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

make her love for him still stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following the details of her husband’s plans, thoughts that had no connection with what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew. Her husband’s account of the boy’s agitation while Pierre was speaking struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for Nikólenka.

Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible⁠—in this life to love her husband, her children, Nikólenka, and all her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Márya’s soul always strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nikoláy gazed at her. “O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always fear when her face is like that?” thought he, and placing himself before the icon he began to say his evening prayers.

XVI

Natásha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband and wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity, understanding and expressing each other’s thoughts in ways contrary to all rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in a quite peculiar way. Natásha was so used to this kind of talk with her husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he began proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she, led on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were on the verge of a quarrel.

From the moment they were alone and Natásha came up to him with wide-open happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her bosom, saying: “Now you are all mine, mine! You won’t escape!”⁠—from that moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and contrary to them because quite different subjects were talked about at one and the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many topics did not prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest sign that they fully understood one another.

Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.

Natásha spoke to Pierre about her brother’s life and doings, of how she had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she was fonder than ever of Márya, and how Márya was in every way better than herself. In saying this Natásha was sincere in acknowledging Márya’s superiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Márya and to all other women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh.

Pierre, answering Natásha’s words, told her how intolerable it had been for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.

“I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies,” he said. “It was simply dull. Besides, I was very busy.”

Natásha looked intently at him and went on:

“Márya is so splendid,” she said. “How she understands children! It is as if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mítenka was naughty⁠ ⁠…”

“How like his father he is,” Pierre interjected.

Natásha knew why he mentioned Mítenka’s likeness to Nikoláy: the recollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and he wanted to know what Natásha thought of it.

“Nikólenka has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally accepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line,” said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered.

“No, the chief point is that to Nikoláy ideas and discussions are an amusement⁠—almost a pastime,” said Pierre. “For instance, he is collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till he has read what he had already bought⁠—Sismondi and Rousseau and Montesquieu,” he added with a smile. “You know how much I⁠ ⁠…” he began to soften down what he had said; but Natásha interrupted him to show that this was unnecessary.

“So you say ideas are an amusement to him.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I saw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else is mere amusement.”

“Ah, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you met the children,” said Natásha. “Which was most delighted? Lisa, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. “Nikoláy says we ought not to think. But I can’t help it. Besides, when I was in Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go to pieces without me⁠—everyone was pulling his own way. But I succeeded in uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and simple. You see, I don’t say that we ought to oppose this and that. We may be mistaken. What I say is: ‘Join hands, you who love the right, and let there be but one banner⁠—that of active virtue.’ Prince Sergéy is a fine fellow and clever.”

Natásha would have had no doubt as to the