War And Peace: Book 8 - CHAPTER XIII

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Category: Novel

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91 views since 2007-05-10, updated at 2008-05-18.

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COUNT ILYA ANDREITCH took his two girls to the Countess Bezuhov's. There were

a good many people assembled there. But Natasha hardly knew any of the persons

present. Count Ilya Andreitch observed with dissatisfaction that almost all the

company consisted of men or of ladies notorious for the freedom of their

behaviour. Mademoiselle George was standing in one corner of the room,

surrounded by young men. There were several Frenchmen present, and among them

Metivier, who had been a constant visitor at Countess Bezuhov's ever since her

arrival in Moscow. Count Ilya Andreitch made up his mind not to take a hand at

cards, not to leave his daughter's side, and to get away as soon as Mademoiselle

George's performance was over.

Anatole was at the door, unmistakably on the look-out for the Rostovs. At

once greeting the count, he went up to Natasha and followed her in. As soon as

Natasha saw him, the same feeling came upon her as at the theatre—the feeling of

gratified vanity at his admiration of her, and terror at the absence of any

moral barrier between them.

Ellen gave Natasha a delighted welcome, and was loud in her admiration of her

loveliness and her dress. Soon after their arrival, Mademoiselle George went out

of the room to change her dress. In the drawing-room chairs were being set in

rows and people began to sit down. Anatole moved a chair for Natasha, and would

have sat down by her, but the count, who was keeping his eye on Natasha, took

the seat beside her. Anatole sat down behind.

Mademoiselle George, with bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red scarf flung over

one shoulder, came into the empty space left for her between the chairs and

threw herself into an unnatural pose. An enthusiastic whisper was audible.

Mademoiselle George scanned her audience with stern and gloomy eyes, and

began reciting French verses, describing her guilty love for her son. In places

she raised her voice, in places she dropped to a whisper solemnly lifting her

head; in places she broke off and hissed with rolling eyes.

“Exquisite, divine, marvellous!” was heard on all sides. Natasha gazed at the

fat actress; but she heard nothing, saw nothing and understood nothing of what

was passing before her. She felt nothing, but that she was borne away again

irrevocably into that strange and senseless world so remote from her old world,

a world in which there was no knowing what was good and what was bad, what was

sensible and what was senseless. Behind her was sitting Anatole; and conscious

of his nearness, she was in frightened expectation of something.

After the first monologue all the company rose and surrounded Mademoiselle

George, expressing their admiration.

“How handsome she is!” said Natasha to her father, as he got up with the rest

and moved through the crowd to the actress.

“I don't think so, looking at you,” said Anatole, following Natasha. He said

this at a moment when no one but she could hear him. “You are charming…from the

moment I first saw you, I have not ceased…”

“Come along, come along, Natasha!” said the count, turning back for his

daughter. “How pretty she is!”

Natasha saying nothing went up to her father, and gazed at him with eyes of

inquiring wonder.

After several recitations in different styles, Mademoiselle George went away,

and Countess Bezuhov invited all the company to the great hall.

The count would have taken leave, but Ellen besought him not to spoil her

improvised ball. The Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha for a waltz, and

during the waltz, squeezing her waist and her hand, he told her she was

bewitching and that he loved her. During the écossaise, which she danced again

with Kuragin, when they were left alone Anatole said nothing to her, he simply

looked at her. Natasha was in doubt whether she had not dreamed what he said to

her during the waltz. At the end of the first figure he pressed her hand again.

Natasha lifted her frightened eyes to his face, but there was an expression of

such assurance and warmth in his fond look and smile that she could not as she

looked at him say what she had to say to him. She dropped her eyes.

“Don't say such things to me. I am betrothed, and I love another man …” she

articulated rapidly. She glanced at him. Anatole was neither disconcerted nor

mortified at what she had said.

“Don't talk to me of that. What is that to me,” he said; “I tell you I am

mad, mad with love of you. Is it my fault that you are fascinating?…It's for us

to begin.”

Natasha, eager and agitated, looked about her with wide-open, frightened

eyes, and seemed to be enjoying herself more than usual. She scarcely grasped

anything that happened that evening. They danced the écossaise and

“Grandfather.” Her father suggested their going, and she begged to stay longer.

Wherever she was, and with whomsoever she was speaking, she felt his eyes upon

her. Then she remembered that she had asked her father's permission to go into a

dressing-room to rearrange her dress, that Ellen had followed her, had talked to

her, laughing, of her brother's passion, and that in the little divan-room she

had been met again by Anatole; that Ellen had somehow vanished, they were left

alone, and Anatole taking her by the hand, had said in a tender voice:

“I can't come to see you, but is it possible that I shall never see you? I

love you madly. Can I never …?” and barring her way he brought his face close to

hers.

His large, shining, masculine eyes were so close to her eyes, that she could

see nothing but those eyes.

“Natalie?” his voice whispered interrogatively, and her hands were squeezed

till it hurt. “Natalie?”

“I don't understand; I have nothing to say,” was the answer in her

eyes.

Burning lips were pressed to her lips, and at the same instant she felt

herself set free again, and caught the sound of Ellen's steps and rustling gown

in the room again. Natasha looked round towards Ellen; then, red and trembling,

she glanced at him with alarmed inquiry, and moved towards the door.

“One word, just one word, for God's sake,” Anatole was saying. She stopped.

She so wanted him to say that word, that would have explained to her what had

happened and to which she could have found an answer.

“Natalie, one word … one …” he kept repeating, plainly not knowing what to

say, and he repeated it till Ellen reached them.

Ellen went back with Natasha to the drawing-room. The Rostovs went away

without staying to supper.

When she got home, Natasha did not sleep all night. She was tortured by the

insoluble question, Which did she love, Anatole or Prince Andrey? Prince Andrey,

she did love—she remembered clearly how great her love was for him. But she

loved Anatole too, of that there was no doubt. “Else could all that have

happened?” she thought. “If after that I could answer with a smile to his smile

at parting, if I could sink to that, it means that I fell in love with him from

the first minute. So he must be kind, noble, and good, and I could not help

loving him. What am I to do, if I love him and the other too?” she said to

herself, and was unable to find an answer to those terrible questions.

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