War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
CHAPTER XXIII
2218 words | Chapter 148
Prince Andrew needed his father’s consent to his marriage, and to
obtain this he started for the country next day.
His father received his son’s communication with external composure,
but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to
alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life
was already ending. “If only they would let me end my days as I want
to,” thought the old man, “then they might do as they please.”
With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for
important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole
matter.
In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards
birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young
as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress
on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would
be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. “Fourthly and finally,”
the father said, looking ironically at his son, “I beg you to put it
off for a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for
a German tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or
obstinacy—as you please—is still as great, marry! And that’s my
last word on it. Mind, the last...” concluded the prince, in a tone
which showed that nothing would make him alter his decision.
Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or
his fiancée’s, would not stand a year’s test, or that he (the old
prince himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his
father’s wish—to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostóvs,
Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.
Next day after her talk with her mother Natásha expected Bolkónski all
day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.
Pierre did not come either and Natásha, not knowing that Prince Andrew
had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.
Three weeks passed in this way. Natásha had no desire to go out
anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and
listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the
evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her
that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and
pitying her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity
intensified her misery.
Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began
to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why
it is being punished.
The countess began to soothe Natásha, who after first listening to her
mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her:
“Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think, and don’t want to think about
it! He just came and then left off, left off....”
Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went
on quietly:
“And I don’t at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I
have now become quite calm, quite calm.”
The day after this conversation Natásha put on the old dress which
she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the
mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had
abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to
the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and
began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise
she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that
particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not
expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the
whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt
cheerful. “What’s the good of making so much of it? Things are nice
as it is,” she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the
room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with
each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair
of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of
the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a
mirror she glanced into it. “There, that’s me!” the expression of
her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. “Well, and very
nice too! I need nobody.”
A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she
would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her
walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood—love of,
and delight in, herself. “How charming that Natásha is!” she said
again, speaking as some third, collective, male person. “Pretty,
a good voice, young, and in nobody’s way if only they leave her in
peace.” But however much they left her in peace she could not now be
at peace, and immediately felt this.
In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, “At home?” and
then footsteps were heard. Natásha was looking at the mirror, but did
not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw
herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though
she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.
Pale and agitated, Natásha ran into the drawing room.
“Mamma! Bolkónski has come!” she said. “Mamma, it is awful, it is
unbearable! I don’t want... to be tormented? What am I to do?...”
Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with
an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natásha his face
brightened. He kissed the countess’ hand and Natásha’s, and sat
down beside the sofa.
“It is long since we had the pleasure...” began the countess,
but Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question,
obviously in haste to say what he had to.
“I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my
father’s. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only
got back last night,” he said glancing at Natásha; “I want to have
a talk with you, Countess,” he added after a moment’s pause.
The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.
“I am at your disposal,” she murmured.
Natásha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:
something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared
straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.
“At once? This instant!... No, it can’t be!” she thought.
Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not
mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.
“Go, Natásha! I will call you,” said the countess in a whisper.
Natásha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at
her mother and went out.
“I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,” said
Prince Andrew.
The countess’ face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.
“Your offer...” she began at last sedately. He remained silent,
looking into her eyes. “Your offer...” (she grew confused) “is
agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I
hope... but it will depend on her....”
“I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to
me?” said Prince Andrew.
“Yes,” replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with
a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his
forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a
son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. “I
am sure my husband will consent,” said the countess, “but your
father...”
“My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express
condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a
year. And I wished to tell you of that,” said Prince Andrew.
“It is true that Natásha is still young, but—so long as that?...”
“It is unavoidable,” said Prince Andrew with a sigh.
“I will send her to you,” said the countess, and left the room.
“Lord have mercy upon us!” she repeated while seeking her daughter.
Sónya said that Natásha was in her bedroom. Natásha was sitting on
the bed, pale and dry-eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering
something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped
up and flew to her.
“Well, Mamma?... Well?...”
“Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand,” said the countess,
coldly it seemed to Natásha. “Go... go,” said the mother, sadly and
reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.
Natásha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she
came in and saw him she paused. “Is it possible that this stranger
has now become everything to me?” she asked herself, and immediately
answered, “Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than
everything in the world.” Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast
eyes.
“I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?”
He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of
her face. Her face said: “Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?
Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?”
She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, yes!” Natásha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed
loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I am so happy!” she replied, smiled through her tears, bent
over closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether
she might, and then kissed him.
Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find
in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly
changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of
desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear
at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of
the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though
not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.
“Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?” asked
Prince Andrew, still looking into her eyes.
“Is it possible that I—the ‘chit of a girl,’ as everybody called
me,” thought Natásha—“is it possible that I am now to be the
wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father
looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no
more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies
a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask
me?”
“No,” she replied, but she had not understood his question.
“Forgive me!” he said. “But you are so young, and I have already
been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know
yourself.”
Natásha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to
take in the meaning of his words.
“Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,” continued
Prince Andrew, “it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask
you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall
remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should
you come to love...” said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.
“Why do you say that?” Natásha interrupted him. “You know that
from the very day you first came to Otrádnoe I have loved you,” she
cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth.
“In a year you will learn to know yourself....”
“A whole year!” Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that
the marriage was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a
year?...”
Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.
Natásha did not hear him.
“And can’t it be helped?” she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply,
but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.
“It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!” Natásha suddenly cried,
and again burst into sobs. “I shall die, waiting a year: it’s
impossible, it’s awful!” She looked into her lover’s face and saw
in it a look of commiseration and perplexity.
“No, no! I’ll do anything!” she said, suddenly checking her tears.
“I am so happy.”
The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple
their blessing.
From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostóvs’ as
Natásha’s affianced lover.
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