War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [763]
Countess Marya wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone, that he ascribed too much importance to this business; but she knew it was unnecessary and useless to say it. She only took his hand and kissed it. He accepted this gesture of his wife’s as an approval and confirmation of his thoughts and, after some silent reflection, went on thinking aloud.
“You know, Marie,” he said, “today Ilya Mitrofanych” (this was the business manager) “came from the Tambov estate and told me that they’re now offering eighty thousand for the timber.” And with an animated face, Nikolai began talking about the possibility of buying back Otradnoe in a very short time. “Ten more years of life, and I’ll leave the children in an excellent situation.”
Countess Marya listened to her husband and understood all that he said to her. She knew that, when he thought aloud like that, he sometimes asked her what he had said and was angry when he noticed that she had been thinking of something else. But it cost her great effort to do so, because what he said did not interest her at all. She looked at him and did not so much think about something else as feel about something else. She felt a submissive, tender love for this man, who would never understand all that she understood, and as if because of that she loved him still more strongly, with a shade of passionate tenderness. Besides this feeling, which wholly absorbed her and kept her from entering into the details of her husband’s plans, thoughts flashed in her head that had nothing to do with what he was talking about. She was thinking about her nephew (her husband’s account of his agitation over Pierre’s talk had struck her deeply), imagined various traits of his gentle, sensitive character; and, thinking of her nephew, she also thought of her own children. She did not compare her nephew with her children, but compared her feeling for them, and found it sad that something was lacking in her feeling for Nikolenka.
Sometimes the thought occurred to her that this difference was caused by age; but she felt that she was guilty before him, and in her heart she promised herself to mend her ways and do the impossible—that is, in this life to love her husband, and her children, and Nikolenka, and all who were close to her as Christ loved mankind. Countess Marya’s soul always strove towards the infinite, eternal, and perfect, and therefore could never be at peace. The stern expression of concealed, lofty suffering of a soul burdened by a body came to her face. Nikolai looked at her.
“My God! what will become of us if she dies, as it seems to me she will when she has such a face?” he thought and, standing in front of the icon, he began to recite the evening prayers.
XVI
Natasha, left alone with her husband, also talked as only a wife and husband can talk, that is, grasping thoughts and conveying them to each other with extraordinary clarity and quickness, in a way contrary to all the rules of logic, without recourse to opinions, conclusions, and deductions, but in a totally special way. Natasha was so used to talking with her husband in this way that for her a logical train of thought in Pierre served as a sure sign that something was wrong between them. When he began to prove, to speak reasonably and calmly, and when she, carried along by his example, began to do the same, she knew it would inevitably lead to a quarrel.
From the very moment they were left alone,