War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [379]
“So, Sonya, here you were saying all kinds of stupid things about him,” Natasha began in a meek voice, the sort of voice in which children speak when they want to be praised. “He and I had a talk tonight.”
“Well, and what, what then? What did he say? Natasha, I’m so glad you’re not angry with me. Tell me everything, the whole truth. What did he say?”
Natasha became thoughtful.
“Ah, Sonya, if you knew him as I do! He said…He asked me what sort of promise I had made to Bolkonsky. He was glad that it rested with me to refuse him.”
Sonya sighed sadly.
“But surely you haven’t refused Bolkonsky?” she asked.
“Maybe I even have refused him! Maybe it’s all over with Bolkonsky. Why do you think so ill of me?”
“I don’t think anything, I just don’t understand it…”
“Wait, Sonya, you’ll understand everything. You’ll see what a man he is. Only don’t think ill either of me or of him.”
“I don’t think ill of anybody: I love everybody and pity everybody. But what am I to do?”
Sonya would not yield to the tender tone in which Natasha addressed her. The more soft and ingratiating the expression of Natasha’s face was, the more serious and stern was the face of Sonya.
“Natasha,” she said, “you asked me not to speak to you, and I didn’t, you yourself began it now. Natasha, I don’t trust him. Why this secrecy?”
“Again, again!” interrupted Natasha.
“Natasha, I’m afraid for you.”
“Why be afraid?”
“I’m afraid you’ll ruin yourself,” Sonya said resolutely, frightened herself at what she said.
Natasha’s face again showed anger.
“And I will, I will, I’ll ruin myself as soon as possible. It’s none of your business. It will be bad for me, not for you. Leave me, leave me alone! I hate you!”
“Natasha!” Sonya implored her fearfully.
“I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy forever!”
Natasha ran out of the room.
Natasha did not speak with Sonya anymore and avoided her. With the same expression of agitated surprise and criminality, she paced the rooms, taking up one thing, then another, and abandoning them at once.
Hard as it was for Sonya, she watched her friend without taking her eyes off her.
The day before the count was to come back, Sonya noticed that Natasha sat all morning by the window in the drawing room, as if waiting for something, and that she made a sign to a passing officer, whom Sonya took to be Anatole.
Sonya began to watch her friend still more attentively, and noticed that all through dinner and in the evening, Natasha was in a strange and unnatural state (responded beside the point to questions put to her, began phrases and did not finish them, laughed at everything).
After tea, Sonya saw a timorous maid waiting for her by Natasha’s door. She let her in and, eavesdropping at the door, learned that a letter had been brought again.
And it suddenly became clear to Sonya that Natasha had some terrible plan for that night. Sonya knocked on her door. Natasha did not let her in.
“She’s going to elope with him!” thought Sonya. “She’s capable of anything. Tonight there was something especially pathetic and resolute in her face. She cried as she said good-bye to uncle,” Sonya recalled. “Yes, it’s certain, she’s going to elope with him—but what am I to do?” Sonya wondered, recalling the signs which clearly proved to her that Natasha had some terrible intention. “The count isn’t here. What am I to do? Write to Kuragin, demanding an explanation from him? But who will tell him to reply to me? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrei asked me to do in case of misfortune?…But maybe she has indeed already refused Bolkonsky (she sent a letter to Princess Marya yesterday). Uncle’s not here!”
To tell Marya Dmitrievna, who had such faith