Ma bonne amie,” said the little princess, after breakfast, on the morning of the 19th of March, and her little downy lip was lifted as of old; but as in that house since the terrible news had come, smiles, tones of voice, movements even bore the stamp of mourning, so now the smile of the little princess, who was influenced by the general temper without knowing its cause, was such that more than all else it was eloquent of the common burden of sorrow.
“My dear, I am afraid that this morning's fruschtique (as Foka calls it) has disagreed with me.”
“What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are very pale,” said Princess Marya in alarm, running with her soft, ponderous tread up to her sister-in-law.
“Shouldn't we send for Marya Bogdanovna, your excellency?” said one of the maids who was present. Marya Bogdanovna was a midwife from a district town, who had been for the last fortnight at Bleak Hills.
“Yes, truly,” assented Princess Marya, “perhaps it is really that. I'll go and get her. Courage, my angel.” She kissed Liza and was going out of the room.
“Oh, no, no!” And besides her pallor, the face of the little princess expressed a childish terror at the inevitable physical suffering before her.
“No, it is indigestion, say it is indigestion, say so, Marie, say so!” And the little princess began to cry, wringing her little hands with childish misery and capriciousness and affected exaggeration too. Princess Marya ran out of the room to fetch Marya Bogdanovna.
“Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Oh!” she heard behind her. The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her plump, small white hands, with a face of significant composure.
“Marya Bogdanovna! I think it has begun,” said Princess Marya, looking with wide-open, frightened eyes at the midwife.
“Well, I thank God for it,” said Marya Bogdanovna, not hastening her step. “You young ladies have no need to know anything about it.”
“But how is it the doctor has not come from Moscow yet?” said the princess. (In accordance with the wishes of Liza and Prince Andrey, they had sent to Moscow for a doctor, and were expecting him every minute.)
“It's no matter, princess, don't be uneasy,” said Marya Bogdanovna; “we shall do very well without the doctor.”
Five minutes later the princess from her room heard something heavy being carried by. She peeped out; the footmen were for some reason moving into the bedroom the leather sofa which stood in Prince Andrey's study. There was a solemn and subdued look on the men's faces.
Princess Marya sat alone in her room, listening to the sounds of the house, now and then opening the door when any one passed by and looking at what was taking place in the corridor. Several women passed to and fro treading softly; they glanced at the princess and turned away from her. She did not venture to ask questions, and going back to her room closed the door and sat still in an armchair, or took up her prayer-book, or knelt down before the shrine. To her distress and astonishment she felt that prayer did not soothe her emotion. All at once the door of her room was softly opened, and she saw on the threshold her old nurse, Praskovya Savvishna, with a kerchief over her head. The old woman hardly ever, owing to the old prince's prohibition, came into her room.
“I've come to sit a bit with thee, Mashenka,” said the nurse; “and here I've brought the prince's wedding candles to light before his saint, my angel,” she said, sighing.
“Ah, how glad I am, nurse!”
“God is merciful, my darling.” The nurse lighted the gilt candles before the shrine, and sat down with her stocking near the door. Princess Marya took a book and began reading. Only when they heard steps or voices, the princess and the nurse looked at one another, one with alarmed inquiry, the other with soothing reassurance in her face. The feeling that Princess Marya was experiencing as she sat in her room had overpowered the whole house and taken possession of every one. Owing to the belief that the fewer people know of the sufferings of a woman in labour, the less she suffers, every one tried to affect to know nothing of it; no one talked about it, but over and above the habitual staidness and respectfulness of good manners that always reigned in the prince's household, there was apparent in all a sort of anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a consciousness of some great, unfathomable mystery being accomplished at that moment. There was no sound of laughter in the big room where the maids sat. In the waiting-room the men all sat in silence, as it were on the alert. Torches and candles were burning in the serfs' quarters, and no one slept. The old prince walked about his study, treading on his heels, and sent Tihon to Marya Bogdanovna to ask what news.
“Only say: the prince has sent to ask, what news and come and tell me what she says.”
“Inform the prince that the labour has commenced,” said Marya Bogdanovna, looking significantly at the messenger. Tihon went and gave the prince that information.
“Very good,” said the prince, closing the door behind him, and Tihon heard not the slightest sound in the study after that. After a short interval Tihon went into the study, as though to attend to the candles. Seeing the prince lying on the couch, Tihon looked at him, looked at his perturbed face, shook his head, and went up to him dumbly and kissed him on the shoulder, then went out without touching the candles or saying why he had come. The most solemn mystery in the world was being accomplished. Evening passed, night came on. And the feeling of suspense and softening of the heart before the unfathomable did not wane, but grew more intense. No one slept.
It was one of those March nights when winter seems to regain its sway, and flings its last snows and storms with malignant desperation. A relay of horses had been sent to the high-road for the German doctor who was expected every minute, and men were despatched on horseback with lanterns to the turning at the cross-roads to guide him over the holes and treacherous places in the ice.
Princess Marya had long abandoned her book; she sat in silence, her luminous eyes fixed on the wrinkled face of her old nurse (so familiar to her in the minutest detail), on the lock of grey hair that had escaped from the kerchief, on the baggy looseness of the skin under her chin.
The old nurse, with her stocking in her hand, talked away in a soft voice, not hearing it herself nor following the meaning of her own words; telling, as she had told hundreds of times before, how the late princess had been brought to bed of Princess Marya at Kishinyov, and had only a Moldavian peasant woman instead of a midwife.
“God is merciful, doctors are never wanted,” she said.
Suddenly a gust of wind blew on one of the window-frames (by the prince's decree the double frames were always taken out of every window when the larks returned), and flinging open a badly fastened window bolt, set the stiff curtain fluttering; and the chill, snowy draught blew out the candle. Princess Marya shuddered; the nurse, putting down her stocking, went to the window, and putting her head out tried to catch the open frame. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and the grey locks of her hair.
“Princess, my dearie, there's some one driving up the avenue!” she said, holding the window-frame and not closing it. “With lanterns; it must be the doctor.…”
“Ah, my God! Thank God!” said the Princess Marya. “I must go and meet him; he does not know Russian.”
Princess Marya flung on a shawl and ran to meet the stranger. As she passed through the ante-room, she saw through the window a carriage and lanterns standing at the entrance. She went out on to the stairs. At the post of the balustrade stood a tallow-candle guttering in the draught. The footman Filipp, looking scared, stood below on the first landing of the staircase, with another candle in his hand. Still lower down, at the turn of the winding stairs, steps in thick overshoes could be heard coming up. And a voice—familiar it seemed to Princess Marya—was saying something.
“Thank God!” said the voice. “And father?”
“He has gone to bed,” answered the voice of the butler, Demyan, who was below.
Then the voice said something more, Demyan answered something, and the steps in thick overshoes began approaching more rapidly up the unseen part of the staircase.
“It is Andrey!” thought Princess Marya. “No, it cannot be, it would be too extraordinary,” she thought; and at the very instant she was thinking so, on the landing where the footman stood with a candle, there came into sight the face and figure of Prince Andrey, in a fur coat, with a deep collar covered with snow. Yes, it was he, but pale and thin, and with a transformed, strangely softened, agitated expression on his face. He went up the stairs and embraced his sister.
“You did not get my letter, then?” he asked; and not waiting for an answer, which he would not have received, for the princess could not speak, he turned back, and with the doctor who was behind him (they had met at the last station), he ran again rapidly upstairs and again embraced his sister.
“What a strange fate!” he said, “Masha, darling!” And flinging off his fur coat and overboots, he went towards the little princess's room.
“Ma bonne amie，”①三月十九日早上，吃罢早饭后，矮小的公爵夫人说道。她那长满茸毛的嘴唇依然像惯常那样向上翘起来，但是从接到可怕的消息后，这栋屋里的所有的人，不仅在微笑之中，而且在说话声中，甚至在步态中，都充满着悲伤，矮小的公爵夫人的微笑也是如此，虽然她不晓得内中的缘由，但是因为受到共同的情绪的支配、她的微笑更令人想到共同的悲痛。
①法语：亲爱的朋友。
“Ma bonne amie，je crains que le fruschAtique—（comme dit）de ce matin ne m'aie pas fait du mal．”①
“我的心肝，你怎么了？你的脸色惨白。哎呀，你的脸色太苍白。”公爵小姐玛丽亚惶恐不安地说，她迈着沉重而柔和的脚步朝她面前跑去。
“公爵小姐，要不要派人去把玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜叫来？”一个在这里侍候的女仆说。（玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜是县城里的产科女医生，她来童山已经一个多礼拜了。）“真是如此，”公爵小姐玛丽亚附和着说，“也许是真的。我非去不可。Courage mon ange！②”她吻吻丽莎，想从房里走出去。
“唉，不，不！”矮小的公爵夫人的脸色显得苍白，此外，她因为感到不可避免的肉体上的痛苦而流露出稚气的恐惧的表情。
“Non c'est l'estomac…dites que c'est l'esAtomac，dites，Marie，dites…”③于是矮小的公爵夫人任性地、甚至有几分虚情假意地、俨像儿童般地痛哭起来，她一面拧着自己的小手。公爵小姐跑出去叫玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜。
①法语：好朋友，我怕今天我吃了这顿早餐（厨师福卡是这样说的）会头昏目眩。
②法语：我的天使，你甭怕！
③法语：不，这是胃……玛莎，请你说说，是胃……
“哦！Mon Dieu！Mon Dieu！”①她听见自己身后传来的喊声。
①法语：天啊！天啊！
产科女医生向她迎面走来，她搓着一双白白胖胖的小手，脸上流露出十分镇静的神情。
“玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜！好像开始解怀了。”公爵小姐玛丽亚惊恐地睁开眼睛望着老太婆，说道。
“啊，谢天谢地，公爵小姐，”玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜在没有加快脚步时说道，“你们这些小姑娘，不应该知道这种事情。”
“医生怎么还没有从莫斯科来啊？”公爵小姐说。（遵照丽莎和安德烈公爵的意图，在她分娩前派人到莫斯科请产科医生去了，现在大家每时每刻都在等候她。）
“没关系，公爵小姐，您不用担心。”玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜说道，“没有医生在身边什么也会搞好的。”
过了五分钟，公爵小姐从自己房里听见有人抬着什么笨重的东西。她看了看，有几个堂倌不知为什么把安德烈公爵书斋里的皮沙发抬到寝室里去。抬东西的人们的脸上流露着一种激动和冷静的神情。
公爵小姐玛丽亚独自一人坐在房里谛听住宅中传来的响声，有时候有人从近旁过去，就打开房门，仔细观察走廊里发生的事情。有几个女人迈着徐缓的步子走来走去，回头看看公爵小姐，然后转过脸去不望她了。她不敢打听情况，关起门来，回到自己房里去，她时而坐在安乐椅上，时而捧着“祷告书”，时而在神龛前面跪下来。使她感到不幸和诧异的是，她觉得祈祷并不能平息她的激动心情。突然她的房门轻轻地被推开了，她那个包着头巾的老保姆普拉斯科维亚·萨维什娜在门槛上出现了，鉴于公爵的禁令，她几乎从来没有走进她的房间里去。
“玛申卡（玛丽亚的爱称），我到这里来和你在一起坐一会儿。”保姆说，“你看，在主的仆人面前点起公爵结婚的蜡烛，我的天使，这几支蜡烛是我带来的。”她叹了一口气，说道。
“啊，保姆，我多么高兴。”
“亲爱的，上帝是大慈大悲的。”保姆在神龛前面点起几支涂上一层金色的蜡烛，之后在门旁坐下来编织长袜子。公爵小姐玛丽亚拿起一本书来阅读。只是在听见步履声或者说话声时，公爵小姐才惊恐地、疑惑地看看保姆，而保姆却安抚地看看公爵小姐。这栋住宅的每个角落的人们都满怀着公爵小姐在自己房里体验到的那种情感，大家都被它控制住了。根据迷信思想，知道产妇痛苦的人越少，她遭受的痛苦也就越少，因此大家都极力地装作一无所知的样子，谁也不谈这件事，除了在公爵家中起着支配作用的那种持重和谦恭的优良作风之外，在所有人的脸上可以看出一种共同的忧虑、心田的温和以及当时对一件不可思议的大事的认识。
女仆人居住的大房间里听不见笑声。侍者堂倌休息室里所有的人都坐着，默不作声，做好准备。仆人休息室点燃着松明和蜡烛，都没有就寝。老公爵跷着脚尖，脚后跟着地，在书斋里踱来踱去，派吉洪到玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜那里去问问：情况怎样？
“只要说一声：公爵吩咐你来问问：情况怎样？再回来告诉我说些什么话。”
“你禀告公爵：开始临盆了。”玛丽亚·波格丹诺夫娜意味深长地望望派来的仆人，说道。吉洪走去，并且禀告公爵。
“好。”公爵说了一声，随手关上房门，之后吉洪再也没有听见书斋里的一点声音。过了片刻，吉洪走进书斋，仿佛是来看管蜡烛的照明。吉洪看见公爵躺在长沙发上，他望望公爵，望望他心绪不安的面容，禁不住摇摇头，沉默无言地走到他近旁，吻了吻他的肩膀，他没有剔除烛花，也没有说一声为何目的而来，就走出去了。人世上至为庄严的奥秘之事在继续进行。薄暮过去了，黑夜来临了。对毋庸思议的事物的期待和心地温柔的感觉并没有迟钝，反而更为敏锐了。这天夜里谁也没有就寝。
这是三月间的一个夜晚，好像冬天还在当令，狂暴地撒下最后的雪花，刮起一阵阵暴风。他们随时都在等候从莫斯科到来的德国医生，已经派出了备换乘的马匹到大路上准备迎接，在通往乡间土道的拐角上，派出了提着灯笼的骑者，在坎坷不平的、积雪尚未全融的路上，为即将来临的德国医生带路。
公爵小姐玛丽亚已经把书本搁下很久了，她默不作声地坐着，把那闪闪发光的眼睛凝视着布满皱纹的、她了若指掌的保姆的面孔，凝视着从头巾下面露出的一绺斑白的头发，凝视着下巴底下垂着的小袋形的松肉。
保姆萨维什娜手里拿着一只长袜，她一面编织，一面讲话，那嗓音非常低沉，连她自己也听不见，也听不懂她讲述过数百次的话语：已故的公爵夫人在基什涅沃生下公爵小姐玛丽亚，接生的是个农妇，摩尔达维亚人，替代了产婆。
“上帝会保佑，医生是从来都不需要的。”她说。忽然一阵风朝房里一扇卸下窗框的窗户袭来（遵从老公爵的意图，在百灵鸟飞来的季节，每间房里的窗框都要卸下一扇），吹开了闩得不紧的窗框，拂动着绸制的窗帘，一股含雪的冷气袭来，吹熄了蜡烛。公爵小姐玛丽亚打了个哆嗦；保姆把长袜放下来，她走到窗前，探出身子，一把抓住被风掀开的窗框。寒风吹拂着她的头巾角儿和露出来的一绺绺白发。
“公爵小姐，天啦，有人沿着大路走来了！”她说道，用手拿着窗框，没有把窗户关上。“有人提着灯笼呢，想必是医生……”
“唉，我的天呀！谢天谢地！”公爵小姐玛丽亚说，“应当去迎接，他不懂得俄国话。”
公爵小姐玛丽亚披上肩巾，向来者迎面跑去。当她穿过接待室，从窗口望见，一辆轻便马车停在大门口，灯火辉煌。她走到楼梯口。栏杆柱子上放着一支脂油制的蜡烛，风吹得烛油向下直流。餐厅侍者菲利普露出惊恐的神情，他手中拿着另一支蜡烛，站在更低的地方——楼梯的第一个平台上。在那更低一点的地方，楼梯转弯的角上，可以听见穿着厚皮靴的人渐渐走近的脚步声。公爵小姐玛丽亚仿佛听见一个熟人的说话声。
“谢天谢地！”可以听见说话声，“爸爸呢？”
“他睡觉了。”可以听见已经站在下面的管家杰米扬在开口回答。
后来还听见某人说了一句什么话，杰米扬应声回答，穿着厚皮靴的脚步声沿着望不见的楼梯转弯的地方更快地向近处传来。“这是安德烈吧！”公爵小姐玛丽亚想了想。“不，这不可能，这太异乎寻常了。”她想了想，当她思忖的时候，安德烈的面孔和身影在侍者举着蜡烛站在那里的楼梯平台上出现了，他穿着一件皮袄，衣领上撒满了雪。是的，这就是他，但面色苍白、瘦弱，脸部表情也变了，显得奇特的柔和，然而心神不宁。他走进来，登上楼梯，双手抱住了妹妹。
“您没有接到我的信吗？”他问道，他不等待她回答，他也得不到她的回答，因为公爵小姐简直说不出话来，他是和那个跟在他后面走进来的产科医生一同回来的（他们在最后一站相遇了），他迈开飞快的步子，又走上楼去，又把他妹妹抱在怀里。
“多么变幻的命运！”他说。“亲爱的玛莎！”他把皮袄和皮靴脱下来，便到公爵夫人的住宅中去了。
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