War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [620]
On receiving the news of the battle of Borodino and the abandoning of Moscow, Rostov did not experience despair, anger, or vengefulness, and any similar feeling, but for him everything in Voronezh suddenly became dull and vexing, everything was somehow shameful and awkward. All the conversations he heard seemed artificial to him; he did not know how to judge it all, and he felt that only in the regiment would everything become clear to him again. He was in a hurry to finish buying the horses and often flew into a temper unfairly with his servant and the sergeant major.
A few days before Rostov’s departure, a prayer service was offered on the occasion of the victory won by the Russian troops, and Nikolai went to the liturgy. He placed himself a little behind the governor, and with official staidness, thinking of the most various subjects, stood through the service. When the prayers were over, the governor’s wife beckoned him to her.
“Did you see the princess?” she said, nodding towards a lady in black standing behind the choir.
Nikolai at once recognized Princess Marya, not so much by her profile, which could be seen under her hat, as by that feeling of carefulness, fear, and pity that at once came over him. Princess Marya, obviously immersed in her own thoughts, made a last sign of the cross before leaving the church.
Nikolai looked at her face with astonishment. It was the same face he had seen before, in it was the same general expression of fine, inner, spiritual work; but now it was lit completely differently. It bore a touching expression of sorrow, entreaty, and hope. As had happened with Nikolai before in her presence, he went up to her without waiting for the governor’s wife to advise him to go to her, without asking himself whether or not it would be good or proper for him to address her there in church, and told her that he had heard about her grief and sympathized with her with all his soul. As soon as she heard his voice, a bright light suddenly shone in her face, lighting up both her sorrow and her joy.
“There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess,” said Rostov. “It is that if Prince Andrei Nikolaevich was no longer alive, him being the commander of a regiment, it would have been announced at once in the newspapers.”
The princess was looking at him, not understanding his words, but rejoicing at the expression of compassionate suffering in his face.
“And I know so many examples when a shrapnel wound” (the newspaper had said it was a shell) “is either fatal at once or, on the contrary, very light,” said Nikolai. “You must hope for the best, and I’m sure…”
Princess Marya interrupted him.
“Oh, that would be so ter…” she began and, breaking off from emotion, she inclined her head gracefully (as she did everything in his presence) and, glancing at him with gratitude, followed after her aunt.
In the evening of that day, Nikolai did not go out visiting anywhere, but stayed home to finish some accounts with the horse dealers. When he finished his business, it was too late to go anywhere, but still too early to go to bed, and for a long time Nikolai paced up and down the room alone, thinking over his life, which rarely happened with him.
Princess Marya had produced a pleasant impression on him near Smolensk. That he had met her then in such particular conditions, and that it was precisely her that his mother had pointed to at one time as a wealthy match for him, had made him pay special attention to her. In Voronezh, during the time of his visit, the impression was not only pleasant, but strong. Nikolai was struck by that particular moral beauty which he noticed in her this time. However, he was getting ready to leave, and it never occurred to him to regret that, in leaving Voronezh, he was losing the chance of seeing the princess. But this last meeting with Princess Marya in church