________________________________________________
_ At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex
of his house which had not been burned. He called on Count
Rostopchin and on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he
intended to leave for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was
celebrating the victory, everything was bubbling with life in the
ruined but reviving city. Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone
wished to meet him, and everyone questioned him about what he had
seen. Pierre felt particularly well disposed toward them all, but
was now instinctively on his guard for fear of binding himself in
any way. To all questions put to him- whether important or quite
trifling- such as: Where would he live? Was he going to rebuild?
When was he going to Petersburg and would he mind taking a parcel
for someone?- he replied: "Yes, perhaps," or, "I think so," and so on.
He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of
Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant
memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from
social obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him,
he had aroused in himself.
On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys
that Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days
of Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred
to him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary
was in Moscow and living in her house- which had not been burned- in
Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.
On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of
their friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially
of the last one at Borodino.
"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then
in? Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him
before he died?" thought Pierre. He recalled Karataev and his death
and involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and
yet so similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the
love he felt for both of them.
Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious
mood. The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but
its general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with
a stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence
of the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the
house, informed him that the princess had gone to her own
apartments, and that she received on Sundays.
"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me," said Pierre.
"Yes, sir," said the man. "Please step into the portrait gallery."
A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought
word from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he
would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment.
In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her
another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess
always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were
like he never knew or remembered. "This must be one of her
companions," he thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.
The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.
"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her
hand, "so this is how we meet again. He of spoke of you even at the
very last," she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion
with a shyness that surprised him for an instant.
"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of
good news we had received for a long time."
Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more
uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre
interrupted her.
"Just imagine- I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he had
been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only
know that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!"
Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the
companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,
as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion
in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would
not hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.
But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed
still greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's
face to that of the lady in the black dress and said:
"Do you really not recognize her?"
Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with
its black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long
forgotten and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive
eyes.
"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that
looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her."
But at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty,
effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its
hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from
that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre
with a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even
been thinking- especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him,
and enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer
possible, it was Natasha and he loved her.
At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess
Mary, and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had
been unaware. He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He
tried to hide his agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more
clearly- clearer than any words could have done- did he betray to
himself, to her, and to Princess Mary that he loved her.
"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as
soon as he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with
Princess Mary he again glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush
suffused his face and a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and
fear seized his soul. He became confused in his speech and stopped
in the middle of what he was saying.
Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect
to see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the
change in her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin
and pale, but that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was
unrecognizable at the moment he entered because on that face whose
eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of the joy of life,
now when he first entered and glanced at her there was not the least
shadow of a smile: only her eyes were kindly attentive and sadly
interrogative.
Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's
part, but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her
whole face. _
Read next: Book Fifteen: 1812-13: Chapter 16
Read previous: Book Fifteen: 1812-13: Chapter 14
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