War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📕

a real evening party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Prince Andréy was alone, began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andréy to be, she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.

When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Véra was being carried away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andréy seemed embarrassed, a thing that rarely happened with him.

“What do you think?” Véra 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 Natáli? Could she be constant in her attachments? Could she, like other women” (Véra 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 Andréy, 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 Véra⁠—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 Nathalie is very susceptible.” This return to the subject of Natáli caused Prince Andréy to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Véra 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 Borís, 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 Andréy frowned and remained silent.

“You are friendly with Borís, aren’t you?” asked Véra.

“Yes, I know him.⁠ ⁠…”

“I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natásha?”

“Oh, there was childish love?” suddenly asked Prince Andréy, blushing unexpectedly.

“Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage.68 Don’t you think so?”

“Oh, undoubtedly!” said Prince Andréy, 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 Natásha as he rose.

“I must⁠ ⁠… I must have a talk with you,” said Prince Andréy. “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 Andréy approached Natásha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andréy 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.

XXII

Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andréy dined with the Rostóvs and spent the rest of the day there.

Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andréy came, and without concealing it he tried to be with Natásha all day. Not only in the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natásha, 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 Andréy when he talked to Natásha and timidly started some artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way. Sónya was afraid to leave Natásha and afraid of being in the way when she was with them. Natásha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andréy 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 Andréy had left, the countess went up to Natásha and whispered: “Well, what?”

“Mamma! For heaven’s sake don’t ask me anything now! One can’t talk about that,” said Natásha.

But all the same that night Natásha, 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 Borís.

“But such a⁠ ⁠… such a⁠ ⁠… never happened to me before!” she said. “Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid