that there is a God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers
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and… yours.’
Natasha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped. Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and
again addressed Princess Mary, asking about his friend’s
last days.
Pierre’s confusion had now almost vanished, but at the
same time he felt that his freedom had also completely gone.
He felt that there was now a judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to him than that of all
the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was considering
what impression his words would make on Natasha. He did
not purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was
saying he regarded from her standpoint.
Princess Maryreluctantly as is usual in such casesbegan telling of the condition in which she had found Prince
Andrew. But Pierre’s face quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression, gradually compelled
her to go into details which she feared to recall for her own
sake.
‘Yes, yes, and so…? ‘ Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with his whole body and eagerly listened to her
story. ‘Yes, yes… so he grew tranquil and softened? With all
his soul he had always sought one thingto be perfectly goodso he could not be afraid of death. The faults he hadif he had
anywere not of his making. So he did soften?… What a happy thing that he saw you again,’ he added, suddenly turning
to Natasha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.
Natasha’s face twitched. She frowned and lowered her
eyes for a moment. She hesitated for an instant whether to
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speak or not.
‘Yes, that was happiness,’ she then said in her quiet voice
with its deep chest notes. ‘For me it certainly was happiness.’ She paused. ‘And he… he… he said he was wishing for
it at the very moment I entered the room…’
Natasha’s voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped
hands on her knees, and then controlling herself with an
evident effort lifted her head and began to speak rapidly.
‘We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I
did not dare to ask about him. Then suddenly Sonya told me
he was traveling with us. I had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was to see him and be
with him,’ she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.
And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell
what she had never yet mentioned to anyoneall she had
lived through during those three weeks of their journey and
life at Yaroslavl.
Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed
upon her full of tears. As he listened he did not think of
Prince Andrew, nor of death, nor of what she was telling.
He listened to her and felt only pity for her, for what she was
suffering now while she was speaking.
Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her
tears, sat beside Natasha, and heard for the first time the
story of those last days of her brother’s and Natasha’s love.
Evidently Natasha needed to tell that painful yet joyful
tale.
She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of her soul, and it seemed as if she could never
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finish. Several times she repeated the same thing twice.
Dessalles’ voice was heard outside the door asking
whether little Nicholas might come in to say good night.
‘Well, that’s alleverything,’ said Natasha.
She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran
to the door which was hidden by curtains, struck her head
against it, and rushed from the room with a moan either of
pain or sorrow.
Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not understand why he suddenly felt all
alone in the world.
Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention to her nephew who had entered the room.
At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas’
face, which resembled his father’s, affected Pierre so much
that when he had kissed the boy he got up quickly, took out
his handkerchief, and went to the window. He wished to
take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let him go.
‘No, Natasha and I sometimes don’t go to sleep till after
two, so please don’t go. I will order supper. Go downstairs,
we will come immediately.’
Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: ‘This
is the first time she has talked of him like that.’
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Chapter XVII
Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room;
a few minutes later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary
entered with Natasha. Natasha was calm, though a severe
and grave expression had again settled on her face. They all
three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness
which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It
is impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk
of trifles is awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there
and silence seems like affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the chairs and pushed them up
again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natasha and at Princess
Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution;
the eyes of both shone with satisfaction and a confession
that besides sorrow life also has joy.
‘Do you take vodka, Count?’ asked Princess Mary, and
those words suddenly banished the shadows of the past.
‘Now tell us about yourself,’ said she. ‘One hears such improbable wonders about you.’
‘Yes,’ replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him. ‘They even tell me wonders I myself never
dreamed of! Mary Abramovna invited me to her house and
kept telling me what had happened, or ought to have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also instructed me how I
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ought to tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed
that it is very easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people invite me out and tell me all about
myself.’
Natasha smiled and was on the point of speaking.
‘We have been told,’ Princess Mary interrupted her, ‘that
you lost two millions in Moscow. Is that true?’
‘But I am three times as rich as before,’ returned Pierre.
Though the position was now altered by his decision to
pay his wife’s debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still
maintained that he had become three times as rich as before.
‘What I have certainly gained is freedom,’ he began seriously, but did not continue, noticing that this theme was
too egotistic.
‘And are you building?’
‘Yes. Savelich says I must!’
‘Tell me, you did not know of the countess’ death when
you decided to remain in Moscow?’ asked Princess Mary
and immediately blushed, noticing that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his words a
meaning he had perhaps not intended.
‘No,’ answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning Princess Mary had given to his words. ‘I
heard of it in Orel and you cannot imagine how it shocked
me. We were not an exemplary couple,’ he added quickly,
glancing at Natasha and noticing on her face curiosity as
to how he would speak of his wife, ‘but her death shocked
me terribly. When two people quarrel they are always both
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in fault, and one’s own guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer alive. And then such a
death… without friends and without consolation! I am very,
very sorry for her,’ he concluded, and was pleased to notice
a look of glad approval on Natasha’s face.
‘Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor,’ said
Princess Mary.
Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time
tried not to look at Natasha. When he ventured to glance
her way again her face was cold, stern, and he fancied even
contemptuous.
‘And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we
have been told?’ said Princess Mary.
Pierre laughed.
‘No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being
taken prisoner means being Napoleon’s guest. Not only did
I never see him but I heard nothing about himI was in much
lower company!’
Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak
about his captivity was gradually led on to do so.
‘But it’s true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?’ Natasha asked with a slight smile. ‘I guessed it then
when we met at the Sukharev tower, do you remember?’
Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by Princess Mary’s questions and especially by
Natasha’s into giving a detailed account of his adventures.
At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now
customary with him toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came to describe the horrors and
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sufferings he had witnessed he was unconsciously carried
away and began speaking with the suppressed emotion of a
man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he
has lived through.
Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre
and now at Natasha. In the whole narrative she saw only
Pierre and his goodness. Natasha, leaning on her elbow,
the expression of her face constantly changing with the
narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never wanderedevidently herself experiencing all that he described.
Not only her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed Pierre that she understood just what
he wished to convey. It was clear that she understood not
only what he said but also what he wished to, but could not,
express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident
with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was
arrested was this: ‘It was an awful sightchildren abandoned,
some in the flames… One was snatched out before my eyes…
and there were women who had their things snatched off
and their earrings torn out…’ he flushed and grew confused.
‘Then a patrol arrived and all the menall those who were not
looting, that iswere arrested, and I among them.’
‘I am sure you’re not telling us everything; I am sure you
did something…’ said Natasha and pausing added, ‘something fine?’
Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he
wanted to pass
