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Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father, now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation, the cause of which Pierre so well understood. That same evening Pierre went to the Rostovs' to fulfill the commission entrusted to him.
"No peace, damn them!" he muttered, angry he knew not with whom. "Ah yes, there was something else important, very important, that I was keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them. No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in my pocket can't remember..."
Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as possible if there was danger. Having received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat a present from the prince and carrying a stick as the prince did, went out accompanied by his family.
It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and next day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor accompanying him. By the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little prince had already left for Moscow.
When she had done so Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas. "What do you think of it, Prince?" Dessalles ventured to ask. "I? I?..." said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking his eyes from the plan of the building. "Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that..." "Ha ha ha!
Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the boy to come downstairs. "No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay," replied Nicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper. "Ma tante, please let me stay," said he, going up to his aunt. His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary glanced at him and turned to Pierre.
Several times she repeated the same thing twice. Dessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little Nicholas might come in to say good night. "Well, that's all everything," said Natasha. She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.
"There was a letter from Prince Andrew today," he said to Princess Mary "Haven't you read it?" "No, Father," she replied in a frightened voice. She could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had arrived. "He writes about this war," said the prince, with the ironic smile that had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war. "That must be very interesting," said Dessalles.
After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son's tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about Speranski which was still going on between the two old men.
In the gaslight, Benedetto recognised the old Roman from Villa Diedo, the footman of the Dessalles. It suddenly flashed across his troubled brain that Jeanne was there in the carriage, waiting for him, and he started back a step. "No," said he.
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