about my relations with that Frenchwoman and made
me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!"

Princess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching
his lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to
Dessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old
nurse, or with "God's folk" who sometimes came by the back door to see
her.

Of the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars. She
feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at
the strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not
understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all
previous wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though
Dessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested
in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her,
and though the "God's folk" who came to see her reported, in their own
way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist,
and though Julie (now Princess Drubetskaya), who had resumed
correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.

"I write you in Russian, my good friend," wrote Julie in her Frenchified
Russian, "because I have a detestation for all the French, and the
same for their language which I cannot support to hear spoken.... We in
Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Emperor.

"My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the
news which I have inspires me yet more.

"You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raevski, embracing his two
sons and saying: 'I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!'
And truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we were
unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The
princesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy
widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our charpie, only
you, my friend, are missing..." and so on.

The chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance of
this war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize
it, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner.
The prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary
unhesitatingly believed him.

All that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated.
He planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic
serfs. The only thing tha