War and Peace
parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud
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parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation among the men and a dispute about some- thing important and clever. Now the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it. 879 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com Chapter XXII Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince An- drew dined with the Rostovs and spent the rest of the day there. Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and without concealing it he tried to be with Natasha all day. Not only in the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natasha, but in the whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natasha and timidly started some artificial conversation about tri- fles as soon as he looked her way. Sonya was afraid to leave Natasha and afraid of being in the way when she was with them. Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could not bring himself to do so. In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the count- ess went up to Natasha and whispered: ‘Well, what?’ ‘Mamma! For heaven’s sake don’t ask me anything now! One can’t talk about that,’ said Natasha. But all the same that night Natasha, now agitated and now frightened, lay long time in her mother’s bed gazing straight before her. She told her how he had complimented War and Peace 880 her, how he told her he was going abroad, asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he had asked her about Boris. ‘But such a... such a... never happened to me before!’ she said. ‘Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I’m with him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it’s the real thing? Yes? Mamma, are you asleep?’ ‘No, my love; I am frightened myself,’ answered her mother. ‘Now go!’ ‘All the same I shan’t sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy! Mummy! such a thing never happened to me be- fore,’ she said, surprised and alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. ‘And could we ever have thought!..’ It seemed to Natasha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew at Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her. ‘And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that ev- erything led up to this! Already then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar.’ ‘What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them...’ said her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew had written in Natasha’s album. ‘Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a wid- ower?’ 881 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com ‘Don’t, Natasha! Pray to God. ‘Marriages are made in heaven,’’ said her mother. ‘Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!’ cried Natasha, shedding tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother. At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him of his love for Natasha and his firm resolve to make her his wife. That day Countess Helene had a reception at her house. The French ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of late become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and struck ev- eryone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air. Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a gentleman of the bedcham- ber, and from that time he had begun to feel oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time the feeling he had noticed between his prote- gee Natasha and Prince Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position and his friend’s. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife, and about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what? presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at Masonic labors, hoping to drive away War and Peace 882 the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward midnight, after he had left the countess’ apartments, he was sitting upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original trans- action of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew. ‘Ah, it’s you!’ said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. ‘And I, you see, am hard at it.’ He pointed to his manu- script book with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at their work. Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look, smiled at him with the egotism of joy. ‘Well, dear heart,’ said he, ‘I wanted to tell you about it yesterday and I have come to do so today. I never experi- enced anything like it before. I am in love, my friend!’ Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on the sofa beside Prince Andrew. ‘With Natasha Rostova, yes?’ said he. ‘Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it, but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tor- mented myself and suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can’t live without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don’t you speak?’ ‘I? I? What did I tell you?’ said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning to pace up and down the room. ‘I always thought it.... That girl is such a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear 883 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com friend, I entreat you, don’t philosophize, don’t doubt, mar- ry, marry, marry.... And I am sure there will not be a happier man than you.’ ‘But what of her?’ ‘She loves you.’ ‘Don’t talk rubbish...’ said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking into Pierre’s eyes. ‘She does, I know,’ Pierre cried fiercely. ‘But do listen,’ returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the arm. ‘Do you know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone.’ ‘Well, go on, go on. I am very glad,’ said Pierre, and his face really changed, his brow became smooth, and he lis- tened gladly to Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite a new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he boldly and lightly made plans for an extended fu- ture, said he could not sacrifice his own happiness to his father’s caprice, and spoke of how he would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her, or would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that had mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of himself. ‘I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of such love,’ said Prince Andrew. ‘It is not at all the same feeling that I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all War and Peace 884 is joy, hope, light: the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness...’ ‘Darkness and gloom,’ reiterated Pierre: ‘yes, yes, I un- derstand that.’ ‘I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew’s lot appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own. 885 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com Chapter XXIII Prince Andrew needed his father’s consent to his mar- riage, and to obtain this he started for the country next day. His father received his son’s communication with external composure, but inward wrath. He could not com- prehend how anyone could wish to alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already ending. ‘If only they would let me end my days as I want to,’ thought the old man, ‘then they might do as they please.’ With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter. In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. ‘Fourthly and finally,’ the father said, looking ironically at his son, ‘I beg you to put it off for a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or pas- sion or obstinacyas you pleaseis still as great, marry! And that’s my last word on it. Mind, the last...’ concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that nothing would make War and Peace 886 him alter his decision. Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or his fiancee’s, would not stand a year’s test, or that he (the old prince himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his father’s wishto propose, and postpone the wedding for a year. Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs, Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg. Next day after her talk with her mother Natasha expect- ed Bolkonski all day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same. Pierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrew had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself. Three weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go out anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the evenings. She blushed continu- ally and was irritable. It seemed to her that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and pity- ing her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her misery. Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began to cry. Her tears were those of an of- fended child who does not know why it is being punished. The countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first lis- tening to her mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her: ‘Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think, and don’t want to think about it! He just came and then left off, left off..’ Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but re- 887 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com covered and went on quietly: ‘And I don’t at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I have now become quite calm, quite calm.’ The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which she knew had the peculiar property of con- ducing to cheerfulness in the mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt cheerful. ‘What’s the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as it is,’ she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror she glanced into it. ‘There, that’s me!’ the expression of her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. ‘Well, and very nice too! I need nobody.’ A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite moodlove of, and delight in, herself. War and Peace 888 ‘How charming that Natasha is!’ she said again, speaking as some third, collective, male person. ‘Pretty, a good voice, young, and in nobody’s way if only they leave her in peace.’ But however much they left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and immediately felt this. In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, ‘At home?’ and then footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking at the mirror, but did not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors. Pale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room. ‘Mamma! Bolkonski has come!’ she said. ‘Mamma, it is awful, it is unbearable! I don’t want... to be tormented? What am I to do?..’ Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew en- tered the room with an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha his face brightened. He kissed the countess’ hand and Natasha’s, and sat down beside the sofa. ‘It is long since we had the pleasure...’ began the countess, but Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her in- tended question, obviously in haste to say what he had to. ‘I have not been to see all this time because I have been at my father’s. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only got back last night,’ he said glancing at Natasha; ‘I want to have a talk with you, Countess,’ he added after a moment’s pause. The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply. ‘I am at your disposal,’ she murmured. 889 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com Natasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so: something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared straight at Prince Andrew with wide- open eyes. ‘At once? This instant!... No, it can’t be!’ she thought. Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided. ‘Go, Natasha! I will call you,’ said the countess in a whis- per. Natasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at her mother and went out. ‘I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,’ said Prince Andrew. The countess’ face flushed hotly, but she said nothing. ‘Your offer...’ she began at last sedately. He remained si- lent, looking into her eyes. ‘Your offer...’ (she grew confused) ‘is agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it will depend on her...’ ‘I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to me?’ said Prince Andrew. ‘Yes,’ replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. ‘I am sure my husband will consent,’ said the countess, ‘but your father..’ ‘My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express condition of his consent that the wedding is not to War and Peace 890 take place for a year. And I wished to tell you of that,’ said Prince Andrew. ‘It is true that Natasha is still young, butso long as that?..’ ‘It is unavoidable,’ said Prince Andrew with a sigh. ‘I will send her to you,’ said the countess, and left the room. ‘Lord have mercy upon us!’ she repeated while seeking her daughter. Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on the bed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped up and flew to her. ‘Well, Mamma?... Well?..’ ‘Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand,’ said the countess, coldly it seemed to Natasha. ‘Go... go,’ said the mother, sadly and reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away. Natasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she came in and saw him she paused. ‘Is it pos- sible that this stranger has now become everything to me?’ she asked herself, and immediately answered, ‘Yes, every- thing! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the world.’ Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast eyes. ‘I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?’ He looked at her and was struck by the serious impas- sioned expression of her face. Her face said: ‘Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know? Why speak, when words 891 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com cannot express what one feels?’ She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Do you love me?’ ‘Yes, yes!’ Natasha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ ‘Oh, I am so happy!’ she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she might, and then kissed him. Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly changed; there was no longer the for- mer poetic and mystic charm of desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious. ‘Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?’ asked Prince Andrew, still looking into her eyes. ‘Is it possible that Ithe ‘chit of a girl,’ as everybody called me,’ thought Natasha‘is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?’ War and Peace 892 ‘No,’ she replied, but she had not understood his ques- tion. ‘Forgive me!’ he said. ‘But you are so young, and I have already been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know yourself.’ Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to take in the meaning of his words. ‘Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,’ continued Prince Andrew, ‘it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should you come to love...’ said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile. ‘Why do you say that?’ Natasha interrupted him. ‘You know that from the very day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you,’ she cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth. ‘In a year you will learn to know yourself...’ ‘A whole year!’ Natasha repeated suddenly, only now re- alizing that the marriage was to be postponed for a year. ‘But why a year? Why a year?..’ Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay. Natasha did not hear him. ‘And can’t it be helped?’ she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but his face expressed the impossibility of alter- ing that decision. ‘It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!’ Natasha suddenly cried, and again burst into sobs. ‘I shall die, waiting a year: it’s im- possible, it’s awful!’ She looked into her lover’s face and saw 893 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com in it a look of commiseration and perplexity. ‘No, no! I’ll do anything!’ she said, suddenly checking her tears. ‘I am so happy.’ The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple their blessing. From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Ros- tovs’ as Natasha’s affianced lover. War and Peace 894 Chapter XXIV No betrothal ceremony took place and Natasha’s en- gagement to Bolkonski was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said that as he was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole burden of it; that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but that he did not wish to bind Natasha and gave her perfect freedom. If after six months she felt that she did not love him she would have full right to reject him. Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished to hear of this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the Rostovs’, but did not behave to Natasha as an affianced lover: he did not use the familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand. After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural re- lations sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andrew; he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natasha trained the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he only appeared to be dif- ferent, but was really just like all of them, and that she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few 895 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com days they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his presence pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He could talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the countess and Natasha, and about albums and fancywork with Sonya. Sometimes the house- hold both among themselves and in his presence expressed their wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evi- dent omens there had been of it: Prince Andrew’s coming to Otradnoe and their coming to Petersburg, and the like- ness between Natasha and Prince Andrew which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew’s encounter with Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening that it had to be. In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always accompanies the presence of a betrothed cou- ple. Often when all sitting together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and go away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to speak of it. Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince Andrew blushed, as he often did nowNatasha particularly liked it in himand said that his son would not live with them. ‘Why not?’ asked Natasha in a frightened tone. ‘I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and be- sides..’ ‘How I should have loved him!’ said Natasha, immedi- ately guessing his thought; ‘but I know you wish to avoid War and Peace 896 any pretext for finding fault with us.’ Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince An- drew, and ask his advice about Petya’s education or Nicholas’ service. The old countess sighed as she looked at them; So- nya was always getting frightened lest she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for leaving them alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natasha listened to him with pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed attentively and scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity: ‘What does he look for in me? He is trying to discover something by looking at me! What if what he seeks in me is not there?’ Sometimes she fell into one of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and then she particu- larly loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed. He seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself en- tirely to his laughter, and after such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natasha would have been completely happy if the thought of the separation awaiting her and drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere thought of it made him turn pale and cold. On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince An- drew brought with him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs’ once since the ball. Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and Natasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya, thereby in- viting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so. ‘You have known Bezukhov a long time?’ he asked. ‘Do you like him?’ 897 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com ‘Yes, he’s a dear, but very absurd.’ And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him. ‘Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie,’ Prince Andrew said with sudden seriousness‘I am going away and heaven knows what may happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here..’ ‘What can happen?’ ‘Whatever trouble may come,’ Prince Andrew continued, ‘I beg you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for advice and help! He is a most absent- minded and absurd fellow, but he has a heart of gold.’ Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andrew himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on Natasha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day, dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed her hand for the last time. ‘Don’t go!’ she said in a tone that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying now and then, ‘Oh, why did he go away?’ But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of War and Peace 898 those around her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face. 899 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com Chapter XXV During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nich- olas Bolkonski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joysher neph- ew, little Nicholas, and religionand these were the favorite subjects of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. ‘You want to make him’little Nicholas‘into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid,’ he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary’s presence how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke about them. He continually hurt Princess Mary’s feelings and tor- mented her, but it cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust? And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word ‘justice.’ All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple lawthe law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was War and Peace 900 God. What had she to do with the justice or injustice of oth- er people? She had to endure and love, and that she did. During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay, gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that be- fore his departure they were dissatisfied with one another. Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend Julie Karagina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream) of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her own brother, killed in Turkey. Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie. Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, canI will not say comfort usbut save us from despair. Religion alone can explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in lifenot merely harming no one but necessary to the happiness of othersare called away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden to themselves and to others, are left liv- ing. The first death I saw, and one I shall never forgetthat of my dear sister-in-lawleft that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had to die, so I asked 901 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since then, and already I, with my petty under- standing, begin to see clearly why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of the infinite good- ness of the Creator, whose every action, though generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infi- nite love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother’s duties. As a young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so as a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you of the Gos- pel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not a single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for our good. You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is this: my father’s War and Peace 902 health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the sovereigns of Europe and particu- larly with our own, the grandson of the Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but from my fa- ther’s remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know all that goes on in the world and especially about the hon- ors conferred on Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow; for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will be decided very shortly. Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew’s absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me, that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad which the 903 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active, cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his arrival in Petersburg he re- ceived only his due. I always wonder at the way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as that you write aboutI mean the report of my brother’s be- trothal to the little Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear friend, Ma- demoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses. MARY War and Peace 904 Chapter XXVI In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova. The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt of his displeasure without attaining her object. ‘Besides,’ he wrote, ‘the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and always shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same question, and beg 905 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months.’ After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly: ‘Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won’t be longI shall soon set him free.’ The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak and, raising his voice more and more, cried: ‘Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever peo- ple, eh? Rich, eh? Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas’ stepmother and I’ll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn’t be without a stepmoth- er either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in my houselet him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and live with him too?’ he added, turning to Prin- cess Mary. ‘Go in heavens name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost! After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter. But repressed vexation at his son’s poor- spirited behavior found expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for irony a fresh one was now addedallusions to stepmothers and amiabilities to Ma- demoiselle Bourienne. ‘Why shouldn’t I marry her?’ he asked his daughter. ‘She’ll make a splendid princess!’ War and Peace 906 And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary noticed that her father was really associating more and more with the Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince An- drew about the reception of his letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the idea. Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were Princess Mary’s joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest depths of her heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation of her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God’s folkthe half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the prince’s knowledge. The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to obtain that impos- sible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness to another woman. Her father objected to this because he wanted a more distinguished and wealth- ier match for Andrew. And they all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it. ‘How is it that no one realizes this?’ thought Princess Mary. ‘No one except these 907 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com despised God’s folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back door, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by him but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and all the cares of worldly welfare, in or- der without clinging to anything to wander in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing no one any harm but praying for allfor those who drive one away as well as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth there is no life or truth!’ There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn heavy chains. 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