War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [730]
“No, I’m not,” Pierre said hastily, with surprise and as if offended. “Ah, no, to Petersburg? Tomorrow—only I’m not saying good-bye. I’ll come by for your errands,” he said, standing in front of Princess Marya, blushing and not leaving.
Natasha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Marya, on the contrary, instead of leaving, lowered herself into an armchair and looked at Pierre sternly and attentively with her deep, luminous gaze. The fatigue she had clearly shown just before was now completely gone. She gave a deep and drawn-out sigh, as if preparing for a long conversation.
In Natasha’s absence, all Pierre’s confusion and awkwardness instantly vanished and were replaced by excited animation. He quickly moved an armchair quite close to Princess Marya.
“Yes, I wanted to tell you,” he said, answering her gaze as if it were words. “Princess, help me. What am I to do? May I hope? Princess, my friend, listen to me. I know everything. I know I’m not worthy of her; I know it’s impossible to talk about it now. But I want to be a brother to her. No, I don’t…I can’t…”
He stopped and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.
“Well, there,” he went on, clearly making an effort to speak coherently. “I don’t know since when I’ve loved her. But I’ve loved only her, her alone, all my life, and I love her so much that I can’t imagine my life without her. I don’t dare ask for her hand now; but the thought that she might perhaps be mine and that I might miss this possibility…possibility…is terrible. Tell me, may I hope? Tell me, what am I to do? Dear princess,” he said, after pausing briefly and touching her hand, since she did not reply.
“I’m thinking about what you’ve told me,” Princess Marya replied. “Here is what I will tell you. You’re right that to speak to her of love now…” The princess stopped. She was going to say that to speak to her of love now was impossible; but she stopped, because it was the third day since she had seen by the suddenly changed Natasha, not only that Natasha would not be offended if Pierre spoke to her of his love, but that she wished only for that.
“To speak to her now…is impossible,” Princess Marya said all the same.
“But what am I to do?”
“Leave it to me,” said Princess Marya. “I know…”
Pierre was looking into Princess Marya’s eyes.
“Well?…Well?…” he said.
“I know that she loves…will love you,” Princess Marya corrected herself.
She had barely managed to say these words when Pierre jumped up and with a frightened face seized Princess Marya by the hand.
“What makes you think so? You think that I may hope? You think so?!”
“Yes, I do,” Princess Marya said, smiling. “Write to her parents. And leave it to me. I’ll tell her, when it can be done. I wish it. And my heart tells me it will happen.”
“No, it can’t be! I’m so happy! But it can’t be…I’m so happy! No, it can’t be!” Pierre was saying, kissing Princess Marya’s hands.
“You go to Petersburg; that will be best. And I’ll write to you,” she said.
“To Petersburg? Go? Very well, yes, I’ll go. But may I come to you tomorrow?”
The next day Pierre came to say good-bye. Natasha was less animated than on the previous days; but that day, occasionally glancing in her eyes, Pierre felt that he was disappearing, that neither he nor she was there anymore, but there was just one feeling of happiness. “Can it be? No, it can’t,” he said to himself at her every glance, gesture, word, which filled his soul with joy.
When, saying good-bye to her, he took her thin, slender hand, he involuntarily held it slightly longer in his.
“Can it be that this hand, this face, these eyes, all this treasure of feminine loveliness that is stranger to me now, can it be that it will all be eternally mine, habitual, the same as I am for myself? No, it’s impossible!…”
“Good-bye, Count,” she said to him aloud. “I’ll be waiting very much for you,” she added in a whisper.
And those simple words, the glance and expression of the face that went with them, in the course of two months constituted a subject of inexhaustible memories, explanations, and happy reveries for