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At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostvs’ box creaked, and the steps of a belated arrival were heard. “There’s Kurgin!” whispered Shinshn. Countess Bezkhova turned smiling to the newcomer, and Natsha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kurgin whom she had seen and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant’s uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with a restrained swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been so good-looking and had his handsome face not worn such an expression of good-humored complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was proceeding, he walked deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword and spurs slightly jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high. Having looked at Natsha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a question, with a motion toward Natsha.

“Mais charmante!” said he, evidently referring to Natsha, who did not exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down beside Dlokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way that Dlokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily, smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.

“How like the brother is to the sister,” remarked the count. “And how handsome they both are!”

Shinshn, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue of Kurgin’s in Moscow, and Natsha tried to overhear it just because he had said she was “charmante.”

The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going out and coming in.

Bors came to the Rostvs’ box, received their congratulations very simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to Natsha and Snya his fiance’s invitation to her wedding, and went away. Natsha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Bors with whom she had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in, everything seemed simple and natural.

The scantily clad Hlne smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natsha gave Bors a similar smile.

Hlne’s box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.

During the whole of that entr’acte Kurgin stood with Dlokhov in front of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostvs’ box. Natsha knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even turned so that he should see her profile in what she thought was its most becoming aspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre appeared in the stalls. The Rostvs had not seen him since their arrival. His face looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natsha last saw him. He passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole went up to him and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating the Rostvs’ box. On seeing Natsha Pierre grew animated and, hastily passing between the rows, came toward their box. When he got there he leaned on his elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While conversing with Pierre, Natsha heard a man’s voice in Countess Bezkhova’s box and something told her it was Kurgin. She turned and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with such an enraptured caressing look that it seemed strange to be so near him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be acquainted with him.

In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once, but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.

During this act every time Natsha looked toward the stalls she saw Anatole Kurgin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and it did not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.

When the second act was over Countess Bezkhova rose, turned to the Rostvs’ box—her whole bosom completely exposed—beckoned the old count with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had entered her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.

“Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters,” said she. “The whole town is singing their praises and I don’t even know them!”

Natsha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.

“I want to become a Moscovite too, now,” said Hlne. “How is it you’re not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?”

Countess Bezkhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating woman. She could say what she did not think—especially what was flattering—quite simply and naturally.

“Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am not staying here long this time—nor are you—I will try to amuse them. I have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get to know you,” said she to Natsha with her stereotyped and lovely smile. “I had heard about you from my page, Drubetsky. Have you heard he is getting married? And also from my husband’s friend Bolknski, Prince Andrew Bolknski,” she went on with special emphasis, implying that she knew of his relation to Natsha. To get better acquainted she asked that one of the young ladies should come into her box for the rest of the performance, and Natsha moved over to it.

The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the stalls everyone clapped and shouted “bravo!” Then one of the men went into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes, and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm came on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away, and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began shouting: “Duport! Duport! Duport!” Natsha no longer thought this strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.