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Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to
boston with Count Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the
card table he happened to be directly facing Natasha, and was
struck by a curious change that had come over her since the ball,
She was silent, and not only less pretty than at the ball, but
only redeemed from plainness by her look of gentle indifference
to everything around.
"What's the matter with her?" thought Pierre, glancing
at her. She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly,
without looking at him, made some reply to Boris who sat down
beside her. After playing out a whole suit and to his partner's
delight taking five tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the
steps of someone who had entered the room while he was picking
up his tricks, glanced again at Natasha.
"What has happened to her?" he asked himself with
still greater surprise.
Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to
her with a look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head,
was looking up at him, flushed and evidently trying to master
her rapid breathing. And the bright glow of some inner fire that
had been suppressed was again alight in her. She was completely
transformed and from a plain girl had again become what she had
been at the ball.
Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a
new and youthful expression in his friend's face.
Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting
now with his back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the
whole of the six rubbers he watched her and his friend.
"Something very important is happening between them,"
thought Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful and painful
agitated him and made him neglect the game.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no
use playing like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one
side was talking with Sonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle
smile was saying something to Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to
his friend and, asking whether they were talking secrets, sat
down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince Andrew's attentions
to Natasha, decided that at a party, a real evening party, subtle
allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary and,
seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone, began a conversation
with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With
so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to be,
she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.
When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being
carried away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew
seemed embarrassed, a thing that rarely happened with him.
"What do you think?" Vera was saying with an arch
smile. "You are so discerning, Prince, and understand people's
characters so well at a glance. What do you think of Natalie?
Could she be constant in her attachments? Could she, like other
women" (Vera meant herself), "love a man once for all
and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider true love.
What do you think, Prince?"
"I know your sister too little," replied Prince
Andrew, with a sarcastic smile under which he wished to hide his
embarrassment, "to be able to solve so delicate a question,
and then I have noticed that the less attractive a woman is the
more constant she is likely to be," he added, and looked
up Pierre who was just approaching them.
"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," continued
Vera- mentioning "our days" as people of limited intelligence
are fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised
the peculiarities of "our days" and that human characteristics
change with the times- "in our days a girl has so much freedom
that the pleasure of being courted often stifles real feeling
in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is very susceptible."
This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrew to
knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Vera
continued with a still more subtle smile:
"I think no one has been more courted than she,"
she went on, "but till quite lately she never cared seriously
for anyone. Now you know, Count," she said to Pierre, "even
our dear cousin Boris, who, between ourselves, was very far gone
in the land of tenderness..." (alluding to a map of love
much in vogue at that time).
Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.
"You are friendly with Boris, aren't you?" asked
Vera.
"Yes, I know him..."
"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?"
"Oh, there was childish love?" suddenly asked Prince
Andrew, blushing unexpectedly.
"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to
love. Le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage.* Don't you think
so?"
*"Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood."
"Oh, undoubtedly!" said Prince Andrew, and with
sudden and unnatural liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about
the need to be very careful with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins,
and in the midst of these jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre
by the arm, and drew him aside.
"Well?" asked Pierre, seeing his friend's strange
animation with surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on
Natasha as he rose.
"I must... I must have a talk with you," said Prince
Andrew. "You know that pair of women's gloves?" (He
referred to the Masonic gloves given to a newly initiated Brother
to present to the woman he loved.) "I... but no, I will talk
to you later on," and with a strange light in his eyes and
restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrew approached Natasha
and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrew asked her
something and how she flushed as she replied.
But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting
that he should take part in an argument between the general and
the colonel on the affairs in Spain.
Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never
left his face. The party was very successful and quite like other
parties he had seen. Everything was similar: the ladies' subtle
talk, the cards, the general raising his voice at the card table,
and the samovar and the tea cakes; only one thing was lacking
that he had always seen at the evening parties he wished to imitate.
They had not yet had a loud conversation among the men and a dispute
about something important and clever. Now the general had begun
such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.
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