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That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya
Dmitrievna had taken a box.
Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's
kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came
ready dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking
in the large mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty,
she felt even more sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.
"O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did
then, but differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things,
I would simply embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at
me with those searching inquiring eyes with which he has so often
looked at me, and then I would make him laugh as he used to laugh.
And his eyes- how I see those eyes!" thought Natasha. "And
what do his father and sister matter to me? I love him alone,
him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, manly
and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think
of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can't
bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!" and she turned
away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. "And how
can Sonya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long
and so patiently?" thought she, looking at Sonya, who also
came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand. "No, she's altogether
different. I can't!"
Natasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it
was not enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted
now, at once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear
from him words of love such as filled her heart. While she sat
in the carriage beside her father, pensively watching the lights
of the street lamps flickering on the frozen window, she felt
still sadder and more in love, and forgot where she was going
and with whom. Having fallen into the line of carriages, the Rostovs'
carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels squeaking over the
snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses, jumped out
quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and, passing
among men and women who were entering and the program sellers,
they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.
Through the closed doors the music was already audible.
"Natasha, your hair!..." whispered Sonya.
An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the
ladies and opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder
and through the door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies
sat with bare arms and shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with
uniforms, glittered before their eyes. A lady entering the next
box shot a glance of feminine envy at Natasha. The curtain had
not yet risen and the overture was being played. Natasha, smoothing
her gown, went in with Sonya and sat down, scanning the brilliant
tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not experienced for
a long time- that of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare arms
and neck- suddenly affected her both agreeably and disagreeably
and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and emotions
associated with that feeling.
The two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count
Rostov who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted
general attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natasha's
engagement to Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostovs had lived
in the country ever since, and all looked with curiosity at a
fiancee who was making one of the best matches in Russia.
Natasha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the
country, and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly
pretty. She struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and
beauty, combined with her indifference to everything about her.
Her black eyes looked at the crowd without seeking anyone, and
her delicate arm, bare to above the elbow, lay on the velvet edge
of the box, while, evidently unconsciously, she opened and closed
her hand in time to the music, crumpling her program. "Look,
there's Alenina," said Sonya, "with her mother, isn't
it?"
"Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!"
remarked the count.
"Look at our Anna Mikhaylovna- what a headdress she has
on!"
"The Karagins, Julie- and Boris with them. One can see
at once that they're engaged...."
"Drubetskoy has proposed?"
"Oh yes, I heard it today," said Shinshin, coming
into the Rostovs' box.
Natasha looked in the direction in which her father's eyes
were turned and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy
look on her face and a string of pearls round her thick red neck-
which Natasha knew was covered with powder. Behind them, wearing
a smile and leaning over with an ear to Julie's mouth, was Boris'
handsome smoothly brushed head. He looked the Rostovs from under
his brows and said something, smiling, to his betrothed.
"They are talking about us, about me and him!" thought
Natasha. "And he no doubt is calming her jealousy of me.
They needn't trouble themselves! If only they knew how little
I am concerned about any of them."
Behind them sat Anna Mikhaylovna wearing a green headdress
and with a happy look of resignation to the will of God on her
face. Their box was pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced
couple which Natasha knew so well and liked so much. She turned
away and suddenly remembered all that had been so humiliating
in her morning's visit.
"What right has he not to wish to receive me into his
family? Oh, better not think of it- not till he comes back!"
she told herself, and began looking at the faces, some strange
and some familiar, in the stalls. In the front, in the very center,
leaning back against the orchestra rail, stood Dolokhov in a Persian
dress, his curly hair brushed up into a huge shock. He stood in
full view of the audience, well aware that he was attracting everyone's
attention, yet as much at ease as though he were in his own room.
Around him thronged Moscow's most brilliant young men, whom he
evidently dominated.
The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya and pointed
to her former adorer.
"Do you recognize him?" said he. "And where
has he sprung from?" he asked, turning to Shinshin. "Didn't
he vanish somewhere?"
"He did," replied Shinshin. "He was in the
Caucasus and ran away from there. They say he has been acting
as minister to some ruling prince in Persia, where he killed the
Shah's brother. Now all the Moscow ladies are mad about him! It's
'Dolokhov the Persian' that does it! We never hear a word but
Dolokhov is mentioned. They swear by him, they offer him to you
as they would a dish of choice sterlet. Dolokhov and Anatole Kuragin
have turned all our ladies' heads."
A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much
exposed plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a
double string of large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling
her heavy silk dress and took a long time settling into her place.
Natasha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders,
and pearls and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders
and the pearls. While Natasha was fixing her gaze on her for the
second time the lady looked round and, meeting the count's eyes,
nodded to him and smiled. She was the Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's
wife, and the count, who knew everyone in society, leaned over
and spoke to her.
"Have you been here long, Countess?" he inquired.
"I'll call, I'll call to kiss your hand. I'm here on business
and have brought my girls with me. They say Semenova acts marvelously.
Count Pierre never used to forget us. Is he here?"
"Yes, he meant to look in," answered Helene, and
glanced attentively at Natasha.
Count Rostov resumed his seat.
"Handsome, isn't she?" he whispered to Natasha.
"Wonderful!" answered Natasha. "She's a woman
one could easily fall in love with."
Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the
conductor tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats
in the stalls, and the curtain rose.
As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became
silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening
dress, and all the women with gems on their bare flesh, turned
their whole attention with eager curiosity to the stage. Natasha
too began to look at it.
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