War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [312]
“It’s true that Natasha is still young, but—so long!”
“It cannot be otherwise,” Prince Andrei said with a sigh.
“I’ll send her to you,” said the countess, and she left the room.
“Lord, have mercy on us,” she repeated as she was looking for her daughter. Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on her bed, pale, dry-eyed, looking at the icon and whispering something, crossing herself quickly. Seeing her mother, she jumped up and rushed to her.
“What, mama?…What?”
“Go, go to him. He’s asking for your hand,” the countess said coldly, as it seemed to Natasha…“Go…go,” the mother said sadly and reproachfully after her running daughter, and she sighed deeply.
Natasha did not remember how she entered the drawing room. Going through the door and seeing him, she stopped. “Can it be that this stranger has now become everything for me?” she asked herself, and instantly answered: “Yes, everything. He alone is now dearer to me than anything in the world.” Prince Andrei went up to her with lowered eyes.
“I loved you the moment I saw you. May I hope?”
He glanced at her, and the serious passion in the expression of her face struck him. Her face said: “Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot help knowing? Why speak when it’s impossible to put everything you feel into words?”
She came closer to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, yes,” Natasha said as if with vexation, sighed loudly, then again and again, and burst into sobs.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Ah, I’m so happy,” she replied, smiling through her tears, leaned closer to him, thought for a second, as if asking herself whether she could, and kissed him.
Prince Andrei held her hand, looked into her eyes, and did not find the former love for her in his soul. Something suddenly turned over in his soul: the former poetic and mysterious delight of desire was not there, but there was pity for her woman’s and child’s weakness, there was fear before her devotion and trust, a heavy but at the same time joyful consciousness of duty that bound him to her forever. The actual feeling, though not as bright and poetic as the former one, was more serious and strong.
“Did maman tell you that it can’t be sooner than in a year?” Prince Andrei asked, still looking into her eyes.
“Can it be me, that ‘baby girl’ (as everybody said of me),” thought Natasha, “can it be that from this moment on I’m a wife, equal to this strange, dear, intelligent man, whom even my father respects? Can it be true? Can it be true that now there is to be no more toying with life, that I’m grown up now, that responsibility is laid upon me now for my every deed and word? Ah, what was it he asked me?”
“No,” she replied, but she did not understand what he was asking.
“Forgive me,” said Prince Andrei, “but you’re so young, and I’ve already experienced so much of this life. I fear for you. You don’t know yourself.”
Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying to understand the meaning of his words, and not understanding.
“Hard as this year that postpones my happiness will be for me,” Prince Andrei went on, “during this time you will test yourself. I ask you to make me happy in a year; but you’re free: our engagement will remain a secret, and if you become convinced that you don’t love me, or that you love…” Prince Andrei said with an unnatural smile.
“Why are you saying this?” Natasha interrupted him. “You know I’ve loved you from the very day you first came to Otradnoe,” she said, firmly convinced that she was speaking the truth.
“In a year you will know yourself…”
“A whole ye-e-ear!” Natasha said suddenly, only now understanding that the wedding was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a year?…” Prince Andrei began to explain to her the reasons for this postponement. Natasha did not listen to him.
“And it can’t be otherwise?” she asked. Prince Andrei said nothing, but his face expressed the impossibility of changing this decision.
“That’s terrible! No, it’s terrible, terrible!” Natasha