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By Root 4083 0

first exercise, she stopped in the middle of the room and repeated a musical phrase which she especially liked. She listened joyfully (as if it was unexpected for her) to the loveliness with which these sounds, rippling, filled the whole emptiness of the room and slowly died away, and she suddenly felt cheerful. “Why think much about it, things are good as it is,” she said to herself and began walking up and down the room, not simply stepping on the resounding parquet but beginning each step on the heel (she was wearing new shoes that she liked), then going onto the toe, and listening joyfully, as she had to the sound of her voice, to the rhythmic stamping of the heel and the creaking of the toe. Going past a mirror, she looked into it. “Here I am!” the expression of her face seemed to say at the sight of her. “And that’s good. I don’t need anybody.”

A servant wanted to come in to straighten something in the room, but she did not let him in, and, closing the door behind him, went back to her walk. That morning she returned again to her favorite state of love and admiration for herself. “How lovely that Natasha is!” she said of herself again, in the words of some collective male third person. “Pretty, a good voice, young, and doesn’t bother anybody, only leave her in peace.” But however much she was left in peace, she could no longer be at peace, and she felt it at once.

In the front hall the outside door opened, someone asked, “Are they at home?” and someone’s footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking in the mirror, but did not see herself. She was listening to the sounds in the front hall. When she did see herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew it for certain, though she had barely heard the sound of his voice through the closed door.

Pale and frightened, Natasha ran into the drawing room.

“Mama, Bolkonsky’s here!” she said. “Mama, it’s terrible, it’s unbearable! I don’t want…to suffer! What am I to do?…”

Before the countess had time to reply, Prince Andrei, with an anxious and serious face, came into the drawing room. As soon as he saw Natasha, his face lit up. He kissed the countess’s and Natasha’s hand and sat down near the sofa…

“It is long since we’ve had the pleasure…” the countess began, but Prince Andrei interrupted her, answering her question and obviously hurrying to say what he had to.

“I haven’t called on you all this time, because I was at my father’s: I had to discuss a very important matter. I came back only last night,” he said, glancing at Natasha. “I must talk with you, Countess,” he added after a moment’s silence.

The countess, with a deep sigh, lowered her eyes.

“I am at your service,” she said.

Natasha knew she must leave, but she could not do it: something clenched her throat, and she looked at Prince Andrei impolitely, directly, with wide-open eyes.

“Now? This minute!…No, it can’t be!” she thought.

He glanced at her again, and this glance convinced her that she was not mistaken. Yes, her fate was decided, now, this minute.

“Go, Natasha, I’ll call you,” the countess said in a whisper.

Natasha glanced at Prince Andrei and her mother with frightened, pleading eyes, and went out.

“I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,” said Prince Andrei.

The countess’s face blushed, but she said nothing.

“Your proposal…” the countess began gravely. He was silent, looking into her eyes. “Your proposal…” (she became embarrassed) “is pleasing to us and…I accept your proposal, I am glad. My husband, too…I hope…but it depends on her…”

“I’ll tell her, once I have your consent…will you give it to me?” asked Prince Andrei.

“Yes,” said the countess, and she gave him her hand and pressed her lips to his forehead with a mixed feeling of alienation and tenderness when he bent over her hand. She wished to love him as a son; but she felt that for her he was an alien and frightening man.

“I’m sure my husband will consent,” said the countess, “but your father…”

“My father, whom I told of my plans, made it an absolute condition for his consent that the marriage not take place for a year.