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When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound of a man’s footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent expression. She did not even get up to greet him. “What is the matter with you, my angel? Are you ill?” asked the count.
After a moment’s silence Natsha answered: “Yes, ill.”
In reply to the count’s anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him that nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Mrya Dmtrievna confirmed Natsha’s assurances that nothing had happened. From the pretense of illness, from his daughter’s distress, and by the embarrassed faces of Snya and Mrya Dmtrievna, the count saw clearly that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition delayed their return to the country.
From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostvs came to Moscow the effect Natsha had on him made him hasten to carry out his intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexevich’s widow, who had long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased husband’s.
When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Mrya Dmtrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great importance relating to Andrew Bolknski and his betrothed. Pierre had been avoiding Natsha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her was stronger than a married man’s should be for his friend’s fiance. Yet some fate constantly threw them together.
“What can have happened? And what can they want with me?” thought he as he dressed to go to Mrya Dmtrievna’s. “If only Prince Andrew would hurry up and come and marry her!” thought he on his way to the house.
On the Tversky Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.
“Pierre! Been back long?” someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In a sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makrin dashed past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat, tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled with powdery snow.
“Yes, indeed, that’s a true sage,” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn’t I give to be like him!” he thought enviously.
In Mrya Dmtrievna’s anteroom the footman who helped him off with his fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom.
When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natsha sitting at the window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him, frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.
“What has happened?” asked Pierre, entering Mrya Dmtrievna’s room.
“Fine doings!” answered Dmtrievna. “For fifty-eight years have I lived in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!”
And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him, Mrya Dmtrievna informed him that Natsha had refused Prince Andrew without her parents’ knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole Kurgin into whose society Pierre’s wife had thrown her and with whom Natsha had tried to elope during her father’s absence, in order to be married secretly.
Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew’s deeply loved affianced wife—the same Natsha Rostva who used to be so charming—should give up Bolknski for that fool Anatole who was already secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive and could not imagine.
He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natsha, whom he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness, folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. “They are all alike!” he said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with disgust of that Natsha who had just passed him in the ballroom with such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natsha’s soul was overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity and severity.
“But how get married?” said Pierre, in answer to Mrya Dmtrievna. “He could not marry—he is married!”
“Things get worse from hour to hour!” ejaculated Mrya Dmtrievna. “A nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she’s expecting him—expecting him since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won’t go on expecting him.”
After hearing the details of Anatole’s marriage from Pierre, and giving vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Mrya Dmtrievna told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or Bolknski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair (which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel, and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre—only now realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince Andrew—promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly explained her wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room.
“Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,” she said. “And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And stay to dinner if you care to!” she called after Pierre.
Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning Natsha had told him that she had rejected Bolknski.
“Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!” he said to Pierre. “What troubles one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken off her engagement without consulting anybody? It’s true this engagement never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but still, with his father’s disapproval they wouldn’t have been happy, and Natsha won’t lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and to take such a step without father’s or mother’s consent! And now she’s ill, and God knows what! It’s hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in their mother’s absence....”
