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By Root 4186 0

Natasha. The features of her face had defined themselves and bore an expression of softness and serenity. In her face there was not, as formerly, that ceaselessly burning fire of animation that had constituted her charm. Now one often saw only her face and body, while her soul was not seen at all. One saw only a strong, beautiful, and fruitful female. Very rarely was the former fire kindled in her now. It happened only when, as now, her husband returned home, or a sick child recovered, or she and Countess Marya remembered Prince Andrei (she never spoke of him with her husband, supposing that he was jealous of Prince Andrei’s memory), and very rarely when something chanced to draw her into singing, which she had abandoned completely after marriage. And in those rare moments when the former fire was kindled in her developed, beautiful body, she was still more attractive than before.

Since the time of her marriage, Natasha and her husband had lived in Moscow, Petersburg, on the estate near Moscow, and with her mother, that is, with Nikolai. The young Countess Bezukhov was little seen in society, and those who saw her remained displeased. She was neither sweet nor amiable. It was not that Natasha liked solitude (she did not know whether she liked it or not; it even seemed to her that she did not), but, bearing, giving birth to, and nursing her children, and taking part in every minute of her husband’s life, she was unable to satisfy those needs otherwise than by giving up society. Everyone who had known Natasha before her marriage was surprised at the change that had taken place in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess, with her mother’s intuition, understood that all Natasha’s impulses came only from the need to have a family, to have a husband, as she, not so much joking as in earnest, had cried out once in Otradnoe. Her mother was surprised at the surprise of the people who did not understand Natasha, and kept repeating that she had always known that Natasha would make an exemplary wife and mother.

“Only she carries her love for her husband and children to such an extreme,” said the countess, “that it’s even stupid.”

Natasha did not follow that golden rule preached by intelligent people, especially the French, according to which a girl, once married, should not let herself go, should not abandon her talents, should be still more concerned with her appearance than when unmarried, should entice her husband just as she had enticed him before he was her husband. Natasha, on the contrary, at once abandoned all her charms, among which one was extraordinarily strong—her singing. She abandoned it precisely because it was a strong charm. She, as they put it, let herself go. Natasha took no trouble either about her manners, or about the delicacy of her speech, or about showing herself to her husband in the most advantageous poses, or about her toilette, or about not hampering her husband with her demands. She did everything contrary to these rules. She felt that the charms which her instinct had taught her to make use of before would now only be ridiculous in the eyes of her husband, to whom, from the first moment, she had given herself entirely—that is, with her whole soul, not leaving one little corner that was not open to him. She felt that her bond with her husband held, not by those poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something else, indefinite but firm, like the bond between her own soul and body.

To fluff up her curls, wear hoop-skirts, and sing romances in order to attract her own husband would have seemed as strange to her as to adorn herself in order to be pleased with herself. And to adorn herself in order to be liked by others—maybe she would have enjoyed that now, she did not know, but she simply had no time for it. The main reason why she was not occupied with singing, with dressing, or with thinking over her words, was that she had absolutely no time to be occupied with them.

It is known that man has the ability to immerse himself entirely in one subject, however insignificant