War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

of Russia’s misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near her heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nikoláy noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Márya’s character with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being. Nikoláy blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the moment.

When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nikoláy, as is usual when there are children, turned to Prince Andréy’s little son, caressing him and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on his knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Márya. With a softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms of the man she loved. Nikoláy also noticed that look and, as if understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with good natured playfulness.

As she was in mourning Princess Márya did not go out into society, and Nikoláy did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all the same the governor’s wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to Nikoláy the flattering things Princess Márya said of him and vice versa, and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Márya. For this purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop’s house before Mass.

Though Rostóv told the governor’s wife that he would not make any declaration to Princess Márya, he promised to go.

As at Tilsit Rostóv had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He knew that after his promise to Sónya it would be what he deemed base to declare his feelings to Princess Márya. And he knew that he would never act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart) that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing something very important⁠—more important than anything he had ever done in his life.

After meeting Princess Márya, though the course of his life went on externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously, thought about Sónya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife, adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife’s carriage, little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on⁠—and these pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Márya, to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures seemed incongruous and false. It made him afraid.

VII

The dreadful news of the battle of Borodinó, of our losses in killed and wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached Vorónezh in the middle of September. Princess Márya, having learned of her brother’s wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of him, prepared (so Nikoláy heard, he had not seen her again himself) to set off in search of Prince Andréy.

When he received the news of the battle of Borodinó and the abandonment of Moscow, Rostóv was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Vorónezh suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard seemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs and felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear to him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became unreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster.

A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which Nikoláy was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory. He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects. When the service was over the governor’s wife beckoned him to her.

“Have you seen the princess?” she asked, indicating with a movement of her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir.

Nikoláy immediately recognized Princess Márya not so much by the profile he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Márya, evidently engrossed by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving the church.

Nikoláy looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had seen before, there was the same general expression of refined, inner, spiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was a pathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred before when she was present, Nikoláy went up to her without waiting to be prompted by the governor’s wife and not asking himself whether or not it was right and proper