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At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in
an annex of his house which had not been burned. He called on
Count Rostopchin and on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow,
and he intended to leave for Petersburg two days later. Everybody
was celebrating the victory, everything was bubbling with life
in the ruined but reviving city. Everyone was pleased to see Pierre,
everyone wished to meet him, and everyone questioned him about
what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly well disposed toward
them all, but was now instinctively on his guard for fear of binding
himself in any way. To all questions put to him- whether important
or quite trifling- such as: Where would he live? Was he going
to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he mind
taking a parcel for someone?- he replied: "Yes, perhaps,"
or, "I think so," and so on.
He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought
of Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a
pleasant memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only
free from social obligations but also from that feeling which,
it seemed to him, he had aroused in himself.
On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys
that Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last
days of Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and
now recurred to him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner
that Princess Mary was in Moscow and living in her house- which
had not been burned- in Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same
evening to see her.
On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew,
of their friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially
of the last one at Borodino.
"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind
he was then in? Is it possible that the meaning of life was not
disclosed to him before he died?" thought Pierre. He recalled
Karataev and his death and involuntarily began to compare these
two men, so different, and yet so similar in that they had both
lived and both died and in the love he felt for both of them.
Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious
mood. The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage
but its general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met
Pierre with a stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel
that the absence of the old prince had not disturbed the order
of things in the house, informed him that the princess had gone
to her own apartments, and that she received on Sundays.
"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me," said Pierre.
"Yes, sir," said the man. "Please step into
the portrait gallery."
A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who
brought word from the princess that she would be very glad to
see Pierre if he would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs
to her apartment.
In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and
with her another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that
the princess always had lady companions, but who they were and
what they were like he never knew or remembered. "This must
be one of her companions," he thought, glancing at the lady
in the black dress.
The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.
"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after
he had kissed her hand, "so this is how we meet again. He
of spoke of you even at the very last," she went on, turning
her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a shyness that surprised
him for an instant.
"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first
piece of good news we had received for a long time."
Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even
more uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something,
but Pierre interrupted her.
"Just imagine- I knew nothing about him!" said he.
"I thought he had been killed. All I know I heard at second
hand from others. I only know that he fell in with the Rostovs....
What a strange coincidence!"
Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at
the companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed
on him, and, as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow
that this companion in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent
creature who would not hinder his conversing freely with Princess
Mary.
But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed
still greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's
face to that of the lady in the black dress and said:
"Do you really not recognize her?"
Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face
with its black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to
him, long forgotten and more than sweet, looked at him from those
attentive eyes.
"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern,
thin, pale face that looks so much older! It cannot be she. It
merely reminds me of her." But at that moment Princess Mary
said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty, effort, and stress,
like the opening of a door grown rusty on its hinges, a smile
appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from that opening
door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with a happiness
he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been thinking-
especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and enveloped
him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,
it was Natasha and he loved her.
At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess
Mary, and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had
been unaware. He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He
tried to hide his agitation. But the more he tried to hide it
the more clearly- clearer than any words could have done- did
he betray to himself, to her, and to Princess Mary that he loved
her.
"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought
Pierre. But as soon as he tried to continue the conversation he
had begun with Princess Mary he again glanced at Natasha, and
a still-deeper flush suffused his face and a still-stronger agitation
of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He became confused in
his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was saying.
Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at
all expect to see her there, but he had failed to recognize her
because the change in her since he last saw her was immense. She
had grown thin and pale, but that was not what made her unrecognizable;
she was unrecognizable at the moment he entered because on that
face whose eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of the
joy of life, now when he first entered and glanced at her there
was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes were kindly
attentive and sadly interrogative.
Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's
part, but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her
whole face.
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