“Where is she? Go, Natásha.”
“He!” muttered Márya Ivánovna, walking with long, firm steps toward her brother. She met them all as though she had last seen them the day before.
“When didst thou arrive? Where have you stopped? How have you come—in a carriage?” Such were the questions which Márya Ivánovna put, walking with them to the drawing-room and not hearing the answers, and looking with large eyes, now upon one, and now upon another. Madame Byéshev was surprised at this calm, even indifference, and did not approve of it. They all smiled; the conversation died down, and Márya Ivánovna looked silently and seriously at her brother.
“How are you?” asked Peter Ivánovich, taking her hand, and smiling.
Peter Ivánovich said “you” to her, though she had said “thou.” Márya Ivánovna once more looked at his gray beard, his bald head, his teeth, his wrinkles, his eyes, his sunburnt face, and recognized all that.
“Here is my Sónya.”
But she did not look around.
“What a stup—” her voice faltered, and she took hold of his bald head with her large white hands. “What a stupid you are,” she had intended to say, “not to have prepared me,” but her shoulders and breast began to tremble, her old face twitched, and she burst out into sobs, pressing to her breast his bald head, and repeating: “What a stupid you are not to have prepared me!”
Peter Ivánovich no longer appeared as such a great man to himself, not so important as he had appeared on Chevalier’s porch. His back was resting against a chair, but his head was in his sister’s arms, his nose was pressed against her corset, his nose was tickled, his hair dishevelled, and there were tears in his eyes. But he felt happy.