- What are you afraid of, Lisa? I can't understand," he said.
- This is how all men are selfish; all, all selfish! Because of his own whims, God knows why, throws me, locks me in the village alone.
- Don't forget with your father and sister," said Prince Andrew quietly.
- Anyway, alone, without my friends... And he wants me not to be afraid.
Her tone was already grumpy, her sponge rose, giving her face not a joyful, but a brutal, squirrel expression. She kept silent, as if finding it indecent to talk about her pregnancy in front of Pierre, while that was the essence of the case.
- Still, I did not understand, de quoi vous avez peur 4," said Prince Andrei slowly, keeping an eye on his wife.
The princess blushed and waved her hands desperately.
- Non, André, je dis que vous avez tellement, tellement changé. 5
- Your doctor tells you to go to bed sooner," said Prince Andrei. - You would go to bed.
The princess said nothing, and suddenly a short sponge with moustaches trembled; Prince Andrew stood up and shrugged his shoulders and walked through the room.
Pierre looked surprised and naively through his glasses at him and then at the Princess and moved, as if he also wanted to get up, but thought again.
- What's it to me that Monsieur Pierre here, - suddenly said the little princess, and a pretty face she suddenly blossomed into a tearful makeup. - I've wanted to tell you for a long time, André: why have you changed so much for me? What did I do to you? You're going to the army, you don't feel sorry for me. For what?
- Lise! - Prince Andrei just said; but that word was both a request and a threat, and most importantly, the assurance that she would repent of her own words; but she continued in a hurry:
- You treat me like a pain or a child. I see everything. Were you like that six months ago?
- Lise, I'm asking you to stop," said Prince Andrei even more expressively.
Pierre, who was getting more and more excited during this conversation, got up and approached the Princess. He seemed unable to bear the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.
- Calm down, Princess. It seems so to you, because I assure you, I have experienced it myself... why... because... No, I'm sorry, someone else's here... No, calm down... Goodbye...
Prince Andrew stopped him by the hand.
- No, wait, Pierre. The princess is so kind that she will not want to deprive me of the pleasure of spending the evening with you.
- No, he only thinks of himself," said the Princess, not holding her angry tears.
- Lise," said the dry prince Andrei, raising his voice to the level that shows that patience is exhausted.
Suddenly the angry squirrel expression of the beautiful face of the princess was replaced by an attractive and exciting expression of fear; she looked at her husband with her beautiful eyes, and her face seemed to be that timid and confessed expression, which happens in the dog, quickly but gently waving her tail down.
- Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! 6 The princess spoke, and picked up a fold of the dress with one hand, approached her husband and kissed him on the forehead.
- Bonsoir, Lise 7," said Prince Andrei, standing up and kissing his hand in a courteous, outsider-like manner.
Friends were silent. Neither of them started talking. Pierre looked at Prince Andrei, Prince Andrei rubbed his forehead with his little pen.
- Let's go to dinner," he said with a sigh, getting up and heading for the door.
They entered the elegant, newly decorated dining room. Everything, from napkins to silver, faience and crystal, carried the special imprint of novelty that happens in the young couple's household. In the middle of dinner, Prince Andrew leaned over and, as a man with something on his heart for a long time and suddenly daring to speak, with an expression of nervous irritation, in which Pierre had never seen his friend, began to speak:
- Never, never, never marry, my friend; here is my advice, do not marry until you tell yourself that you have done everything you could, and until you stop loving the woman you have chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you will be mistaken cruelly and irreparably. Marry an old man who is useless... You will lose everything that is good and high in you. Everything will be spent on trifles. Yes, yes, yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you expect something from yourself in front of you, then at every step you will feel that everything is over for you, everything is closed, except for the living room, where you will stand on the same board with a court footman and an idiot ... What the hell!...
He waved energetically.
Pierre took off his glasses, which made his face change, showing even more kindness, and looked at his friend with surprise.
- My wife," continued Prince Andrei, "is a beautiful woman. This is one of those rare women with whom you can be dead for your honor; but, my God, what I wouldn't give now, not to be married! I am telling you this alone and first, because I love you.
Prince Andrew, saying this, was even less like that Bolkonsky who, falling apart, sat in Anna Pavlovna's chairs and through his teeth, squinting, saying French phrases. His dry face was trembling with nervous revival of every muscle; his eyes, which had previously seemed to put out the fire of life, now shone radiantly, brightly