course of fifteen years to meet the old prince’s remarks without committing himself, he now met the princess’s questions, so that there was no getting any definite answer out of him. The old valet, Tihon, whose wan and sunken face wore the stamp of inconsolable grief, answered “Yes, princess,” to all Princess Marya’s questions, and could scarcely restrain his sobs as he looked at her.

Lastly, the village elder, Dron, came into the room, and bowing low to the princess, took up his position near the doorway.

Princess Marya walked up and down the room and stood still facing him.

“Dronushka,” she said, seeing in him a staunch friend, the Dronushka who had every year brought back from the fair at Vyazma the same gingerbreads she connected with him, and had presented them to her with the same smile, “Dronushka, now, after our misfortune,” … she began, and paused, unable to proceed.

“We are all in God’s hands,” he said, with a sigh.

They were silent.

“Dronushka, Alpatitch has gone off somewhere, I have no one to turn to. Is it true, as I’m told, that it is impossible for me to go away?”

“Why shouldn’t you go away, your excellency? You can go,” said Dron.

“I have been told there is danger from the enemy. My good friend, I can do nothing, I know nothing about it, I have nobody. I want to set off without fail to-night or to-morrow morning early.”

Dron did not speak. He looked up from under his brows at Princess Marya.

“There are no horses,” he said. “I have told Yakov Alpatitch so already.”

“How is that?” said the princess.

“It’s all the visitation of the Lord,” said Dron. “Some horses have been carried off for the troops, and some are dead; it’s a bad year, it is. If only we don’t die of hunger ourselves, let alone feeding the horses! Here they’ve been three days without a bit of bread. There’s nothing, they have been plundered to the last bit.”

Princess Marya listened attentively to what he said to her.

“The peasants have been plundered? They have no bread?” she asked.

“They are dying of hunger,” said Dron; “no use talking of horses and carts.”

“But why didn’t you say so, Dronushka? Can’t they be helped? I’ll do everything I can …” It was strange to Princess Marya to think that at such a moment, when her heart was overflowing with such a sorrow, there could be rich people and poor, and that the rich could possibly not help the poor. She vaguely knew that there was a store of “seignorial corn,” and that it was sometimes given to the peasants. She knew, too, that neither her brother nor her father would refuse the peasants in their need; she was only afraid of making some mistake in the wording of the order for this distribution. She was glad that she had an excuse for doing something in which she could, without scruple, forget her own grief. She began to question Dronushka about the peasants’ needs, and to ask whether there was a “seignorial store” at Bogutcharovo.

“I suppose we have a store of wheat of my brother’s?” she asked.