and Mikháil Ivánovich following her.
“They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the French,” thought Princess Márya. “I will offer them monthly rations and housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure André would do even more in my place,” she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd standing on the pasture by the barn.
The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their hats. Princess Márya lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed on her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all at once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly began her speech.