all the powers of her soul were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not imagine and saw no interest
in imagining how it would be if things were different.
Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized
the more the society of her relativesCountess Mary, and her
brother, her mother, and Sonya. She valued the company of
those to whom she could come striding disheveled from the
nursery in her dressing gown, and with joyful face show a
yellow instead of a green stain on baby’s napkin, and from
whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect that
baby was much better.
To such an extent had Natasha let herself go that the way
she dressed and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her
jealousyshe was jealous of Sonya, of the governess, and of
every woman, pretty or plainwere habitual subjects of jest
to those about her. The general opinion was that Pierre was
under his wife’s thumb, which was really true. From the
very first days of their married life Natasha had announced
her demands. Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife’s view,
to him a perfectly novel one, that every moment of his life
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belonged to her and to the family. His wife’s demands astonished him, but they also flattered him, and he submitted
to them.
Pierre’s subjection consisted in the fact that he not only
dared not flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to,
any other woman; did not dare dine at the Club as a pastime, did not dare spend money a whim, and did not dare
absent himself for any length of time, except on businessin
which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which she
did not in the least understand but to which she attributed
great importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had
the right to regulate his life and that of the whole family
exactly as he chose. At home Natasha placed herself in the
position of a slave to her husband, and the whole household
went on tiptoe when he was occupiedthat is, was reading or
writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality for
anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only
to express a wish and Natasha would jump up and run to
fulfill it.
The entire household was governed according to Pierre’s
supposed orders, that is, by his wishes which Natasha tried
to guess. Their way of life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natasha’s occupations, the children’s
upbringing, were all selected not merely with regard to
Pierre’s expressed wishes, but to what Natasha from the
thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes
to be. And she deduced the essentials of his wishes quite
correctly, and having once arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to change his mind
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she would fight him with his own weapons.
Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after
the birth of their first child who was delicate, when they
had to change the wet nurse three times and Natasha fell
ill from despair, Pierre one day told her of Rousseau’s view,
with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite
the opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her
husband himselfwho were all vigorously opposed to her
nursing her baby herself, a thing then unheard of and considered injuriousshe insisted on having her own way, and
after that nursed all her babies herself.
It very often happened that in a moment of irritation
husband and wife would have a dispute, but long afterwards
Pierre to his surprise and delight would find in his wife’s
ideas and actions the very thought against which she had
argued, but divested of everything superfluous that in the
excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his
opinion.
After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and
firm consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt
this because he saw himself reflected in his wife. He felt
the good and bad within himself inextricably mingled and
overlapping. But only what was really good in him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.
And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a
direct and mysterious reflection.
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Chapter XI
Two months previously when Pierre was already staying
with the Rostovs he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come to Petersburg to confer on some
important questions that were being discussed there by a
society of which Pierre was one of the principal founders.
On reading that letter (she always read her husband’s
letters) Natasha herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel his absence very acutely.
She attributed immense importance to all her husband’s
intellectual and abstract interests though she did not understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance
to him in such matters. To Pierre’s timid look of inquiry after reading the letter she replied by asking him to go, but to
fix a definite date for his return. He was given four weeks’
leave of absence.
Ever since that leave of absence had expired, more than
a fortnight before, Natasha had been in a constant state of
alarm, depression, and irritability.
Denisov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, had arrived during
that fortnight. He looked at Natasha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a person once dear. A dull,
dejected look, random replies, and talk about the nursery
was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress.
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Natasha was sad and irritable all that time, especially
when her mother, her brother, Sonya, or Countess Mary in
their efforts to console her tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning.
‘It’s all nonsense, all rubbishthose discussions which lead
to nothing and all those idiotic societies!’ Natasha declared
of the very affairs in the immense importance of which she
firmly believed.
And she would go to the nursery to nurse Petya, her only
boy. No one else could tell her anything so comforting or
so reasonable as this little three-month-old creature when
he lay at her breast and she was conscious of the movement
of his lips and the snuffling of his little nose. That creature
said: ‘You are angry, you are jealous, you would like to pay
him out, you are afraidbut here am I! And I am he…’ and
that was unanswerable. It was more than true.
During that fortnight of anxiety Natasha resorted to the
baby for comfort so often, and fussed over him so much,
that she overfed him and he fell ill. She was terrified by his
illness, and yet that was just what she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her husband more
easily.
She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre’s sleigh
was heard at the front door, and the old nurseknowing how
to please her mistressentered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming face.
‘Has he come?’ Natasha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid
to move lest she should rouse the dozing baby.
‘He’s come, ma’am,’ whispered the nurse.
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The blood rushed to Natasha’s face and her feet involuntarily moved, but she could not jump up and run out. The
baby again opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘You’re here?’
he seemed to be saying, and again lazily smacked his lips.
Cautiously withdrawing her breast, Natasha rocked him
a little, handed him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps
toward the door. But at the door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her joy left the child
too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with raised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot.
‘Go, ma’am! Don’t worry, go!’ she whispered, smiling,
with the kind of familiarity that grows up between a nurse
and her mistress.
Natasha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom.
Denisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing
room with his pipe, now for the first time recognized the
old Natasha. A flood of brilliant, joyful light poured from
her transfigured face.
‘He’s come!’ she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denisov
felt that he too was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not
much care for, had returned.
On reaching the vestibule Natasha saw a tall figure in a
fur coat unwinding his scarf. ‘It’s he! It’s really he! He has
come!’ she said to herself, and rushing at him embraced
him, pressed his head to her breast, and then pushed him
back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face, covered with hoarfrost. ‘Yes, it is he, happy and contented..’
Then all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense
she had experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that
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had lit up her face vanished; she frowned and overwhelmed
Pierre with a torrent of reproaches and angry words.
‘Yes, it’s all very well for you. You are pleased, you’ve had
a good time…. But what about me? You might at least have
shown consideration for the children. I am nursing and my
milk was spoiled…. Petya was at death’s door. But you were
enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying..’
Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have
come sooner; he knew this outburst was unseemly and
would blow over in a minute or two; above all he knew that
he himself was bright and happy. He wanted to smile but
dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous, frightened face and bent down.
‘I could not, on my honor. But how is Petya?’
‘All right now. Come along! I wonder you’re not ashamed!
If only you could see what I was like without you, how I suffered!’
‘You are well?’
‘Come, come!’ she said, not letting go of his arm. And
they went to their rooms.
When Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he
was in the nursery holding his baby son, who was again
awake, on his huge right palm and dandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby’s
