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The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white nightcap, came in.
“Ah, madam!” he began. “Madam, Countess... Countess Rostva, if I am not mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not know, madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with a visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn’t know—” he repeated, stressing the word “God” so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her father or at Natsha.
Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do. Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.
“I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not know,” muttered the old man, and after looking Natsha over from head to foot he went out.
Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this apparition and began speaking about the prince’s indisposition. Natsha and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the longer they did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their antipathy to one another.
When the count returned, Natsha was impolitely pleased and hastened to get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. “I couldn’t begin talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,” thought Natsha. The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She knew what she ought to have said to Natsha, but she had been unable to say it because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary went up hurriedly to Natsha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh:
“Wait, I must...”
Natsha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.
“Dear Natalie,” said Princess Mary, “I want you to know that I am glad my brother has found happiness....”
She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natsha noticed this and guessed its reason.
“I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now,” she said with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking her.
“What have I said and what have I done?” thought she, as soon as she was out of the room.
They waited a long time for Natsha to come to dinner that day. She sat in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Snya stood beside her, kissing her hair.
“Natsha, what is it about?” she asked. “What do they matter to you? It will all pass, Natsha.”
“But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I...”
“Don’t talk about it, Natsha. It wasn’t your fault so why should you mind? Kiss me,” said Snya.
Natsha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her wet face against her.
“I can’t tell you, I don’t know. No one’s to blame,” said Natsha—“It’s my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn’t he come?...”
She came in to dinner with red eyes. Mrya Dmtrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostvs, pretended not to notice how upset Natsha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and the other guests.
That evening the Rostvs went to the Opera, for which Mrya Dmtrievna had taken a box.
Natsha did not want to go, but could not refuse Mrya Dmtrievna’s kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.
“O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes—how I see those eyes!” thought Natsha. “And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can’t bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!” and she turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. “And how can Snya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?” thought she, looking at Snya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand. “No, she’s altogether different. I can’t!”
Natsha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of carriages, the Rostvs’ carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels squeaking over the snow. Natsha and Snya, holding up their dresses, jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and, passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers, they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes. Through the closed doors the music was already audible.
“Natsha, your hair!...” whispered Snya.
An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy at Natsha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being played. Natsha, smoothing her gown, went in with Snya and sat down, scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not experienced for a long time—that of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare arms and neck—suddenly affected her both agreeably and disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and emotions associated with that feeling.
