with
Lise’s request, she not only left her hair as it was, but did not
even look in her glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she
sat with downcast eyes and pondered. A husband, a man, a
strong dominant and strangely attractive being rose in her
imagination, and carried her into a totally different happy
world of his own. She fancied a child, her ownsuch as she
had seen the day before in the arms of her nurse’s daughterat her own breast, the husband standing by and gazing
tenderly at her and the child. ‘But no, it is impossible, I am
too ugly,’ she thought.
‘Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment,’
came the maid’s voice at the door.
She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been
thinking, and before going down she went into the room
where the icons hung and, her eyes fixed on the dark face
of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a lamp, she stood before
it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful doubt
filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a
man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary
dreamed of happiness and of children, but her strongest,
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most deeply hidden longing was for earthly love. The more
she tried to hide this feeling from others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. ‘O God,’ she said, ‘how am I to
stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am
I to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to
fulfill Thy will?’ And scarcely had she put that question than
God gave her the answer in her own heart. ‘Desire nothing
for thyself, seek nothing, be not anxious or envious. Man’s
future and thy own fate must remain hidden from thee, but
live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be God’s
will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill
His will.’ With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope
for the fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary sighed, and having crossed herself went down,
thinking neither of her gown and coiffure nor of how she
would go in nor of what she would say. What could all that
matter in comparison with the will of God, without Whose
care not a hair of man’s head can fall?
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Chapter IV
When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasili and his
son were already in the drawing room, talking to the little
princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne. When she entered
with her heavy step, treading on her heels, the gentlemen
and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess,
indicating her to the gentlemen, said: ‘Voila Marie!’ Princess
Mary saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince
Vasili’s face, serious for an instant at the sight of her, but
immediately smiling again, and the little princess curiously noting the impression ‘Marie’ produced on the visitors.
And she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and
pretty face, and her unusually animated look which was
fixed on him, but him she could not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and handsome moving toward her as
she entered the room. Prince Vasili approached first, and
she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her hand and
answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she
remembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her.
She still could not see him. She only felt a soft hand taking
hers firmly, and she touched with her lips a white forehead,
over which was beautiful light-brown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck by his
beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button
of his uniform, his chest expanded
