BOOK TEN: 1812
5. CHAPTER V
(continued)
A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow
toward the prince.
"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych.
"You must go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go
to the Ryazan estate or to the one near Moscow."
Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently
disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the
avenue at a gallop.
The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly
impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last
on which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running
out from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked
from the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young
master, the elder one frightened look clutched her younger companion
by the hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick
up some green plums they had dropped.
Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them
see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty
frightened little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt
an irresistible desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief
came over him when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of
other human interests entirely aloof from his own and just as
legitimate as those that occupied him. Evidently these girls
passionately desired one thing- to carry away and eat those green
plums without being caught- and Prince Andrew shared their wish for
the success of their enterprise. He could not resist looking at them
once more. Believing their danger past, they sprang from their
ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill little voices and
holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned feet scampered
merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.
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