ld prince understood from this official report that our army had been
defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz
came a letter from Kutuzov informing the prince of the fate that had
befallen his son.

"Your son," wrote Kutuzov, "fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand
and at the head of a regiment--he fell as a hero, worthy of his father
and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole army
it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and
you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have
been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list
of whom has been sent me under flag of truce."

After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his
study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he
was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though
he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.

When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his
lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.

"Ah, Princess Mary!" he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing
down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own impetus,
and Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which
merged in her memory with what followed.)

She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her.
Her eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father's face, not sad, not
crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over
her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst
in life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and
incomprehensible--the death of one she loved.

"Father! Andrew!"--said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an
indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father
could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.

"Bad news! He's not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutuzov
writes..." and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the
princess away by that scream... "Killed!"

The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on
hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her
beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy--a supreme joy apart from the
joys and sorrows of this world--overflowed the great grief within her.
She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and
drawi