accordingly. Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was
required, interrupted his wife’s remarks and touched on the question
of the war with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general
subject to personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take
part in the Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them.
Though the conversation was very incoherent and Vera was angry at the
intrusion of the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with
satisfaction that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had
begun very well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party
with its talk, tea, and lighted candles.
Before long Boris, Berg’s old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of
condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Vera. After
Boris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the
Rostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other
evening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of
satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room,
at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the
bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,
especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the
shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of
the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov, who
was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with
the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on
which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as
the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere
else.
CHAPTER XXI
Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston
with Count Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he
happened to be directly facing Natasha, and was struck by a curious
change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not
only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by
her look of gentle indifference to everything around.
"What’s the matter with her?" thought Pierre, glancing at her.
She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without
looking at him, made some reply to Boris who sat down beside her. After
playing out a whole suit and to his partner’s delight taking five
tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had
entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at
Natasha.
"What has happened to her?" he asked himself with still greater
surprise.
Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a
look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up
at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And
the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again
alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had
again become what she had been at the ball.
Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and
youthful expression in his friend’s face.
Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with
his back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six
rubbers he watched her and his friend.
"Something very important is happening between them," thought
Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and
made him neglect the game.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing
like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one side was talking
with Sonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle smile was saying
something to Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking
whether they were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, having
noticed Prince Andrew’s attentions to Natasha, decided that at a
party, a real evening party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were
absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone,
began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her
sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to
be, she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.
When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being carried away
by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a
thing that rarely happened with him.
"What do you think?" Vera was saying with an arch smile. "You are
so discerning, Prince, and understand people’s characters so well at
a glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her
attachments? Could she, like other women" (Vera meant herself),
"love a man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what
I consider true love. What do you think, Prince?"
"I know your sister too little," replied Prince Andrew, with a
sarcastic smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, "to
be able to solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that
the less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be,"
he added, and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.
"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," continued
Vera - mentioning "our days" as people of limited intelligence are
fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the
peculiarities of "our days" and that human characteristics change
with the times - "in our days a girl has so much freedom that the
pleasure of being courted often stifles real feeling in her. And it must
be confessed that Natalie is very susceptible." This return to
the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrew to knit his brows with
discomfort: he was about to rise, but Vera continued with a still more
subtle smile:
"I think no one has been more courted than she," she went on, "but
till quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know,
Count," she said to Pierre, "even our dear cousin Boris, who,
between ourselves, was very far gone in the land of tenderness..."
(alluding to a map of love much in vogue at that time).
Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.
"You are friendly with Boris, aren’t you?" asked Vera.
"Yes, I know him...."
"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?"
"Oh, there was childish love?" suddenly asked Prince Andrew,
blushing unexpectedly.
"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le
cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don’t you think so?"
* "Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood."
"Oh, undoubtedly!" said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural
liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful
with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these
jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.
"Well?" asked Pierre, seeing his friend’s strange animation with
surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natasha as he rose.
"I must... I must have a talk with you," said Prince Andrew. "You
know that pair of women’s gloves?" (He referred to the Masonic
gloves given to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he
loved.) "I... but no, I will talk to you later on," and with a
strange light in his eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince
Andrew approached Natasha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how
Prince Andrew asked her something and how she flushed as she replied.
But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he
should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on
the affairs in Spain.
Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face.
The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had
seen. Everything was similar: the ladies’ subtle talk, the cards, the
general raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea
cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening
parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation
among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now
the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.
CHAPTER XXII
Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the
Rostovs and spent the rest of the day there.
Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and
without concealing it he tried to be with Natasha all day. Not only in
the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natasha, but in the
whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was
bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes
at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natasha and timidly started some
artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.
Sonya was afraid to leave Natasha and afraid of being in the way when
she was with them. Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when
she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by
his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could
not bring himself to do so.
In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to
Natasha and whispered: "Well, what?"
"Mamma! For heaven’s sake don’t ask me anything now! One can’t
talk about that," said Natasha.
But all the same that night Natasha, now agitated and now frightened,
lay a long time in her mother’s bed gazing straight before her. She
told her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going
abroad, asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then
how he had asked her about Boris.
"But such a... such a... never happened to me before!" she said.
"Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I’m
with him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it’s the real thing?
Yes? Mamma, are you asleep?"
"No, my love; I am frightened myself," answered her mother. "Now
go!"
"All the same I shan’t sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy!
Mummy! such a thing never happened to me before," she said, surprised
and alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. "And could we
ever have thought!..."
It seemed to Natasha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew
at Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared
this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had
then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding
him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.
"And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg
while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that
ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this!
Already then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar."
"What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them..."
said her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew
had written in Natasha’s album.
"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?"
"Don’t, Natasha! Pray to God. ‘Marriages are made in
heaven,’" said her mother.
"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!" cried Natasha,
shedding tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.
At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him
of his love for Natasha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.
That day Countess Helene had a reception at her house. The French
ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of
late become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and
gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and
struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air.
Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression
and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of
his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a
gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel
oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity
of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time
the feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natasha and Prince
Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position
and his friend’s. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife,
and about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him
insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?
presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at Masonic
labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward
midnight, after he had left the countess’ apartments, he was sitting
upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction
of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy
with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.
"Ah, it’s you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air.
"And I, you see, am hard at it." He pointed to his manuscript book
with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy
people look at their work.
Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on
his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,
smiled at him with the egotism of joy.
"Well, dear heart," said he, "I wanted to tell you about it
yesterday and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything
like it before. I am in love, my friend!"
Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on
the sofa beside Prince Andrew.
"With Natasha Rostova, yes?" said he.
"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it,
but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and
suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in
the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can’t
live without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why
don’t you speak?"
"I? I? What did I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and
beginning to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That
girl is such a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend,
I entreat you, don’t philosophize, don’t doubt, marry, marry,
marry.... And I am sure there will not be a happier man than you."
"But what of her?"
"She loves you."
"Don’t talk rubbish..." said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking
into Pierre’s eyes.
"She does, I know," Pierre cried fiercely.
"But do listen," returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the
arm. "Do you know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to
someone."
"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad," said Pierre, and his face
really changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince
Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite
a new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his
disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind
to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he
boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not
sacrifice his own happiness to his father’s caprice, and spoke of how
he would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her,
or would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that
had mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of
himself.
"I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of
such love," said Prince Andrew. "It is not at all the same feeling
that I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two
halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the
other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and
darkness...."
"Darkness and gloom," reiterated Pierre: "yes, yes, I understand
that."
"I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very
happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake."
"Yes, yes," Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched
and sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew’s lot
appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own.
CHAPTER XXIII
Prince Andrew needed his father’s consent to his marriage, and to
obtain this he started for the country next day.
His father received his son’s communication with external composure,
but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to
alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life
was already ending. "If only they would let me end my days as I want
to," thought the old man, "then they might do as they please."
With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for
important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole
matter.
In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards
birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young
as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress
on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would
be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. "Fourthly and finally,"
the father said, looking ironically at his son, "I beg you to put it
off for a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for
a German tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or
obstinacy - as you please - is still as great, marry! And that’s my
last word on it. Mind, the last..." concluded the prince, in a tone
which showed that nothing would make him alter his decision.
Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or
his fiancee’s, would not stand a year’s test, or that he (the old
prince himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his
father’s wish - to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs,
Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.
Next day after her talk with her mother Natasha expected Bolkonski all
day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.
Pierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrew
had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.
Three weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go out
anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and
listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the
evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her
that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and
pitying her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity
intensified her misery.
Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began
to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why
it is being punished.
The countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first listening to her
mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her:
"Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think, and don’t want to think about
it! He just came and then left off, left off...."
Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went
on quietly:
"And I don’t at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I
have now become quite calm, quite calm."
The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which
she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the
mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had
abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to
the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and
began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise
she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that
particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not
expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the
whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt
cheerful. "What’s the good of making so much of it? Things are nice
as it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the
room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with
each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair
of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of
the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a
mirror she glanced into it. "There, that’s me!" the expression of
her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very
nice too! I need nobody."
A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she
would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her
walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood - love of,
and delight in, herself. "How charming that Natasha is!" she said
again, speaking as some third, collective, male person. "Pretty,
a good voice, young, and in nobody’s way if only they leave her in
peace." But however much they left her in peace she could not now be
at peace, and immediately felt this.
In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, "At home?" and
then footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking at the mirror, but did
not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw
herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though
she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.
Pale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room.
"Mamma! Bolkonski has come!" she said. "Mamma, it is awful, it is
unbearable! I don’t want... to be tormented? What am I to do?..."
Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with
an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha his face
brightened. He kissed the countess’ hand and Natasha’s, and sat
down beside the sofa.
"It is long since we had the pleasure..." began the countess,
but Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question,
obviously in haste to say what he had to.
"I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my
father’s. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only
got back last night," he said glancing at Natasha; "I want to have
a talk with you, Countess," he added after a moment’s pause.
The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.
"I am at your disposal," she murmured.
Natasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:
something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared
straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.
"At once? This instant!... No, it can’t be!" she thought.
Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not
mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.
"Go, Natasha! I will call you," said the countess in a whisper.
Natasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at
her mother and went out.
"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand," said
Prince Andrew.
The countess’ face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.
"Your offer..." she began at last sedately. He remained silent,
looking into her eyes. "Your offer..." (she grew confused) "is
agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I
hope... but it will depend on her...."
"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to
me?" said Prince Andrew.
"Yes," replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with
a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his
forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a
son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. "I
am sure my husband will consent," said the countess, "but your
father..."
"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express
condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a
year. And I wished to tell you of that," said Prince Andrew.
"It is true that Natasha is still young, but - so long as that?..."
"It is unavoidable," said Prince Andrew with a sigh.
"I will send her to you," said the countess, and left the room.
"Lord have mercy upon us!" she repeated while seeking her daughter.
Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on
the bed, pale and dry-eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering
something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped
up and flew to her.
"Well, Mamma?... Well?..."
"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand," said the countess,
coldly it seemed to Natasha. "Go... go," said the mother, sadly and
reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.
Natasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she
came in and saw him she paused. "Is it possible that this stranger
has now become everything to me?" she asked herself, and immediately
answered, "Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than
everything in the world." Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast
eyes.
"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?"
He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of
her face. Her face said: "Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?
Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?"
She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes, yes!" Natasha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed
loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.
"What is it? What’s the matter?"
"Oh, I am so happy!" she replied, smiled through her tears, bent
over closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether
she might, and then kissed him.
Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find
in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly
changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of
desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear
at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of
the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though
not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.
"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?" asked
Prince Andrew, still looking into her eyes.
"Is it possible that I - the ‘chit of a girl,’ as everybody called
me," thought Natasha - "is it possible that I am now to be the
wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father
looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no
more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies
a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask
me?"
"No," she replied, but she had not understood his question.
"Forgive me!" he said. "But you are so young, and I have already
been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know
yourself."
Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to
take in the meaning of his words.
"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be," continued
Prince Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask
you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall
remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should
you come to love..." said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.
"Why do you say that?" Natasha interrupted him. "You know that
from the very day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you," she
cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth.
"In a year you will learn to know yourself...."
"A whole year!" Natasha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that
the marriage was to be postponed for a year. "But why a year? Why a
year?..."
Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.
Natasha did not hear him.
"And can’t it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply,
but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.
"It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!" Natasha suddenly cried,
and again burst into sobs. "I shall die, waiting a year: it’s
impossible, it’s awful!" She looked into her lover’s face and saw
in it a look of commiseration and perplexity.
"No, no! I’ll do anything!" she said, suddenly checking her tears.
"I am so happy."
The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple
their blessing.
From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostovs’ as
Natasha’s affianced lover.
CHAPTER XXIV
No betrothal ceremony took place and Natasha’s engagement to
Bolkonski was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said
that as he was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole
burden of it; that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but
that he did not wish to bind Natasha and gave her perfect freedom. If
after six months she felt that she did not love him she would have full
right to reject him. Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished
to hear of this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the
Rostovs’, but did not behave to Natasha as an affianced lover: he
did not use the familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her
hand. After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural
relations sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each
other till now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other
when as yet they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves
now quite different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and
sincere. At first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with
Prince Andrew; he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time
Natasha trained the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them
all that he only appeared to be different, but was really just like all
of them, and that she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be.
After a few days they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in
his presence pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part.
He could talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the
countess and Natasha, and about albums and fancywork with Sonya.
Sometimes the household both among themselves and in his presence
expressed their wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident
omens there had been of it: Prince Andrew’s coming to Otradnoe and
their coming to Petersburg, and the likeness between Natasha and Prince
Andrew which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew’s
encounter with Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening
that it had to be.
In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always
accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting
together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and
go away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely
spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to
speak of it. Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she
constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince
Andrew blushed, as he often did now - Natasha particularly liked it in
him - and said that his son would not live with them.
"Why not?" asked Natasha in a frightened tone.
"I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides..."
"How I should have loved him!" said Natasha, immediately guessing
his thought; "but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding
fault with us."
Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask
his advice about Petya’s education or Nicholas’ service. The
old countess sighed as she looked at them; Sonya was always getting
frightened lest she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for
leaving them alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew
spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natasha listened to him
with pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed
attentively and scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity:
"What does he look for in me? He is trying to discover something by
looking at me! What if what he seeks in me is not there?" Sometimes
she fell into one of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and
then she particularly loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed.
He seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his
laughter, and after such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natasha
would have been completely happy if the thought of the separation
awaiting her and drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere
thought of it made him turn pale and cold.
On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with
him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs’ once since the ball.
Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the
countess, and Natasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya,
thereby inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.
"You have known Bezukhov a long time?" he asked. "Do you like
him?"
"Yes, he’s a dear, but very absurd."
And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his
absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.
"Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him
from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie," Prince
Andrew said with sudden seriousness - "I am going away and heaven
knows what may happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not
to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not
here..."
"What can happen?"
"Whatever trouble may come," Prince Andrew continued, "I beg
you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for
advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he
has a heart of gold."
Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andrew
himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act
on Natasha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day,
dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding
what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed
her hand for the last time. "Don’t go!" she said in a tone
that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he
remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but
for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in
anything and only saying now and then, "Oh, why did he go away?"
But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around
her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became
her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a
child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.
CHAPTER XXV
During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nicholas
Bolkonski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more
irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his
frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out
her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible.
Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys - her nephew,
little Nicholas, and religion - and these were the favorite subjects
of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would
bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting
and spoiling of children. "You want to make him" - little
Nicholas - "into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew
wants a son and not an old maid," he would say. Or, turning to
Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary’s presence
how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke about them.
He continually hurt Princess Mary’s feelings and tormented her, but it
cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or
could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?
And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word
"justice." All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear
and simple law - the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who
lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to
do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and
love, and that she did.
During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay,
gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a
long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said
nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with
his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his
departure they were dissatisfied with one another.
Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend
Julie Karagina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream)
of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her
own brother, killed in Turkey.
Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.
Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a
special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your
excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can - I
will not say comfort us - but save us from despair. Religion alone can
explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what
cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life - not merely
harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others - are called
away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a
burden to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I
saw, and one I shall never forget - that of my dear sister-in-law - left
that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother
had to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged
anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to
die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since
then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly
why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression
of the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though
generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite
love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically
innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother’s duties. As a
young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so
as a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince
Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will
there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of
her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent
influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at
the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should
then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and
certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you
of the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not
a single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is
governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for
our good.
You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my
wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will
be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is
this: my father’s health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand
any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as
you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure
the notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the
sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the
Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but
from my father’s remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know
all that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred
on Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is
not accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my
father cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of
his political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to
Moscow; for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way
of expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might
derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the
disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will
be decided very shortly.
Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew’s
absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After
his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again
become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that
heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me,
that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change
he has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more
nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad
which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You
write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,
cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a
relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody
here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his
arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the
way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as
that you write about - I mean the report of my brother’s betrothal to
the little Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again,
and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he
rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss
has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a
successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far
as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince
Andrew. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do
not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my second
sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty
care. My dear friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.
MARY
CHAPTER XXVI
In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter
from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and
surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova.
The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender
and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved
as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life
was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his
resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it
to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her
father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt
of his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides," he
wrote, "the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now.
My father then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months,
half of that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever.
If the doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in
Russia, but as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You
know me and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have
been and always shall be independent; but to go against his will and
arouse his anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short
time, would destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about
the same question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the
letter and to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether
there is hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months."
After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the
letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:
"Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won’t be
long - I shall soon set him free."
The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak
and, raising his voice more and more, cried:
"Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich,
eh? Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him
that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas’
stepmother and I’ll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn’t be
without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted
in my house - let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go
and live with him too?" he added, turning to Princess Mary. "Go in
heaven’s name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!"
After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.
But repressed vexation at his son’s poor-spirited behavior found
expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts
for irony a fresh one was now added - allusions to stepmothers and
amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"Why shouldn’t I marry her?" he asked his daughter. "She’ll
make a splendid princess!"
And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary
noticed that her father was really associating more and more with the
Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his
letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the
idea.
Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion
were Princess Mary’s joys and consolations; but besides that, since
everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest
depths of her heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief
consolation of her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her
by God’s folk - the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited
her without the prince’s knowledge. The longer she lived, the more
experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder
at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here
on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to
obtain that impossible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had
loved his wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind
his happiness to another woman. Her father objected to this because he
wanted a more distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they
all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their
souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure
but for an instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the
Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for
a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find
happiness in it. "How is it that no one realizes this?" thought
Princess Mary. "No one except these despised God’s folk who, wallet
on back, come to me by the back door, afraid of being seen by the
prince, not for fear of ill-usage by him but for fear of causing him
to sin. To leave family, home, and all the cares of worldly welfare, in
order without clinging to anything to wander in hempen rags from place
to place under an assumed name, doing no one any harm but praying for
all - for those who drive one away as well as for those who protect one:
higher than that life and truth there is no life or truth!"
There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called
Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn
heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in
a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of
her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of
life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to
become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary
thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,
strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed
this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk,
and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the
pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim’s complete costume for
herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.
Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,
Princess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to
put her project into execution.
Often, listening to the pilgrims’ tales, she was so stimulated by
their simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep
meaning, that several times she was on the point of abandoning
everything and running away from home. In imagination she already
pictured herself by Theodosia’s side, dressed in coarse rags, walking
with a staff, a wallet on her back, along the dusty road, directing her
wanderings from one saint’s shrine to another, free from envy, earthly
love, or desire, and reaching at last the place where there is no more
sorrow or sighing, but eternal joy and bliss.
"I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get
used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till
my legs fail, and I’ll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last
reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor
sighing..." thought Princess Mary.
But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko
(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she
was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.
BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11
CHAPTER I
The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor - idleness - was a
condition of the first man’s blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man
has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not
only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but
because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at
ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man
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