* “My child! I love you and have known you a long time.”
Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the countess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in French in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and asked: “How is he?”
“The doctor says that he is not in danger,” said the countess, but as she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a contradiction of her words.
“Where is he? Can I see him—can I?” asked the princess.
“One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?” said the countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles. “There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a lovely boy!”
The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sónya was talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk, cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as if asking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to feel that there was no longer a place for him in life.
In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew, the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which she had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was hard for her she was not vexed with these people.
“This is my niece,” said the count, introducing Sónya—“You don’t know her, Princess?”
Princess Mary turned to Sónya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt oppressed by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far from what was in her own heart.
“Where is he?” she asked again, addressing them all.