townsfolk consider characteristic of the country—rumors of war are heard and painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a heartrending scene. … It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one another. Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!
“Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched mine. I have written to my poor mother,” said the smiling Mademoiselle Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r ’s. She brought into Princess Márya’s strenuous, mournful, and gloomy world a quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and self-satisfied.
“Princess, I must warn you,” she added, lowering her voice and evidently listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with exaggerated grasseyement , “the prince has been scolding Michel Ivanoff. He is in a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared.”
“Ah, dear friend,” replied Princess Márya, “I have asked you never to warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge him and would not have others do so.”