War and Peace

atásha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which
she had counted on her fingers with Borís after they had kissed four
years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sónya and her
mother, if Borís happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of
that episode as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not
worth mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question
whether her engagement to Borís was a jest or an important, binding
promise tormented her.

Since Borís left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the
Rostóvs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near
Otrádnoe, but had never been to see them.

Sometimes it occurred to Natásha that he did not wish to see her, and
this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke
of him.

“Nowadays old friends are not remembered,” the countess would say
when Borís was mentioned.

Anna Mikháylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed
to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously
and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on
which he had entered. When the Rostóvs came to Petersburg Borís called
on them.

He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natásha was
his most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of
letting her and her parents feel that the childish relations between
himself and Natásha could not be binding either on her or on him. He
had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess
Bezúkhova, a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage
of an important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he
was beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in
Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered
the Rostóvs’ drawing room Natásha was in her own room. When she
heard of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and
beaming with a more than cordial smile.

Borís remembered Natásha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from
under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her
four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different
Natásha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This
expression on his face pleased Natásha.

“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” asked the
countess.

Borís kissed Natásha’s hand and said that he was astonished at the
change in her.

“How handsome you have grown!”

“I should think so!” replied Natásha’s laughing eyes.

“And is Papa older?” she asked.

Natásha sat down and, without joining in Borís’ conversation with
the countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood’s suitor. He
felt the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced
at her occasionally.

Borís’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all
comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natásha noticed at once.
He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging
with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand
like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his
lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling
with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was
not accidentally, Natásha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the
highest aristocracy, to an ambassador’s ball he had attended, and to
invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.

All this time Natásha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her
brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Borís more and more. He looked
round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.
He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The
same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked
at him. After his first visit Borís said to himself that Natásha
attracted him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that
feeling, because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would
mean ruin to his career, while to renew their former relations without
intending to marry her would be dishonorable. Borís made up his mind
to avoid meeting Natásha, but despite that resolution he called again
a few days later and began calling often and spending whole days at the
Rostóvs’. It seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with
Natásha and tell her that the old times must be forgotten, that in
spite of everything... she could not be his wife, that he had no means,
and they would never let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt
awkward about entering on such an explanation. From day to day he
became more and more entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sónya that
Natásha was in love with Borís as of old. She sang him his favorite
songs, showed him her album, making him write in it, did not allow him
to allude to the past, letting it be understood how delightful was the
present; and every day he went away in a fog, without having said what
he meant to, and not knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how
it would all end. He left off visiting Hélène and received reproachful
notes from her every day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with
the Rostóvs.