porch. There were people at the entrance:
servants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as
it seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was
Sonya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. "This way, this way!" said the
girl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in
the hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to
meet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced
Princess Mary and kissed her.

"Mon enfant!" she muttered, "je vous aime et vous connais depuis
longtemps." *

* "My child! I love you and have known you a long time."

Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the
countess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly
knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in
French in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and
asked: "How is he?"

"The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess, but as
she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a
contradiction of her words.

"Where is he? Can I see him--can I?" asked the princess.

"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?" said the
countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.
"There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a
lovely boy!"

The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sonya was
talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and
the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very
much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk,
cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered
person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as
if asking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the
destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed
groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to
feel that there was no longer a place for him in life.

In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and
her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they
should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew,
the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the
necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which
she had entered. She knew it t