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

Natásha 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 Andréy, “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 Andréy with an unnatural smile.

“Why do you say that?” Natásha interrupted him. “You know that from the very day you first came to Otrádnoe 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!” Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that the marriage was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a year?⁠ ⁠…”

Prince Andréy began to explain to her the reasons for this delay. Natásha did not hear him.

“And can’t it be helped?” she asked. Prince Andréy did not reply, but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.

“It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!” Natásha 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 Andréy began to frequent the Rostóvs’ as Natásha’s affianced lover.

No betrothal ceremony took place and Natásha’s engagement to Bolkónski was not announced; Prince Andréy 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 Natásha 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 Natásha nor her parents wished to hear of this, but Prince Andréy was firm. He came every day to the Rostóvs’, but did not behave to Natásha 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 Andréy; he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natásha 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 Natásha, and about albums and fancywork with Sónya. 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 Andréy’s coming to Otrádnoe and their coming to Petersburg, and the likeness between Natásha and Prince Andréy which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andréy’s encounter with Nikoláy 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 Andréy was afraid and ashamed to speak of it. Natásha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince Andréy blushed, as he often did now⁠—Natásha particularly liked it in him⁠—and said that his son would not live with them.

“Why not?” asked Natásha in a frightened tone.

“I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides⁠ ⁠…”

“How I should have loved him!” said Natásha, 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 Andréy, and ask his advice about Pétya’s education or Nikoláy’s service. The old countess sighed as she looked at them; Sónya 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 Andréy spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natásha 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 Andréy 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. Natásha 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