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Prince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage,
and to obtain this he started for the country next day.
His father received his son's communication with external
composure, but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone
could wish to alter his life or introduce anything new into it,
when his own life was already ending. "If only they would
let me end my days as I want to," thought the old man, "then
they might do as they please." With his son, however, he
employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and,
adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter.
In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as
regards birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no
longer as young as he had been and his health was poor (the old
man laid special stress on this), while she was very young. Thirdly,
he had a son whom it would be a pity to entrust to a chit of a
girl. "Fourthly and finally," the father said, looking
ironically at his son, "I beg you to put it off for a year:
go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German
tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy-
as you please- is still as great, marry! And that's my last word
on it. Mind, the last..." concluded the prince, in a tone
which showed that nothing would make him alter his decision.
Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his
feelings, or his fiancee's, would not stand a year's test, or
that he (the old prince himself) would die before then, and he
decided to conform to his father's wish- to propose, and postpone
the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs,
Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.
Next day after her talk with her mother Natasha expected Bolkonski
all day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was
the same. Pierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing
that Prince Andrew had gone to see his father, could not explain
his absence to herself.
Three weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go
out anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle
and listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her
mother in the evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable.
It seemed to her that everybody knew about her disappointment
and was laughing at her and pitying her. Strong as was her inward
grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her misery.
Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly
began to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does
not know why it is being punished.
The countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first listening
to her mother's words, suddenly interrupted her:
"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't want to think
about it! He just came and then left off, left off..."
Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered
and went on quietly:
"And I don't at all want to get married. And I am afraid
of him; I have now become quite calm, quite calm."
The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress
which she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness
in the mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life
which she had abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning
tea she went to the ballroom, which she particularly liked for
its loud resonance, and began singing her solfeggio. When she
had finished her first exercise she stood still in the middle
of the room and sang a musical phrase that particularly pleased
her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not expected it)
to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole empty
ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt cheerful.
"What's the good of making so much of it? Things are nice
as it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up
and down the room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet
but treading with each step from the heel to the toe (she had
on a new and favorite pair of shoes) and listening to the regular
tap of the heel and creak of the toe as gladly as she had to the
sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror she glanced into it.
"There, that's me!" the expression of her face seemed
to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very nice
too! I need nobody."
A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the
room but she would not let him, and having closed the door behind
him continued her walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite
mood- love of, and delight in, herself. "How charming that
Natasha is!" she said again, speaking as some third, collective,
male person. "Pretty, a good voice, young, and in nobody's
way if only they leave her in peace." But however much they
left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and immediately
felt this.
In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, "At
home?" and then footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking
at the mirror, but did not see herself. She listened to the sounds
in the hall. When she saw herself, her face was pale. It was he.
She knew this for certain, though she hardly heard his voice through
the closed doors.
Pale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room.
"Mamma! Bolkonski has come!" she said. "Mamma,
it is awful, it is unbearable! I don't want... to be tormented?
What am I to do?..."
Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the
room with an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha
his face brightened. He kissed the countess' hand and Natasha's,
and sat down beside the sofa.
"It is long since we had the pleasure..." began
the countess, but Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her
intended question, obviously in haste to say what he had to.
"I have not been to see all this time because I have
been at my father's. I had to talk over a very important matter
with him. I only got back last night," he said glancing at
Natasha; "I want to have a talk with you, Countess,"
he added after a moment's pause.
The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.
"I am at your disposal," she murmured.
Natasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to
do so: something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners
she stared straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.
"At once? This instant!... No, it can't be!" she
thought.
Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that
she was not mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate
would be decided.
"Go, Natasha! I will call you," said the countess
in a whisper.
Natasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew
and at her mother and went out.
"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter's hand,"
said Prince Andrew.
The countess' face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.
"Your offer..." she began at last sedately. He remained
silent, looking into her eyes. "Your offer..." (she
grew confused) "is agreeable to us, and I accept your offer.
I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it will depend on her...."
"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do
you give it to me?" said Prince Andrew.
"Yes," replied the countess. She held out her hand
to him, and with a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness
pressed her lips to his forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand.
She wished to love him as a son, but felt that to her he was a
stranger and a terrifying man. "I am sure my husband will
consent," said the countess, "but your father..."
"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it
an express condition of his consent that the wedding is not to
take place for a year. And I wished to tell you of that,"
said Prince Andrew.
"It is true that Natasha is still young, but- so long
as that?..."
"It is unavoidable," said Prince Andrew with a sigh.
"I will send her to you," said the countess, and
left the room.
"Lord have mercy upon us!" she repeated while seeking
her daughter.
Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting
on the bed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and
whispering something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her
mother she jumped up and flew to her.
"Well, Mamma?... Well?..."
"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand," said
the countess, coldly it seemed to Natasha. "Go... go,"
said the mother, sadly and reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as
her daughter ran away.
Natasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room.
When she came in and saw him she paused. "Is it possible
that this stranger has now become everything to me?" she
asked herself, and immediately answered, "Yes, everything!
He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the world."
Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast eyes.
"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you.
May I hope?"
He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned
expression of her face. Her face said: "Why ask? Why doubt
what you cannot but know? Why speak, when words cannot express
what one feels?"
She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed
it.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes, yes!" Natasha murmured as if in vexation.
Then she sighed loudly and, catching her breath more and more
quickly, began to sob.
"What is it? What's the matter?"
"Oh, I am so happy!" she replied, smiled through
her tears, bent over closer to him, paused for an instant as if
asking herself whether she might, and then kissed him.
Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did
not find in his heart his former love for her. Something in him
had suddenly changed; there was no longer the former poetic and
mystic charm of desire, but there was pity for her feminine and
childish weakness, fear at her devotion and trustfulness, and
an oppressive yet joyful sense of the duty that now bound him
to her forever. The present feeling, though not so bright and
poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.
"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?"
asked Prince Andrew, still looking into her eyes.
"Is it possible that I- the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody
called me," thought Natasha- "is it possible that I
am now to be the wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever
man whom even my father looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be
true that there can be no more playing with life, that now I am
grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for my every word
and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?"
"No," she replied, but she had not understood his
question.
"Forgive me!" he said. "But you are so young,
and I have already been through so much in life. I am afraid for
you, you do not yet know yourself."
Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing
to take in the meaning of his words.
"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,"
continued Prince Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure
of yourself. I ask you to make me happy in a year, but you are
free: our engagement shall remain a secret, and should you find
that you do not love me, or should you come to love..." said
Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.
"Why do you say that?" Natasha interrupted him.
"You know that from the very day you first came to Otradnoe
I have loved you," she cried, quite convinced that she spoke
the truth.
"In a year you will learn to know yourself...."
"A whole year!" Natasha repeated suddenly, only
now realizing that the marriage was to be postponed for a year.
"But why a year? Why a year?..."
Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this
delay. Natasha did not hear him.
"And can't it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew
did not reply, but his face expressed the impossibility of altering
that decision.
"It's awful! Oh, it's awful! awful!" Natasha suddenly
cried, and again burst into sobs. "I shall die, waiting a
year: it's impossible, it's awful!" She looked into her lover's
face and saw in it a look of commiseration and perplexity.
"No, no! I'll do anything!" she said, suddenly checking
her tears. "I am so happy."
The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed
couple their blessing.
From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostovs'
as Natasha's affianced lover.
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