"They can't do anything . . . always make some muddle," he muttered.
While he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and even little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old prince returned with quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivánovich, bringing the letter and a plan. These he put down beside him not letting anyone read them at dinner. On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess Mary and, spreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.
"What do you think of it, Prince?" Dessalles ventured to ask.
"I? I? . . ." said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking his eyes from the plan of the building.
"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that . . ."
"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!" said the prince. "I have said and still say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get beyond the Niemen."
Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary, forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what her father was saying was correct.
"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could fail to see it," the prince continued, evidently thinking of the campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. "Bennigsen should have advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different turn . . ."
"But, Prince," Dessalles began timidly, "the letter mentions Vitebsk "
"Ah, the letter? Yes . . ." replied the prince peevishly. "Yes ... yes .. ." His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. "Yes, he writes that the French were beaten at ... at . . . what river is it?"
Dessalles dropped his eyes.
"The prince says nothing about that," he remarked gently.
"Doesn't he? But I didn't invent it myself." No one spoke for a long time.
"Yes ... yes .. .Well, Michael Ivánovich," he suddenly went on, raising his head and pointing to the plan of the building, "tell me how you mean to alter it. . . ."
Michael Ivánovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking to him about the new building looked angrily at Princess Mary and Dessalles and went to his own room.
Princess Mary saw Dessalles' embarrassed and astonished look fixed on her father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her father had forgotten his son's letter on the drawing-room table; but she was not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his confusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it.
In the evening Michael Ivánovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess Mary for Prince Andrew's letter which had been forgotten in the drawing room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so, ventured to ask him what her father was doing.
"Always busy," replied Michael Ivánovich with a respectfully ironic smile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. "He's worrying very much about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now" Michael Ivánovich went on, lowering his voice "now he's at his desk, busy with his will, I expect." (One of the prince's favorite occupations of late had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death and which he called his "will.")
"And Alpátych is being sent to Smolensk?" asked Princess Mary.
"Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time."
CHAPTER III
When Michael Ivánovich returned to the study with the letter, the old prince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript his "Remarks" as he termed it which was to be transmitted to the Emperor after his death.
When Michael Ivánovich went in there were tears in the prince's eyes evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivánovich's hand, put it in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpátych who had long been waiting.
The prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolénsk and, walking up and down the room past Alpátych who stood by the door, he gave his instructions.
