War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
CHAPTER X
1931 words | Chapter 366
Natásha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had
three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was
now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult
to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natásha of
former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft,
and serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing
animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm.
Now her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was
not visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and
fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That
happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home,
or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of
Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined
was jealous of Prince Andrew’s memory), or on the rare occasions when
something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite
abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire
did kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more
attractive than in former days.
Since their marriage Natásha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in
Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to
say, in Nicholas’ house. The young Countess Bezúkhova was not often seen
in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her
and found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natásha liked
solitude—she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought
that she did not—but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the nursing
of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband’s life, she had
demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing society.
All who had known Natásha before her marriage wondered at the change
in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with her
maternal instinct had realized that all Natásha’s outbursts had been due
to her need of children and a husband—as she herself had once exclaimed
at Otrádnoe not so much in fun as in earnest—and her mother was now
surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never understood
Natásha, and she kept saying that she had always known that Natásha
would make an exemplary wife and mother.
“Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all
bounds,” said the countess, “so that it even becomes absurd.”
Natásha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,
especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself
go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be
even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and
should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her
husband. Natásha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery,
of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up
just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with
her manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show
herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid
inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction
to all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly
taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of
her husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up
entirely—that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden
from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained
by the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something
else—indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.
To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic
songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn
herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps
have been agreeable—she did not know—but she had no time at all for it.
The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress, or
to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for these
things.
We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in
a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so
trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one’s entire
attention is devoted to it.
The subject which wholly engrossed Natásha’s attention was her family:
that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong
entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear,
bring into the world, nurse, and bring up.
And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole
soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger
did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers
appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet
was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.
There were then as now conversations and discussions about women’s
rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights,
though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but
these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natásha, she positively
did not understand them.
These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in
marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is,
only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which
lies in the family.
Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of
how to get the greatest gratification from one’s dinner, did not then
and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the
nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.
If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two
dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his
purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.
If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have
many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that
case will not have a family.
If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the
family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one
can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for
the family—that is, one wife or one husband. Natásha needed a husband. A
husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw no
need of any other or better husband, but as 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.
Natásha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the
society of her relatives—Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother, and
Sónya. 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 Natásha let herself go that the way she dressed
and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy—she was jealous
of Sónya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain—were
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 Natásha 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 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 on a
whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on
business—in 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 Natásha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,
and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied—that 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 Natásha 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 Natásha tried to guess. Their way of
life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natásha’s
occupations, the children’s upbringing, were all selected not merely
with regard to Pierre’s expressed wishes, but to what Natásha 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 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 Natásha 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
himself—who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself,
a thing then unheard of and considered injurious—she 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.
Reading Tips
Use arrow keys to navigate
Press 'N' for next chapter
Press 'P' for previous chapter