War And Peace: Book 8 - CHAPTER XIX

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FROM THE DAY of his wife's arrival in Moscow, Pierre had been intending to go

away somewhere else, simply not to be with her. Soon after the Rostovs' arrival

in Moscow, the impression made upon him by Natasha had impelled him to hasten in

carrying out his intention. He went to Tver to see the widow of Osip

Alexyevitch, who had long before promised to give him papers of the

deceased's.

When Pierre came back to Moscow, he was handed a letter from Marya

Dmitryevna, who summoned him to her on a matter of great importance, concerning

Andrey Bolkonsky and his betrothed. Pierre had been avoiding Natasha. It seemed

to him that he had for her a feeling stronger than a married man should have for

a girl betrothed to his friend. And some fate was continually throwing him into

her company.

“What has happened? And what do they want with me?” he thought as he dressed

to go to Marya Dmitryevna's. “If only Prince Andrey would make haste home and

marry her,” thought Pierre on the way to the house.

In the Tverskoy Boulevard some one shouted his name.

“Pierre! Been back long?” a familiar voice called to him. Pierre raised his

head. Anatole, with his everlasting companion Makarin, dashed by in a sledge

with a pair of grey trotting-horses, who were kicking up the snow on to the

forepart of the sledge. Anatole was sitting in the classic pose of military

dandies, the lower part of his face muffled in his beaver collar, and his head

bent a little forward. His face was fresh and rosy; his hat, with its white

plume, was stuck on one side, showing his curled, pomaded hair, sprinkled with

fine snow.

“Indeed, he is the real philosopher!” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing beyond

the present moment of pleasure; nothing worries him, and so he is always

cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What would I not give to be just like him!”

Pierre mused with envy.

In Marya Dmitryevna's entrance-hall the footman, as he took off Pierre's fur

coat, told him that his mistress begged him to come to her in her bedroom.

As he opened the door into the reception-room, Pierre caught sight of

Natasha, sitting at the window with a thin, pale, and ill-tempered face. She

looked round at him, frowned, and with an expression of frigid dignity walked

out of the room.

“What has happened?” asked Pierre, going in to Marya Dmitryevna.

“Fine doings,” answered Marya Dmitryevna. “Fifty-eight years I have lived in

the world—never have I seen anything so disgraceful.” And exacting from Pierre

his word of honour not to say a word about all he was to hear, Marya Dmitryevna

informed him that Natasha had broken off her engagement without the knowledge of

her parents; that the cause of her doing so was Anatole Kuragin, with whom

Pierre's wife had thrown her, and with whom Natasha had attempted to elope in

her father's absence in order to be secretly married to him.

Pierre, with hunched shoulders and open mouth, listened to what Marya

Dmitryevna was saying, hardly able to believe his ears. That Prince Andrey's

fiancée, so passionately loved by him, Natasha Rostov, hitherto so charming,

should give up Bolkonsky for that fool Anatole, who was married already (Pierre

knew the secret of his marriage), and be so much in love with him as to consent

to elope with him—that Pierre could not conceive and could not comprehend. He

could not reconcile the sweet impression he had in his soul of Natasha, whom he

had known from childhood, with this new conception of her baseness, folly, and

cruelty. He thought of his wife. “They are all alike,” he said to himself,

reflecting he was not the only man whose unhappy fate it was to be bound to a

low woman. But still he felt ready to weep with sorrow for Prince Andrey, with

sorrow for his pride. And the more he felt for his friend, the greater was the

contempt and even aversion with which he thought of Natasha, who had just passed

him with such an expression of rigid dignity. He could not know that Natasha's

heart was filled with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not her

fault that her face accidentally expressed dignity and severity.

“What! get married?” cried Pierre at Marya Dmitryevna's words. “He can't get

married; he is married.”

“Worse and worse,” said Marya Dmitryevna. “He's a nice youth. A perfect

scoundrel. And she's expecting him; she's been expecting him these two days. We

must tell her; at least she will leave off expecting him.”

After learning from Pierre the details of Anatole's marriage, and pouring out

her wrath against him in abusive epithets, Marya Dmitryevna informed Pierre of

her object in sending for him. Marya Dmitryevna was afraid that the count or

Bolkonsky, who might arrive any moment, might hear of the affair, though she

intended to conceal it from them, and might challenge Kuragin, and she therefore

begged Pierre to bid his brother-in-law from her to leave Moscow and not to dare

to show himself in her presence. Pierre promised to do as she desired him, only

then grasping the danger menacing the old count, and Nikolay, and Prince Andrey.

After briefly and precisely explaining to him her wishes, she let him go to the

drawing-room.

“Mind, the count knows nothing of it. You behave as though you know nothing,”

she said to him. “And I'll go and tell her it's no use for her to expect him!

And stay to dinner, if you care to,” Marya Dmitryevna called after Pierre.

Pierre met the old count. He seemed upset and anxious. That morning Natasha

had told him that she had broken off her engagement to Bolkonsky.

“I'm in trouble, in trouble, my dear fellow,” he said to Pierre, “with those

girls without the mother. I do regret now that I came. I will be open with you.

Have you heard she has broken off her engagement without a word to any one? I

never did, I'll admit, feel very much pleased at the marriage. He's an excellent

man, of course, but still there could be no happiness against a father's will,

and Natasha will never want for suitors. Still it had been going on so long, and

then such a step, without her father's or her mother's knowledge! And now she's

ill, and God knows what it is. It's a bad thing, count, a bad thing to have a

daughter away from her mother.…” Pierre saw the count was greatly troubled, and

tried to change the conversation to some other subject, but the count went back

again to his troubles.

Sonya came into the drawing-room with an agitated face.

“Natasha is not very well; she is in her room and would like to see you.

Marya Dmitryevna is with her and she asks you to come too.”

“Why, yes, you're such a great friend of Bolkonsky's; no doubt she wants to

send him some message,” said the count. “Ah, my God, my God! How happy it all

was!” And clutching at his sparse locks, the count went out of the room.

Marya Dmitryevna had told Natasha that Anatole was married. Natasha would not

believe her, and insisted on the statement being confirmed by Pierre himself.

Sonya told Pierre this as she led him across the corridor to Natasha's

room.

Natasha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Marya Dmitryevna, and she met

Pierre at the door with eyes of feverish brilliance and inquiry. She did not

smile nor nod to him. She simply looked hard at him, and that look asked him

simply: was he a friend or an enemy like the rest, as regards Anatole? Pierre in

himself had evidently no existence for her.

“He knows everything,” said Marya Dmitryevna, addressing Natasha. “Let him

tell you whether I have spoken the truth.”

As a hunted, wounded beast looks at the approaching dogs and hunters, Natasha

looked from one to the other.

“Natalya Ilyinitchna,” Pierre began, dropping his eyes and conscious of a

feeling of pity for her and loathing for the operation he had to perform,

“whether it is true or not cannot affect you since …”

“Then it is not true that he is married?”

“No; it is true.”

“Has he been married long?” she asked. “On your word of honour?”

Pierre told her so on his word of honour.

“Is he still here?” she asked rapidly.

“Yes, I have just seen him.”

She was obviously incapable of speaking; she made a sign with her hands for

them to leave her alone.

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1. Ebooks list page : 83
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER V
3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
6. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER IV
7. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIX
8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XVI
9. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XV
10. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIV
11. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER V
12. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER VI
13. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIX
14. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XVI
15. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIV
16. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XV