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During the entr'acte a whiff of cold air came into Helene's
box, the door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying
not to brush against anyone.
"Let me introduce my brother to you," said Helene,
her eyes shifting uneasily from Natasha to Anatole.
Natasha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young
officer and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who
was as handsome at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside
her and told her he had long wished to have this happiness- ever
since the Naryshkins' ball in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered
pleasure of seeing her. Kuragin was much more sensible and simple
with women than among men. He talked boldly and naturally, and
Natasha was strangely and agreeably struck by the fact that there
was nothing formidable in this man about whom there was so much
talk, but that on the contrary his smile was most naive, cheerful,
and good-natured.
Kuragin asked her opinion of the performance and told her
how at a previous performance Semenova had fallen down on the
stage.
"And do you know, Countess," he said, suddenly addressing
her as an old, familiar acquaintance, "we are getting up
a costume tournament; you ought to take part in it! It will be
great fun. We shall all meet at the Karagins'! Please come! No!
Really, eh?" said he.
While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her
face, her neck, and her bare arms. Natasha knew for certain that
he was enraptured by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made
her feel constrained and oppressed. When she was not looking at
him she felt that he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily
caught his eye so that he should look into hers rather than this.
But looking into his eyes she was frightened, realizing that there
was not that barrier of modesty she had always felt between herself
and other men. She did not know how it was that within five minutes
she had come to feel herself terribly near to this man. When she
turned away she feared he might seize her from behind by her bare
arm and kiss her on the neck. They spoke of most ordinary things,
yet she felt that they were closer to one another than she had
ever been to any man. Natasha kept turning to Helene and to her
father, as if asking what it all meant, but Helene was engaged
in conversation with a general and did not answer her look, and
her father's eyes said nothing but what they always said: "Having
a good time? Well, I'm glad of it!"
During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole's
prominent eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natasha,
to break the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked
the question and blushed. She felt all the time that by talking
to him she was doing something improper. Anatole smiled as though
to encourage her.
"At first I did not like it much, because what makes
a town pleasant ce sont les jolies femmes,* isn't that so? But
now I like it very much indeed," he said, looking at her
significantly. "You'll come to the costume tournament, Countess?
Do come!" and putting out his hand to her bouquet and dropping
his voice, he added, "You will be the prettiest there. Do
come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!"
*Are the pretty women.
Natasha did not understand what he was saying any more than
he did himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had
an improper intention. She did not know what to say and turned
away as if she had not heard his remark. But as soon as she had
turned away she felt that he was there, behind, so close behind
her.
"How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?"
she asked herself, and she could not refrain from turning round.
She looked straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance,
and the good-natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She
smiled just as he was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And
again she felt with horror that no barrier lay between him and
her.
The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay.
Natasha went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive
to the world she found herself in. All that was going on before
her now seemed quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous
thoughts of her betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the
country did not once recur to her mind and were as if belonging
to a remote past.
In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving
his arm about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and
he disappeared down below. That was the only part of the fourth
act that Natasha saw. She felt agitated and tormented, and the
cause of this was Kuragin whom she could not help watching. As
they were leaving the theater Anatole came up to them, called
their carriage, and helped them in. As he was putting Natasha
in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and flushed she
turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes, smiling
tenderly.
Only after she had reached home was Natasha able clearly to
think over what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering
Prince Andrew she was horrified, and at tea to which all had sat
down after the opera, she gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and
ran out of the room.
"O God! I am lost!" she said to herself. "How
could I let him?" She sat for a long time hiding her flushed
face in her hands trying to realize what had happened to her,
but was unable either to understand what had happened or what
she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and terrible. There
in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare-legged Duport,
in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music on wet
boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Helene
with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried "bravo!"-
there in the presence of that Helene it had all seemed clear and
simple; but now, alone by herself, it was incomprehensible. "What
is it? What was that terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing
of conscience I am feeling now?" she thought.
Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natasha have
told all she was feeling. She knew that Sonya with her severe
and simple views would either not understand it at all or would
be horrified at such a confession. So Natasha tried to solve what
was torturing her by herself.
"Am I spoiled for Andrew's love or not?" she asked
herself, and with soothing irony replied: "What a fool I
am to ask that! What did happen to me? Nothing! I have done nothing,
I didn't lead him on at all. Nobody will know and I shall never
see him again," she told herself. "So it is plain that
nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent of, and Andrew
can love me still. But why 'still?' O God, why isn't he here?"
Natasha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct
told her that though all this was true, and though nothing had
happened, yet the former purity of her love for Prince Andrew
had perished. And again in imagination she went over her whole
conversation with Kuragin, and again saw the face, gestures, and
tender smile of that bold handsome man when he pressed her arm.
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