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_ Natasha 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
Natasha 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 of 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 Natasha 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 Bezukhova 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 Natasha 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 Natasha 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 Natasha's outbursts had been due to her need of
children and a husband- as she herself had once exclaimed at
Otradnoe not so much in fun as in earnest- and her mother was now
surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never
understood Natasha, and she kept saying that she had always known that
Natasha 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."
Natasha 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. Natasha 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 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 Natasha'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 Natasha,
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. Natasha
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.
Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the
society of her relatives- Countess Mary, and her brother, her
mother, and Sonya. 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 Natasha let herself go that the way she
dressed and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy-
she was jealous of Sonya, 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
Natasha 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 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 Natasha 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 Natasha 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 Natasha tried to guess. Their way
of life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties,
Natasha's occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected
not merely with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what
Natasha 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 Natasha 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. _
Read next: First Epilogue: 1813 - 20: Chapter 11
Read previous: First Epilogue: 1813 - 20: Chapter 9
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