IT WAS DARK by the time Prince Andrey and Pierre drove up to the principal entrance of the house at Bleak Hills. While they were driving in, Prince Andrey with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion that was taking place at the back entrance. A bent little old woman with a wallet on her back, and a short man with long hair, in a black garment, ran back to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after them, and all the four, looking round at the carriage with scared faces, ran in at the back entrance.
“Those are Masha's God's folk,” said Prince Andrey. “They took us for my father. It's the one matter in which she does not obey him. He orders them to drive away these pilgrims, but she receives them.”
“But what are God's folk?” asked Pierre.
Prince Andrey had not time to answer him. The servants came out to meet them, and he inquired where the old prince was and whether they expected him home soon. The old prince was still in the town, and they were expecting him every minute.
Prince Andrey led Pierre away to his own suite of rooms, which were always in perfect readiness for him in his father's house, and went off himself to the nursery.
“Let us go to my sister,” said Prince Andrey, coming back to Pierre; “I have not seen her yet, she is in hiding now, sitting with her God's folk. Serve her right; she will be put to shame, and you will see God's folk. It's curious, upon my word.”
“What are ‘God's folk'?” asked Pierre.
“You shall see.”
Princess Marya certainly was disconcerted, and reddened in patches when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps before the holy picture stand, there was sitting, behind the samovar, on the sofa beside her, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk's cassock. In a low chair near sat a wrinkled, thin, old woman, with a meek expression on her childlike face.
“Andrey, why did you not let me know?” she said with mild reproach, standing before her pilgrims like a hen before her chickens.
“Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you,” she said to Pierre, as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now his friendship with Andrey, his unhappy marriage, and above all, his kindly, simple face, disposed her favourably to him. She looked at him with her beautiful, luminous eyes, and seemed to say to him: “I like you very much, but, please, don't laugh at my friends.”
After the first phrases of greeting, they sat down
“Oh, and Ivanushka's here,” said Prince Andrey with a smile, indicating the young pilgrim.
“Andryusha!” said Princess Marya imploringly.
“You must know, it is a woman,” said Andrey to Pierre in French.
“Andrey, for heaven's sake!” repeated Princess Marya.
It was plain that Prince Andrey's ironical tone to the pilgrims, and Princess Marya's helpless championship of them, were their habitual, long-established attitudes on the subject.
“Why, my dear girl,” said Prince Andrey, “you ought to be obliged to me, on the contrary, for explaining your intimacy with this young man to Pierre.”
“Indeed?” said Pierre, looking with curiosity and seriousness (for which Princess Marya felt particularly grateful to him) at the face of Ivanushka, who, seeing that he was the subject under discussion, looked at all of them with his crafty eyes.
Princess Marya had not the slightest need to feel embarrassment on her friends' account. They were quite at their ease. The old woman cast down her eyes, but stole sidelong glances at the new-comers, and turning her cup upside down in the saucer, and laying a nibbled lump of sugar beside it, sat calmly without stirring in her chair, waiting to be offered another cup. Ivanushka, sipping out of the saucer, peeped from under his brows with his sly, feminine eyes at the young men.
“Where have you been, in Kiev?” Prince Andrey asked the old woman.
“I have, good sir,” answered the old woman, who was conversationally disposed; “just at the Holy Birth I was deemed worthy to be a partaker in holy, heavenly mysteries from the saints. And now, good sir, from Kolyazin a great blessing has been revealed.”
“And Ivanushka was with you?”
“I go alone by myself, benefactor,” said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a bass voice. “It was only at Yuhnovo I joined Pelageyushka …”
Pelageyushka interrupted her companion; she was evidently anxious to tell of what she had seen. “In Kolyazin, good sir, great is the blessing revealed.”
“What, new relics?” asked Prince Andrey.
“Hush, Andrey,” said Princess Marya. “Don't tell us about it, Pelageyushka.”
“Not … nay, ma'am, why not tell him? I like him. He's a good gentleman, chosen of God, he's my benefactor; he gave me ten roubles, I remember. When I was in Kiev, Kiryusha, the crazy pilgrim, tells me—verily a man of God, winter and summer he goes barefoot—why are you not going to your right place, says he; go to Kolyazin, there a wonder-working ikon, a holy Mother of God has been revealed. On these words I said good-bye to the holy folk and off I went …”
All were silent, only the pilgrim woman talked on in her measured voice, drawing her breath regularly. “I came, good sir, and folks say to me: a great blessing has been vouchsafed, drops of myrrh trickle from the cheeks of the Holy Mother of God …”
“Come, that will do, that will do; you shall tell me later,” said Princess Marya, flushing.
“Let me ask her a question,” said Pierre. “Did you see it yourself?” he asked.
“To be sure, good sir, I myself was found worthy. Such a brightness overspread the face, like the light of heaven, and from the Holy Mother's cheeks drops like this and like this …”
“Why, but it must be a trick,” said Pierre na?vely, after listening attentively to the old woman.
“Oh, sir, what a thing to say!” said Pelageyushka with horror, turning to Princess Marya for support.
“They impose upon the people,” he repeated.
“Lord Jesus Christ!” said the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. “Oh, don't speak so, sir. There was a general did not believe like that, said ‘the monks cheat,' and as he said it, he was struck blind. And he dreamed a dream, the holy mother of Petchersky comes to him and says: ‘Believe in me and I will heal thee.' And so he kept beseeching them: ‘Take me to her, take me to her.' It's the holy truth I'm telling you, I've seen it myself. They carried him, blind as he was, to her; he went up, fell down, and said: ‘Heal me! I will give thee,' says he, ‘what the Tsar bestowed on me.' I saw it myself—a sort of star carved in it. Well—he regained his sight! It's a sin to speak so. God will punish you,” she said admonishingly to Pierre.
“How? Was the star in the holy image?” asked Pierre.
“And didn't they make the holy mother a general?” said Prince Andrey, smiling.
Pelageyushka turned suddenly pale and flung up her hands.
“Sir, sir, it's a sin of you, you've a son!” she said, suddenly turning from white to dark red. “Sir, for what you have said, God forgive you.” She crossed herself. “Lord, forgive him. Lady, what's this? …” she turned to Princess Marya. She got up, and almost crying began gathering up her wallet. Plainly she was both frightened and ashamed at having accepted bounty in a house where they could say such things, and sorry that she must henceforth deprive herself of the bounty of that house.
“What did you want to do this for?” said Princess Marya. “Why did you come to me? …”
“No, I was joking really, Pelageyushka,” said Pierre. “Princess, ma parole, je n'ai pas voulu l'offenser. I said it, meaning nothing. Don't think of it, I was joking,” he said, smiling timidly and trying to smooth over his crime. “It was all my fault; but he didn't mean it, he was joking.”
Pelageyushka remained distrustful; but Pierre's face wore a look of such genuine penitence, and Prince Andrey looked so mildly from Pelageyushka to Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.
当安德烈公爵和皮埃尔驶近童山的住宅大门口的时候，天渐渐黑了。他们快要驶近大门口，安德烈公爵面露微笑，要皮埃尔注意后面台阶附近发生的一阵混乱。有一个背着背囊的驼背的老太婆和一个身穿黑色衣裳、蓄着长发的身材不高的男人看见一辆驶进宅院的四轮马车，急忙向后转，往大门里跑。有两个女人跟在后面跑，总共四个人都很惊恐地向后门台阶上跑，一面回头望望四轮马车。
“这是玛丽亚的神亲，”安德烈公爵说，“他们竟把我们之中的一人看作父亲了。这就是她不听从父亲的一件事情；他吩咐把朝圣者赶开，可是她偏要接待他们。”
“什么叫做神亲呀？”皮埃尔问。
安德烈公爵没有来得及回答。仆人们迎面走来，他问他们老公爵在哪里，是不是要等很久。
老公爵还在城里，他们每时每刻都在等候他。
安德烈公爵把皮埃尔带到自己的卧室，他在父亲住宅中的这屋子总是收拾得齐齐整整，适宜于居住，之后他亲自到儿童室去了。
“我们到妹妹那里去吧。”安德烈公爵回到皮埃尔身边的时候，这样说：“我还没有看见她，她现在躲藏起来了，她和几个神亲待在一起。她在我们面前觉得腼腆，她活该，你准能见到他们这几个神亲。C' est curieux，ma parole．①”
①法语：真的，这很有趣。
“Qu'est ce que c'est que①神亲。”皮埃尔问。
“你就会看见他们的。”
公爵小姐玛丽亚果然觉得局促不安，他们走到她跟前的时候，她涨红了脸。她那很舒适的房间里，一盏长明灯摆在神龛前面，有一个头发很长、鼻子也长、穿着正教僧侣长袍的男孩和她并排地坐在茶炊后面的长沙发上。
一个满脸皱纹的瘦骨嶙峋的老太婆带着儿童般温和的面部表情坐在旁边的安乐椅上。
“André pourquoi ne pas m'avoir prévenu？”②她用温和的责备的口气说，就像站在小鸡前面的母鸡那样站在那些朝圣者前面。
“Charmée de vous roir．Je suis très contente de vous voir．③”当皮埃尔吻她的手的时候，她对他说。
①法语：什么是。
②法语：安德烈，干嘛不事先通知我呢？
③法语：看见您我非常高兴，非常高兴。
皮埃尔还是儿童的时候，她就认识他，而目前，他和安德烈的交情，他和妻子之间发生的不幸，主要是，他那和善的、显得朴实的面孔，博得了她对他的好感。她用那十分美丽的、闪闪发亮的眼睛注视他，仿佛对他说：“我非常爱您，但是请您不要讥笑我的人。”他们寒暄了几句之后，便坐下来了。
“啊，伊万努什卡也在这里。”安德烈公爵面露微笑地指着那个年轻的朝圣者说道。
“安德烈！”公爵小姐玛丽亚恳求地说。
“Il faut que vous sachiez que c'est une femme．①”安德烈对皮埃尔说。
“André，au nom de Dieu！②”公爵小姐玛丽亚重复地说。
看来，安德烈公爵对朝圣者的嘲弄态度和公爵小姐玛丽亚枉费心机的庇护，是他们之间业已形成的、习以为常的相互关系。
“Mais，ma bonne amie，”安德烈公爵说，“Vous deAvriez au contraire m'etre reconnaissante de ce que j'explique a Pierre votre intimité avec ce jeune homme．③”
“Vraiment？④”皮埃尔好奇而认真地说（公爵小姐玛丽亚为此而特别感激皮埃尔），他透过眼镜很仔细地瞧着伊万努什卡的面孔，伊万努什卡心里明白人们正在议论他，就用狡黠的目光环顾着大家。
①法语：你知道，这是个女人。
②法语：安德烈，看在上帝份上。
③法语：我的仁慈的朋友，你必须感激我才好，我向皮埃尔解释你和这个年轻人之间的亲密关系。
④法语：当真吗？
公爵小姐玛丽亚为她自己人而局促不安是毫无裨益的。他们一点也不羞怯。老太婆垂下眼帘，斜视着进来的人，她把茶碗翻过来，扣在碟子上，把吃剩的一块糖搁在碗旁边，心情宁静地、一动不动地坐在安乐椅上，等人家给她再斟一杯茶。伊万努什卡慢慢地饮着碟子里的茶，一面皱起眉头，把那调皮的女人眼睛打量几个年轻人。
“你到过哪里，到过基辅吗？”安德烈公爵问老太婆。
“去过，老爷子，”爱说话的老太婆回答，“圣诞节，我在上帝的侍者中已获致神圣的上天的奥秘。老爷子，甫才我自科利亚津来，那里揭示了伟大的神赐……”
“伊万努什卡和你同去的吧？”
“施主，我是独自去的，”伊万努什卡竭力地用男低音说，“在尤赫诺沃才和佩拉格尤什卡相遇了……”
佩拉格尤什卡打断伙友的话，显然她很想把她目睹的情形讲给他听。
“老爷子，在科利亚津揭示了伟大的神赐。”
“怎么，又发现圣尸了吗？”安德烈公爵问。
“安德烈，够了，”公爵小姐玛丽亚说。“佩拉格尤什卡，别讲下去了。”
“不……怎么，小姐，为什么不能讲下去呢？我喜欢他。他这个行善的人，上帝的宠儿，给了我十个卢布，我还记得。当我待在基辅的时候，有个痴呆的基留沙对我说，他是地道的神亲，不论是冬天还是夏天，总是光着脚步行。他说，你所去的不是应该去的地方，你去科利亚津吧，那里有一座有灵的神像，圣母在那里显圣了。我听了那些话，就和这几个朝圣者告别，于是到那里去了……”
大家都默不作声，只有一个女朝圣者吸了一口气，用那均匀的嗓音说话。
“老爷子，我到了那里，人们告诉我：发现了伟大的神赐，圣油从圣母脸上往下滴……”
“啊，很好，很好，你以后再讲。”公爵小姐玛丽亚涨红着脸，说。
“请让我来问问她，”皮埃尔说，“是你亲自看见的吗？”他问。
“老爷子，可不是，是我亲自受到神赐的。她那脸上的先轮就像上天之光，灿烂辉煌，圣油从圣母脸上不住地往下滴，不住地往下滴……”
“要知道这是一种欺骗。”皮埃尔天真地说，又仔细听着朝圣者讲话。
“哎呀，老爷子，你说什么呀！”佩拉格尤什卡十分惊恐地说，她把脸转向公爵小姐玛丽亚，请求她庇护。
“他们在哄骗老百姓。”他重复地说一句话。
“耶稣基督保佑，”女朝圣者在胸前画十字时说，“唉，老爷子，你甭说。有个将军硬不相信，他说道：‘僧侣们都在骗人，'他的话音一落地，眼睛就瞎了。于是他梦见洞穴圣母向他走来，对他说：‘你要相信我，我可以给你治好眼疾。'他开始恳求：把我送到、送到圣母那里去。我对你说的是实话；是亲眼看见的。人们把他这个瞎子送到圣母那里，他向她跟着走去，跪倒在地上，乞求地说：‘给我把眼睛治好。我把沙皇赏给我的，全都奉献给你。'是亲眼看见的，老爷子，我就把金星勋章嵌在她身上。没啥可说的，双目复明了！这样说是不应该的，上帝会来惩罚的。”她用教诫的口气对皮埃尔说。
“神像怎么挂上了金星勋章？”皮埃尔问。
“圣母也擢升为将军了吗？”安德烈公爵面露微笑地说。
佩拉格尤什卡的面色忽然变得苍白了，她举起双手轻轻一拍。
“老爷子，老爷子，你有罪，你有个儿子！”她说起话来，苍白的脸色忽然间变得通红。
“老爷子，你说这样的话，上帝原谅你吧。”她在胸前画了十字。“老天爷啊，原谅他吧。小姐，这是怎么回事呢？……”她把脸转向公爵小姐玛丽亚，说。她站立起来，开始收拾自己的背囊，几乎要哭出声来。很明显，她觉得可怕又可耻的是，她竟然在这个会说出这等话的家庭中受到了恩惠，她又觉得可惜的是，现在不得不抛弃这家的恩赐。
“您何苦呢？”公爵小姐玛丽亚说，“您为什么到我这里来？ …
“不，佩拉格尤什卡，要知道，我是开玩笑的，”皮埃尔说。
“Princesse，ma parole，je n'ai pas voulu l'ofAfenver，①我只有这个想法罢了。你甭多想，我不过是开了个玩笑。”他说，畏葸葸地微笑着，想改正过错。
①法语：公爵小姐，说实话，我不想使她感到委屈。
佩拉格尤什卡停住了，流露出怀疑的样子，可是从皮埃尔脸上可以看出真诚悔改的表情，安德烈公爵时而温顺地看看佩拉格尤什卡，时而看看皮埃尔，他因此渐渐安静下来。
欢迎访问英文小说网http://novel.tingroom.com