War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [310]
“Darkness and gloom,” Pierre repeated, “yes, yes, I understand that.”
“I can’t help loving the light, it’s not my fault. And I’m very happy. Do you understand me? I know you’re glad for me.”
“Yes, yes,” Pierre agreed, looking at his friend with tender and sad eyes. The brighter Prince Andrei’s fate seemed to him, the gloomier seemed his own.
XXIII
For marriage he needed his father’s consent, and for that Prince Andrei set off the next day to see his father.
The father received the son’s communication with outward calm, but with inner spite. He could not understand why anyone would want to change his life, to introduce anything new into it, when for him life was already over. “Only let me live out my life as I want, and then they can do what they want,” the old man said to himself. With his son, however, he used the diplomacy he made use of on important occasions. Assuming a calm tone, he discussed the whole matter:
First, the marriage was not a brilliant one in terms of family, wealth, and distinction. Second, Prince Andrei was not in his early youth and his health was weak (the old man especially emphasized that), while she was very young. Third, there was his son, and it would be a pity to hand him over to a young girl. Fourth, and finally, the old man said, with a mocking glance at his son, “I beg you to put the matter off for a year, go abroad, take a cure, look, as you want to, for a German tutor for Prince Nikolai, and then, if this love, passion, obstinacy, call it whatever you like, is so great, you can marry. And that is my last word, be it known to you, my last…” the prince concluded, in a tone which showed that nothing would make him change his decision.
Prince Andrei saw clearly that the old man hoped that either his feeling or his future bride’s would not endure the test of a year, or that he, the old prince, would die himself before then, and decided to do his father’s will: to propose and to put off the wedding for a year.
Exactly three weeks after his last evening at the Rostovs’, Prince Andrei returned to Petersburg.
The day after her talk with her mother, Natasha waited the whole day for Bolkonsky, but he did not come. On the next day and the third it was the same. Pierre also did not come, and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrei had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence.
Three weeks went by that way. Natasha did not want to go anywhere and, like a shadow, idle and dejected, wandered through the rooms, in the evenings wept in secret from everybody, and did not go to her mother. She blushed constantly and was irritable. It seemed to her that everyone knew about her disappointment, was laughing at her, and pitied her. With all the strength of her inner grief, this grief of vanity intensified her unhappiness.
One day she came to the countess, was about to say something to her, and suddenly began to cry. Her tears were the tears of an offended child who does not know why it is being punished.
The countess began to calm Natasha. Natasha first listened to her mother’s words, then suddenly interrupted her:
“Stop it, mama, I’m not thinking and I don’t want to think! So he came, and then stopped, and then stopped…”
Her voice trembled, she almost began to cry, but controlled herself and calmly went on:
“I don’t want to get married at all. And I’m afraid of him; I’m calm now, completely calm…”
The day after this conversation, Natasha put on that old dress which was especially known for making her cheerful in the mornings, and with that morning began her former way of life, which she had abandoned since the ball. After having tea, she went to the reception room, which she especially liked for its strong resonance, and began to sing her solfeggio (singing exercises). Having finished the