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Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.
Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered, lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse sounds, rolling her eyes.
“Adorable! divine! delicious!” was heard from every side.
Natsha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself again completely borne away into this strange senseless world—so remote from her old world—a world in which it was impossible to know what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole, and conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of expectancy.
After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.
“How beautiful she is!” Natsha remarked to her father who had also risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.
“I don’t think so when I look at you!” said Anatole, following Natsha. He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. “You are enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased...”
“Come, come, Natsha!” said the count, as he turned back for his daughter. “How beautiful she is!” Natsha without saying anything stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring eyes.
After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess Bezkhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.
The count wished to go home, but Hlne entreated him not to spoil her improvised ball, and the Rostvs stayed on. Anatole asked Natsha for a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the cossaise, which she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natsha lifted her frightened eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she had to say. She lowered her eyes.
“Don’t say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another,” she said rapidly.... She glanced at him.
Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.
“Don’t speak to me of that! What can I do?” said he. “I tell you I am madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are enchanting?... It’s our turn to begin.”
Natsha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly anything that went on that evening. They danced the cossaise and the Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain. Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let her go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Hlne had followed her and spoken laughingly of her brother’s love, and that she again met Anatole in the little sitting room. Hlne had disappeared leaving them alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender voice:
“I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see you? I love you madly. Can I never...?” and, blocking her path, he brought his face close to hers.
His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw nothing but them.
“Natalie?” he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being painfully pressed. “Natalie?”
“I don’t understand. I have nothing to say,” her eyes replied.
Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt herself released, and Hlne’s footsteps and the rustle of her dress were heard in the room. Natsha looked round at her, and then, red and trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved toward the door.
“One word, just one, for God’s sake!” cried Anatole.
She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what had happened and to which she could find no answer.
“Natalie, just a word, only one!” he kept repeating, evidently not knowing what to say and he repeated it till Hlne came up to them.
Hlne returned with Natsha to the drawing room. The Rostvs went away without staying for supper.
After reaching home Natsha did not sleep all night. She was tormented by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew. She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. “Else how could all this have happened?” thought she. “If, after that, I could return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to do if I love him and the other one too?” she asked herself, unable to find an answer to these terrible questions.
Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Mrya Dmtrievna appeared, and they were called to breakfast. Natsha kept looking uneasily at everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept every glance directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.
After breakfast, which was her best time, Mrya Dmtrievna sat down in her armchair and called Natsha and the count to her.
“Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my advice,” she began. “Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince Bolknski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had to say!”
“Well, and he?” asked the count.
“He? He’s crazy... he did not want to listen. But what’s the use of talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out,” said Mrya Dmtrievna. “My advice to you is finish your business and go back home to Otrdnoe... and wait there.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Natsha.
“Yes, go back,” said Mrya Dmtrievna, “and wait there. If your betrothed comes here now—there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but alone with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to you.”
