“My father has not spoken to me of the suitor, but has only told me that he has received a letter, and was expecting a visit from Prince Vassily. In regard to a marriage-scheme concerning myself, I will tell you, my dear and excellent friend, that to my mind marriage is a divine institution to which we must conform. However painful it may be to me, if the Alrnighty should ever impose upon me the duties of a wife and mother, I shall try to fulfil them as faithfully as I can without disquieting myself by examining my feelings in regard to him whom He may give me for a husband.

“I have received a letter from my brother, who announces his coming to Bleak Hills with his wife. It will be a pleasure of brief duration, since he is leaving us to take part in this unhappy war into which we have been drawn, God knows how and why. It is not only with you, in the centre of business and society, that people talk of nothing except war, for here also, amid those rustic labours and that calm of nature, which townspeople generally imagine in the country, rumours of war are heard and are felt painfully. My father talks of nothing but marches and counter-marches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday, taking my usual walk in the village street, I witnessed a heartrending scene.… It was a convoy of recruits that had been enrolled in our district, and were being sent away to the army. You should have seen the state of the mothers, wives and children of the men who were going, and have heard the sobs on both sides. It seems as though humanity had forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and the forgiveness of offences, and were making the greatest merit to consist in the art of killing one another.

“Adieu, dear and good friend: may our divine Saviour and His most Holy Mother keep you in their holy and powerful care.

MARIE.”

“Ah, you are sending off your letters, princess. I have already finished mine. I have written to my poor mother,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne quickly in her agreeable, juicy voice, with a roll of the r’s. She came in, all smiles, bringing into the intense, melancholy, gloomy atmosphere of the Princess Marya an alien world of gay frivolity and self-satisfaction. “Princess, I must warn you,” she added, dropping her voice, “the prince has had an altercation,” she said, with a peculiar roll of the r, seeming to listen to herself with pleasure. “An altercation with Mihail Ivanov. He is in a very ill humour, very morose. Be prepared, you know.”

“Ah, chère amie,” answered Princess Marya, “I have begged you never to tell me beforehand in what humour I shall find my father. I do not permit myself to judge him and I would not have others do so.”

The princess glanced at her watch, and seeing that it was already five minutes later than the hour fixed for her practice on the clavichord, she went with a face of alarm into the divan-room. In accordance with the rules by which the day was mapped out, the prince rested from twelve to two, while the young princess practised on the clavichord.