Chapter 3 third chapter

When Mikhail Ivanitch returned to his study with the letter, the prince, wearing spectacles and a blindfold in front of a candle-shaded lamp, was sitting near the open desk, with his hand far outstretched, holding the paper, In a somewhat dignified pose, he read the document (he called it the Instructions) that would be presented to the Emperor after his death. When Mihail Ivanitch entered the room, the prince recalled with tears what he had written.And now he looked at the files.Then he got the letter from Mikhail Ivanitch, put it in his pocket, put the papers away, and called Alpatitch, who had been waiting for a long time.

He wrote on a little note what he had to do in Smolensk, and then he walked up and down the room before Alpatych, who was waiting by the door, giving orders. "Listen! Letterhead, eight sheets, and this is the sample; gold-edged . He walked around the room for a while, looking at the memo. "Then deliver the letter concerning the certificate in person to the Governor." Then came the necessary bolts for the doors of the new house, which had to be made in the pattern the Duke himself had laid down.Then there is a custom-made box containing the will and a frame. The instructions to Alpatitch lasted more than two hours, and the prince still did not let him go.He sat down in thought, closing his eyes and dozing off.Alpatych moved from time to time.

"Well, come on, come on; if there's anything more I'll send for you." So Alpatych went out.The prince went to the desk again, looked into it, touched his papers, closed it again, and sat down at it to write a letter to the prefect. When he sealed the letter and stood up, it was already very late.He wanted to sleep, but he knew he couldn't, the worst thoughts would come to him in bed.He called Tikhon and walked with him through the rooms in order to tell him where to put the bed for the night.He walked up and down, looking around every corner. He feels bad everywhere.The worst thing was the sofa in the study that he was used to sleeping on.He thought the sofa was terrible, probably because he lay on it and ruminated over unpleasant things.No place is good, but the best place is the corner behind the grand piano in the lounge, because he still sleeps there.

Tikhon and a servant brought a bed and began to make it. "Not so! Not so!" exclaimed the prince, and he himself drew the bed a quarter of the way away from the corner, and then drew it closer again. "Well, I've finally finished my work, and now I'm going to rest," said the prince after a moment's thought, and he asked Tikhon to undress him. Frowning in annoyance at the effort required to take off his coat and trousers, the Duke undressed, sat down on the bed with difficulty, seemed to be in thought, and looked contemptuously at his yellow and emaciated legs.He wasn't brooding, but he was delaying the laborious lifting of his legs into bed. "Oh! how difficult! Oh, it would be better if this labor could be over sooner! Let me go!" thought he, biting his lip, and laying down with great difficulty.But as soon as he lay down, he suddenly felt that the whole bed was swaying evenly under his body, as if he was panting and bumping heavily.It was like this almost every night.He opened his closed eyes.

"No peace, damn thing!" He angrily complained to someone. "Yes, yes, there's one more important thing, and a very important one, which I'll leave until I go to bed at night. The latch? No, I've told you about that. No, there's probably one more thing." It was mentioned in the drawing-room. Princess Marya lied about something. Dessalle—the fool, said something. There was something in the pocket—I don’t remember.” "Tishka! What was said at dinner?" "Speaking of Prince Mikhail..." "Stop it, stop it." The Duke patted the table with his hand. "Yes, I see. Princess Marya has read Prince Andrew's letter. Dessalle said something about Vitebsk. Now I will read it."

He ordered the letter to be taken out of his pocket, and moving a little table with a glass of lemonade and a threaded candle to the bedside, he put on his spectacles and began to read the letter.At this time, only when he read the letter in the dim light under the blue lampshade in the dead of night, did he realize the meaning of the letter for the first time in an instant. "The French are at Vitebsk, and in four days' journey they may be at Smolensk; perhaps they are there already." "Tishka!" Tikhon jumped up. "No, no, no!" he said loudly. He hid the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes.Then he thought of the Danube, the bright noon, the reeds, the Russian camp; and he, the young general, without a wrinkle on his face, full of energy, cheerful, ruddy, entered Potemkin's painted tent, to the favor of the court The burning intensity of jealousy moved him as much now as it did then.Thus he recalled what he had said when he met Potemkin for the first time, and at this moment, the empress dowager, who was not tall, with a fat face and sallow face, smiled and said what she said when she first met him cordially; At the same time he recalled her face on the altar, and the conflict with Zubov in the royal coffin for the right to kiss her hand.

"Hey, hurry up, go back to that era quickly, let everything now end quickly, let it end quickly! Tell them not to disturb me, let me be quiet!"