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Count Rostv approved of this suggestion, appreciating its reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding, against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otrdnoe.
“That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took her,” said the old count.
“No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he won’t—that’s his affair,” said Mrya Dmtrievna, looking for something in her reticule. “Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is nothing to wait for; and what is not ready I’ll send after you. Though I don’t like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God’s blessing!”
Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to Natsha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.
“She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She’s afraid you might think that she does not like you.”
“But she doesn’t like me,” said Natsha.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” cried Mrya Dmtrievna.
“I shan’t believe anyone, I know she doesn’t like me,” replied Natsha boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and angry resolution that caused Mrya Dmtrievna to look at her more intently and to frown.
“Don’t answer like that, my good girl!” she said. “What I say is true! Write an answer!”
Natsha did not reply and went to her own room to read Princess Mary’s letter.
Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that had occurred between them. Whatever her father’s feelings might be, she begged Natsha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice everything.
“Do not think, however,” she wrote, “that my father is ill-disposed toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son happy.” Princess Mary went on to ask Natsha to fix a time when she could see her again.
After reading the letter Natsha sat down at the writing table to answer it. “Dear Princess,” she wrote in French quickly and mechanically, and then paused. What more could she write after all that had happened the evening before? “Yes, yes! All that has happened, and now all is changed,” she thought as she sat with the letter she had begun before her. “Must I break off with him? Must I really? That’s awful...” and to escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Snya and began sorting patterns with her.
After dinner Natsha went to her room and again took up Princess Mary’s letter. “Can it be that it is all over?” she thought. “Can it be that all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went before?” She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its former strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kurgin. She vividly pictured herself as Prince Andrew’s wife, and the scenes of happiness with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday’s interview with Anatole.
“Why could that not be as well?” she sometimes asked herself in complete bewilderment. “Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to choose, and I can’t be happy without either of them. Only,” she thought, “to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew’s love, in which I have lived so long?”
“Please, Miss!” whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious air. “A man told me to give you this—” and she handed Natsha a letter.
“Only, for Christ’s sake...” the girl went on, as Natsha, without thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it was a letter from him—from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or else how could that have happened which had happened? And how could she have a love letter from him in her hand?
With trembling hands Natsha held that passionate love letter which Dlokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.
“Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or to die. There is no other way for me,” the letter began. Then he went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him—for this there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her—but that if she loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and carry her off to the ends of the earth.
“Yes, yes! I love him!” thought Natsha, reading the letter for the twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of it.
That evening Mrya Dmtrievna was going to the Akhrovs’ and proposed to take the girls with her. Natsha, pleading a headache, remained at home.
On returning late in the evening Snya went to Natsha’s room, and to her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the table, beside her lay Anatole’s letter. Snya picked it up and read it.
As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natsha, trying to find in her face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself from choking, Snya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat down in an armchair and burst into tears.
“How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have left off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kurgin go to such lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that’s plain! What will Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is the meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before yesterday, yesterday, and today,” thought Snya. “But it can’t be that she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a thing!”
Snya wiped away her tears and went up to Natsha, again scanning her face.
“Natsha!” she said, just audibly.
Natsha awoke and saw Snya.
“Ah, you’re back?”
