In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia. Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy and strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the minutest details himself. Princess Márya had ceased taking lessons in mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nikoláy (as his grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nikoláy lived with his wet nurse and nurse Sávishna in the late princess’ rooms and Princess Márya spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother’s place to her little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Márya often deprived herself to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel —as she called her nephew—and playing with him.
Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to fly upwards. The angel’s upper lip was slightly raised as though about to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andréy and Princess Márya admitted to one another that the angel’s face reminded them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger, though of this Prince Andréy said nothing to his sister, was that in the expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel’s face, Prince Andréy read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead wife: “Ah, why have you done this to me?”