Page 158 - war-and-peace

carried to the highest point of exactitude. He always came
to table under precisely the same conditions, and not only
at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about
him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp
and invariably exacting, so that without being a hardheart-
ed man he inspired such fear and respect as few hardhearted
men would have aroused. Although he was in retirement
and had now no influence in political affairs, every high of-
ficial appointed to the province in which the prince’s estate
lay considered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty
antechamber ante chamber just as the architect, gardener,
or Princess Mary did, till the prince appeared punctually to
the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this antechamber
experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when
the enormously high study door opened and showed the
figure of a rather small old man, with powdered wig, small
withered hands, and bushy gray eyebrows which, when he
frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd, youthful-
ly glittering eyes.
On the morning of the day that the young couple were
to arrive, Princess Mary entered the antechamber as usu-
al at the time appointed for the morning greeting, crossing
herself with trepidation and repeating a silent prayer. Every
morning she came in like that, and every morning prayed
that the daily interview might pass off well.
An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the an-
techamber rose quietly and said in a whisper: ‘Please walk
in.’
Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The

158 War and Peace