Dessalle looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the Niemen, when the enemy was already at the Dnieper. But Princess Marya, forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, supposed that what her father said was true.

“When the snows thaw they’ll drown in the marshes of Poland. It’s only that they can’t see it,” said the old prince, obviously thinking of the campaign of 1807, which seemed to him so recent. “Bennigsen ought to have entered Prussia earlier, and things would have taken quite another turn. …”

“But, prince!” said Dessalle timidly, “the letter speaks of Vitebsk. …”

“Ah, the letter? Yes, …” said the prince, with displeasure. “Yes … yes …” His face suddenly assumed a gloomy expression. He paused. “Yes, he writes, the French have been beaten. On what river was it?”

Dessalle dropped his eyes. “The prince says nothing about that,” he said gently.

“What, doesn’t he? Why, you don’t suppose I imagined it.”

Every one was for a long time silent.

“Yes … yes … Well, Mihail Ivanitch,” he said suddenly, raising his head and pointing to the plan of the building, “tell me how you propose to make that alteration. …”

Mihail Ivanitch went up to the plan, and the old prince, talking to him about it, went off to his own room, casting a wrathful glance at Princess Marya and Dessalle.

Princess Marya saw Dessalle’s embarrassed and amazed expression as he looked at her father. She noticed his silence and was struck by the fact that her father had left his son’s letter forgotten on the drawing-room table. But she was afraid to speak of it, to ask Dessalle the reason of his embarrassed silence, afraid even to think about it.

In the evening Mihail Ivanitch was sent by the prince to Princess Marya to ask for the letter that had been forgotten on the table. Princess Marya gave him the letter, and much as she disliked doing so, she ventured to ask what her father was doing

“Still very busy,” said Mihail Ivanitch, in a tone of deferential irony, that made her turn pale. “Worrying very much over the new wing. Been reading a little: but now” — Mihail Ivanitch dropped his voice — “he’s at his bureau looking after his will, I expect.” One of the old prince’s favourite occupations of late had been going over the papers which he meant to leave at his death, and called his “will.”

“And is Alpatitch being sent to Smolensk?” asked Princess Marya.

“To be sure; he’s been waiting a long while for his orders.”