Page 678 of 3800

"But am I not too cold with him?" thought the princess. "I try to

be reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to

him already, but then he cannot know what I think of him and may

imagine that I do not like him."

And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to

her new guest. "Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!" thought Anatole.

Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by

Anatole's arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a

handsome young woman without any definite position, without

relations or even a country, did not intend to devote her life to

serving Prince Bolkonski, to reading aloud to him and being

friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle Bourienne had long been

waiting for a Russian prince who, able to appreciate at a glance

her superiority to the plain, badly dressed, ungainly Russian

princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her off; and

here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew a

story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she

liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had

been seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mere)

appeared, and reproached her for yielding to a man without being

married. Mademoiselle Bourienne was often touched to tears as in

imagination she told this story to him, her seducer.