BOOK TEN: 1812
8. CHAPTER VIII
(continued)
The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of
preparation and giving orders, for which everyone came to her,
occupied her all day. She spent the night of the fourteenth as
usual, without undressing, in the room next to the one where the
prince lay. Several times, waking up, she heard his groans and
muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps of Tikhon and the
doctor when they turned him over. Several times she listened at the
door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were louder than
usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not sleep and
several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter but
not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw
and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to
him. She had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look
she sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in
during the night at an unusual hour would irritate him.
But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of
losing him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and
act of his found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid
these memories temptations of the devil would surge into her
imagination: thoughts of how things would be after his death, and
how her new, liberated life would be ordered. But she drove these
thoughts away with disgust. Toward morning he became quiet and she
fell asleep.
She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed
her clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father's illness.
On waking she listened to what was going on behind the door and,
hearing him groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were
still the same.
"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!"
she cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.
She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In
front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being
packed into the vehicles.
It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch,
still horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her
thoughts before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and
went out to her.
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