War and Peace

ext day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before,
and among them at the Rostóvs’ with whom he had renewed acquaintance
at the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the
call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a
pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.

Natásha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue
house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in
her ball dress. She and all the Rostóv family welcomed him as an old
friend, simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly
judged severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple,
and kindly people. The old count’s hospitality and good nature, which
struck one especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such
that Prince Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. “Yes,”
he thought, “they are capital people, who of course have not the
slightest idea what a treasure they possess in Natásha; but they are
kindly folk and form the best possible setting for this strikingly
poetic, charming girl, overflowing with life!”

In Natásha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely
alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world,
that in the Otrádnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night
had already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no
longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it
found in it a new enjoyment.

After dinner Natásha, at Prince Andrew’s request, went to the
clavichord and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking
to the ladies and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased
speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought
impossible for him. He looked at Natásha as she sang, and something new
and joyful stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad.
He had absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What
about? His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?...
His hopes for the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden,
vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great
and illimitable within him and that limited and material something that
he, and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him
while she sang.

As soon as Natásha had finished she went up to him and asked how he
liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that
she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he
liked her singing as he liked everything she did.

Prince Andrew left the Rostóvs’ late in the evening. He went to bed
from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his
candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all
troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he
had stepped out of a stuffy room into God’s own fresh air. It did not
enter his head that he was in love with Natásha; he was not thinking
about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all
life appeared in a new light. “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this
narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open
to me?” said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long
while he began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he
must attend to his son’s education by finding a tutor and putting
the boy in his charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go
abroad, and see England, Switzerland and Italy. “I must use my freedom
while I feel so much strength and youth in me,” he said to himself.
“Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of
happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead
bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!”
thought he.