Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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have been
otherwise at this meeting.
"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!" they suddenly exclaimed, and then
laughed. "I dreamed last night..."--"You were not expecting us?..."
"Ah! Mary, you have got thinner?..." "And you have grown stouter!..."
"I knew the princess at once," put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"And I had no idea!..." exclaimed Princess Mary. "Ah, Andrew, I
did not see you."
Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another,
and he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess
Mary had turned toward her brother, and through her tears the
loving, warm, gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful
at that moment, rested on Prince Andrews face.
The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip
continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary
and drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of
glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they
had had on the Spasski Hill which might have been serious for her in
her condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had
left all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would
have to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that
Kitty Odyntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor
for Mary, a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess
Mary was still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful
eyes were full of love and sadness. It was plain that she was
following a train of thought independent of her sister-in-laws words.
In the midst of a description of the last Petersburg fete she
addressed her brother:
"So you are really going to the war, Andrew?" she said sighing.
Lise sighed too.
"Yes, and even tomorrow," replied her brother.
"He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had
promotion..."
Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of
thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her
figure.
"Is it certain?" she said.
The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said:
"Yes, quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful..."
Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-laws
and unexpectedly again began to cry.
"She needs rest," said Prince Andrew with a frown. "Dont you, Lise?
Take her to your room and Ill go to Father. How is he? Just the
same?"
"Yes, just the same. Though I dont know what your opinion will be,"
answered the princess joyfully.
"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the
lathe?" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which
showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he
was aware of his weaknesses.
"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and
my geometry lessons," said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her
lessons in geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.
When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the
old prince to get up, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his
father. The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor
of his sons arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments
while he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in
old-fashioned style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and
when Prince Andrew entered his fathers dressing room (not with the
contemptuous look and manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the
animated face with which he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting
on a large leather-covered chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle,
entrusting his head to Tikhon.
"Ah! heres the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?" said the old
man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon was
holding fast to plait, would allow.
"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like
this hell soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?" And he
held out his cheek.
The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He
used to say that a nap "after dinner was silver--before dinner,
golden.") He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his
thick, bushy eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father
on the spot indicated to him. He made no reply on his fathers
favorite topic--making fun of the military men of the day, and more
particularly of Bonaparte.
"Yes, Father, I
War And Peace page 54 War And Peace page 56
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