War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [728]
Suddenly Natasha lowered her head to her hands and began to cry.
“What is it, Natasha?” asked Princess Marya.
“Nothing, nothing.” She smiled at Pierre through her tears. “Good-bye, it’s time for bed.”
Pierre got up and took his leave.
Princess Marya and Natasha, as always, came together in the bedroom. They talked about what Pierre had told them. Princess Marya did not voice her opinion of Pierre. Natasha also did not speak of him.
“Well, good night, Marie,” said Natasha. “You know, I’m often afraid that we don’t talk about him” (Prince Andrei), “as if we’re afraid of lowering our feeling, and we’re forgetting.”
Princess Marya sighed deeply and by that sigh acknowledged the correctness of Natasha’s words; but in words she did not agree with her.
“As if we could forget?” she said.
“It felt so good to me tonight to tell it all; hard, and painful, and good. Very good,” said Natasha. “I’m sure he really loved him. That’s why I told him…there was no harm in my telling him?” she asked, suddenly blushing.
“Pierre? Oh, no! He’s so wonderful!” said Princess Marya.
“You know, Marie,” Natasha said suddenly with a mischievous smile, which Princess Marya had not seen on her face for a long time. “He’s become somehow clean, smooth, fresh—as if from the bathhouse, you understand?—morally from the bathhouse. Hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Princess Marya, “he’s gained much.”
“And his short little frock coat and cropped hair; just, well, just like from the bathhouse…papa used to…”
“I understand that he” (Prince Andrei) “loved no one as he did him,” said Princess Marya.
“Yes, and he’s different from him. They say men become friends when they’re quite different. That must be true. Isn’t it true that he’s not like him at all?”
“Yes, and he’s marvelous.”
“Well, good night,” answered Natasha. And that same mischievous smile, as if forgotten, remained on her face for a long time.
XVIII
Pierre could not fall asleep for a long time that night; he paced up and down the room, now frowning, thinking over something difficult, suddenly shrugging his shoulders and shivering, now smiling happily.
He was thinking about Prince Andrei, about Natasha, about their love, and now felt jealous of her past, now reproached himself, now forgave himself for it. It was already six o’clock in the morning, and he was still pacing the room.
“Well, nothing to be done. If it’s impossible now without that! Nothing to be done! It means it has to be so,” he said to himself, and, hastily undressing, he went to bed, happy and excited, but with no doubt or indecision.
“I must—however strange, however impossible this happiness—I must do everything to make it so that she and I are man and wife,” he said to himself.
Several days before then, Pierre had fixed on Friday as the day of his departure for Petersburg. When he woke up on Thursday, Savelyich came to him for orders about packing things for the trip.
“Why to Petersburg? What’s Petersburg? Who’s in Peterburg?” he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. “Yes, there was something long, long ago, before this happened, that gave me a reason for going to Petersburg,” he recalled. “And why not? Maybe I’ll even go. How kind and attentive he is, how he remembers everything!” he thought, looking at Savelyich’s old face. “And what a pleasant smile!” he thought.
“So you still don’t want your freedom, Savelyich?” asked Pierre.
“What do I need freedom for, Your Excellency? We lived all right with the late count, God rest his soul, and with you we haven’t seen any offenses.”
“Well, but your children?”
“The children will get along, Your Excellency: one can live with such masters.”
“Well, but my heirs?” said Pierre. “If I suddenly get married…And it may happen,” he added with an involuntary smile.
“And if I may be so bold: it would be a good thing, Your Excellency.”
“He takes it so lightly,” thought Pierre. “He doesn’t know how frightening, how dangerous it is. Too early or too late…Frightening!”
“What are your orders, if you please? Will you be leaving