Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this
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time he had risen from the table and was pacing the room,
Natasha following him with her eyes. Then he added:
‘No, you can’t understand what I learned from that illiterate manthat simple fellow.’
‘Yes, yes, go on!’ said Natasha. ‘Where is he?’
‘They killed him almost before my eyes.’
And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to
tell of the last days of their retreat, of Karataev’s illness and
his death.
He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled
them. He now, as it were, saw a new meaning in all he had
gone through. Now that he was telling it all to Natasha he
experienced that pleasure which a man has when women
listen to himnot clever women who when listening either
try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and
when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt
it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute
their own clever comments prepared in their little mental
workshopbut the pleasure given by real women gifted with
a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows
of himself. Natasha without knowing it was all attention:
she did not lose a word, no single quiver in Pierre’s voice,
no look, no twitch of a muscle in his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its flight and took it
straight into her open heart, divining the secret meaning of
all Pierre’s mental travail.
Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized
with him, but she now saw something else that absorbed all
her attention. She saw the possibility of love and happiness
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between Natasha and Pierre, and the first thought of this
filled her heart with gladness.
It was three o’clock in the morning. The footmen came in
with sad and stern faces to change the candles, but no one
noticed them.
Pierre finished his story. Natasha continued to look at
him intently with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as
if trying to understand something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced and happy confusion
glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what to say
next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent.
It occurred to none of them that it was three o’clock and
time to go to bed.
‘People speak of misfortunes and sufferings,’ remarked
Pierre, ‘but if at this moment I were asked: ‘Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go
through all this again?’ then for heaven’s sake let me again
have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine that when we are
thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then
that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is
happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,’
he added, turning to Natasha.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, answering something quite different.
‘I too should wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning.’
Pierre looked intently at her.
‘Yes, and nothing more.’ said Natasha.
‘It’s not true, not true!’ cried Pierre. ‘I am not to blame
for being alive and wishing to livenor you either.’
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Suddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with
her hands, and began to cry.
‘What is it, Natasha?’ said Princess Mary.
‘Nothing, nothing.’ She smiled at Pierre through her
tears. ‘Good night! It is time for bed.’
Pierre rose and took his leave.
Princess Mary and Natasha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of what Pierre had told them. Princess
Mary did not express her opinion of Pierre nor did Natasha
speak of him.
‘Well, good night, Mary!’ said Natasha. ‘Do you know,
I am often afraid that by not speaking of him’ (she meant
Prince Andrew) ‘for fear of not doing justice to our feelings,
we forget him.’
Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged
the justice of Natasha’s remark, but she did not express
agreement in words.
‘Is it possible to forget?’ said she.
‘It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was
hard and painful, but good, very good!’ said Natasha. ‘I am
sure he really loved him. That is why I told him… Was it all
right?’ she added, suddenly blushing.
‘To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!’ said
Princess Mary.
‘Do you know, Mary…’ Natasha suddenly said with a
mischievous smile such as Princess Mary had not seen on
her face for a long time, ‘he has somehow grown so clean,
smooth, and freshas if he had just come out of a Russian bath;
do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn’t it true?’
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‘Yes,’ replied Princess Mary. ‘He has greatly improved.’
‘With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well,
just as if he had come straight from the bath… Papa used
to..’
‘I understand why he’ (Prince Andrew) ‘liked no one so
much as him,’ said Princess Mary.
‘Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are
friends when they are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike himin everything.’
‘Yes, but he’s wonderful.’
‘Well, good night,’ said Natasha.
And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time
on her face as if it had been forgotten there.
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Chapter XVIII
It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night.
He paced up and down his room, now turning his thoughts
on a difficult problem and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now smiling happily.
He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of
their love, at one moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling. It was already six in the morning
and he still paced up and down the room.
‘Well, what’s to be done if it cannot be avoided? What’s
to be done? Evidently it has to be so,’ said he to himself, and
hastily undressing he got into bed, happy and agitated but
free from hesitation or indecision.
‘Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must
do everything that she and I may be man and wife,’ he told
himself.
A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday,
Savelich came to ask him about packing for the journey.
‘What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there
in Petersburg?’ he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. ‘Oh, yes, long ago before this happened I did for some
reason mean to go to Petersburg,’ he reflected. ‘Why? But
perhaps I shall go. What a good fellow he is and how attentive, and how he remembers everything,’ he thought,
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looking at Savelich’s old face, ‘and what a pleasant smile he
has!’
‘Well, Savelich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?’ Pierre asked him.
‘What’s the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We
lived under the late countthe kingdom of heaven be his!and
we have lived under you too, without ever being wronged.’
‘And your children?’
‘The children will live just the same. With such masters
one can live.’
‘But what about my heirs?’ said Pierre. ‘Supposing I
suddenly marry… it might happen,’ he added with an involuntary smile.
‘If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a
good thing.’
‘How easy he thinks it,’ thought Pierre. ‘He doesn’t know
how terrible it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late…
it is terrible!’
‘So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?’
asked Savelich.
‘No, I’ll put it off for a bit. I’ll tell you later. You must
forgive the trouble I have put you to,’ said Pierre, and seeing Savelich smile, he thought: ‘But how strange it is that
he should not know that now there is no Petersburg for me,
and that that must be settled first of all! But probably he
knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall I have a
talk with him and see what he thinks?’ Pierre reflected. ‘No,
another time.’
At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he
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had been to see Princess Mary the day before and had there
met‘Whom do you think? Natasha Rostova!’
The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary
in that than if he had seen Anna Semenovna.
‘Do you know her?’ asked Pierre.
‘I have seen the princess,’ she replied. ‘I heard that they
were arranging a match for her with young Rostov. It would
be a very good thing for the Rostovs, they are said to be utterly ruined.’
‘No; I mean do you know Natasha Rostova?’
‘I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great
pity.’
‘No, she either doesn’t understand or is pretending,’
thought Pierre. ‘Better not say anything to her either.’
The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre’s
journey.
‘How kind they all are,’ thought Pierre. ‘What is surprising is that they should trouble about these things now when
it can no longer be of interest to them. And all for me!’
On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send a representative to the Faceted Palace
to recover things that were to be returned to their owners
that day.
‘And this man too,’ thought Pierre, looking into the face
of the Chief of Police. ‘What a fine, good-looking officer
and how kind. Fancy bothering about such trifies now! And
they actually say he is not honest and takes bribes. What
nonsense! Besides, why shouldn’t he take bribes? That’s the
way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a
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kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me.’
Pierre went to Princess Mary’s to dinner.
As he drove through the streets past the houses that
had been burned down, he was surprised by the beauty of
those ruins. The picturesqueness of the chimney stacks and
tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters of the town,
stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him
of the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and
their passengers, the carpenters cutting the timber for new
houses with axes, the women hawkers, and the shopkeepers,
all looked at him with cheerful beaming eyes that seemed to
say: ‘Ah, there he is! Let’s see what will come of it!’
At the entrance to
