War and Peace
uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre
interrupted her.
“Just imagine—I knew nothing about him!” said he. “I thought he had been
killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know that
he fell in with the Rostóvs.... What a strange coincidence!”
Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the
companion’s face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,
as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion
in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not
hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.
But when he mentioned the Rostóvs, Princess Mary’s face expressed still
greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre’s face to
that of the lady in the black dress and said:
“Do you really not recognize her?”
Pierre looked again at the companion’s pale, delicate face with its
black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten
and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.
“But no, it can’t be!” he thought. “This stern, thin, pale face that
looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her.”
But at that moment Princess Mary said, “Natásha!” And with difficulty,
effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its
hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from
that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with
a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been
thinking—especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and
enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,
it was Natásha and he loved her.
At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,
and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.
He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his
agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly—clearer
than any words could have done—did he betray to himself, to her, and to
Princess Mary that he loved her.
“No, it’s only the unexpectedness of it,” thought Pierre. But as soon as
he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he
again glanced at Natásha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and
a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He
became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was
saying.
Pierre had failed to notice Natásha because he did not at all expect to
see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in
her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but
that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the
moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with
a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and
glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes
were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.
Pierre’s confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natásha’s part,
but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.
CHAPTER XVI
“She has come to stay with me,” said Princess Mary. “The count and
countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful
state; but it was necessary for Natásha herself to see a doctor. They
insisted on her coming with me.”
“Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?” said Pierre, addressing
Natásha. “You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him.
What a delightful boy he was!”
Natásha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes
widened and lit up.
“What can one say or think of as a consolation?” said Pierre. “Nothing!
Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?”
“Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith...” remarked
Princess Mary.
“Yes, yes, that is really true,” Pierre hastily interrupted her.
“Why is it true?” Natásha asked, looking attentively into Pierre’s eyes.
“How can you ask why?” said Princess Mary. “The thought alone of what
awaits...”
Natásha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked
inquiringly at Pierre.
“And because,” Pierre continued, “only one who believes that there is a
God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours.”
Natásha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped.
Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,
asking about his friend’s last days.
Pierre’s confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt
that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a
judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to
him than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was
considering what impression his words would make on Natásha. He did
not purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he
regarded from her standpoint.
Princess Mary—reluctantly as is usual in such cases—began telling of
the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre’s face
quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression,
gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall
for her own sake.
“Yes, yes, and so...?” Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with
his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. “Yes, yes... so he
grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought
one thing—to be perfectly good—so he could not be afraid of death. The
faults he had—if he had any—were not of his making. So he did soften?...
What a happy thing that he saw you again,” he added, suddenly turning to
Natásha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.
Natásha’s face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment.
She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.
“Yes, that was happiness,” she then said in her quiet voice with its
deep chest notes. “For me it certainly was happiness.” She paused. “And
he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered
the room....”
Natásha’s voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her
knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her
head and began to speak rapidly.
“We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to
ask about him. Then suddenly Sónya told me he was traveling with us. I
had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was
to see him and be with him,” she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.
And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had
never yet mentioned to anyone—all she had lived through during those
three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslávl.
Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of
tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death,
nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for
her, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.
Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat beside
Natásha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of
her brother’s and Natásha’s love.
Evidently Natásha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.
She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of
her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she
repeated the same thing twice.
Dessalles’ voice was heard outside the door asking whether little
Nicholas might come in to say good night.
“Well, that’s all—everything,” said Natásha.
She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door
which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed
from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.
Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not
understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.
Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention
to her nephew who had entered the room.
At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas’ face, which
resembled his father’s, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed
the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the
window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let
him go.
“No, Natásha and I sometimes don’t go to sleep till after two, so please
don’t go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately.”
Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: “This is the first
time she has talked of him like that.”
CHAPTER XVII
Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes
later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natásha. Natásha
was calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her
face. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness
which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is
impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is
awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like
affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the
chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin
and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natásha and at Princess
Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of
both shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life
also has joy.
“Do you take vodka, Count?” asked Princess Mary, and those words
suddenly banished the shadows of the past. “Now tell us about yourself,”
said she. “One hears such improbable wonders about you.”
“Yes,” replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him.
“They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary Abrámovna
invited me to her house and kept telling me what had happened, or ought
to have happened, to me. Stepán Stepánych also instructed me how I ought
to tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed that it is very
easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people
invite me out and tell me all about myself.”
Natásha smiled and was on the point of speaking.
“We have been told,” Princess Mary interrupted her, “that you lost two
millions in Moscow. Is that true?”
“But I am three times as rich as before,” returned Pierre.
Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife’s
debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had
become three times as rich as before.
“What I have certainly gained is freedom,” he began seriously, but did
not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.
“And are you building?”
“Yes. Savélich says I must!”
“Tell me, you did not know of the countess’ death when you decided to
remain in Moscow?” asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed, noticing
that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his
words a meaning he had perhaps not intended.
“No,” answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning
Princess Mary had given to his words. “I heard of it in Orël and you
cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple,” he
added quickly, glancing at Natásha and noticing on her face curiosity as
to how he would speak of his wife, “but her death shocked me terribly.
When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one’s own
guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer
alive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation!
I am very, very sorry for her,” he concluded, and was pleased to notice
a look of glad approval on Natásha’s face.
“Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor,” said Princess
Mary.