I hope it will cure him. You
write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,
cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a
relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody
here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his
arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the
way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as
that you write about--I mean the report of my brother's betrothal to
the little Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and
certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely
speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too
deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our
little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl
is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think
he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am
running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-by,
my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear
friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.

MARY

CHAPTER XXVI

In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter
from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and
surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova.
The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender
and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved
as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life
was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his
resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it
to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her
father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt
of his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides," he wrote,
"the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father
then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of
that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the
doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but
as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me
and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and
always shall be independe