War And Peace: Book 6 - CHAPTER XIX

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

THE NEXT DAY Prince Andrey paid calls on various people whom he had not

visited before, and among them on the Rostovs, with whom he had renewed his

acquaintance at the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness, which

necessitated a call on the Rostovs, Prince Andrey wanted to see at home that

original, eager girl, who had left such a pleasant recollection with him.

Natasha was one of the first to meet him. She was in a blue everyday dress,

in which she struck Prince Andrey as looking prettier than in her ball-dress.

She and all the family received Prince Andrey like an old friend, simply and

cordially. All the family, which Prince Andrey had once criticised so severely,

now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, kindly people. The

hospitality and good-nature of the old count, particularly striking and

attractive in Petersburg, was such that Prince Andrey could not refuse to stay

to dinner. “Yes, these are good-natured, capital people,” thought Bolkonsky. “Of

course they have no conception, what a treasure they possess in Natasha; but

they are good people, who make the best possible background for the strikingly

poetical figure of that charming girl, so full of life!”

Prince Andrey was conscious in Natasha of a special world, utterly remote

from him, brimful of joys unknown to him, that strange world, which even in the

avenue at Otradnoe, and on that moonlight night at the window had tantalised

him. Now that no longer tantalised him, it seemed no longer an alien world; but

he himself was stepping into it, and finding new pleasures in it.

After dinner Natasha went to the clavichord, at Prince Andrey's request, and

began singing. Prince Andrey stood at the window talking to the ladies, and

listened to her. In the middle of a phrase, Prince Andrey ceased speaking, and

felt suddenly a lump in his throat from tears, the possibility of which he had

not dreamed of in himself. He looked at Natasha singing, and something new and

blissful stirred in his soul. He was happy, and at the same time he was sad. He

certainly had nothing to weep about, but he was ready to weep. For what? For his

past love? For the little princess? For his lost illusions? … For his hopes for

the future? … Yes, and no. The chief thing which made him ready to weep was a

sudden, vivid sense of the fearful contrast between something infinitely great

and illimitable existing in him, and something limited and material, which he

himself was, and even she was.

This contrast made his heart ache, and rejoiced him while she was

singing.

As soon as Natasha had finished singing, she went up to him, and asked how he

liked her voice. She asked this, and was abashed after saying it, conscious that

she ought not to have asked such a question. He smiled, looking at her, and said

he liked her singing, as he liked everything she did.

It was late in the evening when Prince Andrey left the Rostovs'. He went to

bed from the habit of going to bed, but soon saw that he could not sleep. He

lighted a candle and sat up in bed; then got up, then lay down again, not in the

least wearied by his sleeplessness: he felt a new joy in his soul, as though he

had come out of a stuffy room into the open daylight. It never even occurred to

him that he was in love with this little Rostov girl. He was not thinking about

her. He only pictured her to himself, and the whole of life rose before him in a

new light as he did so. “Why do I struggle? Why am I troubled in this narrow

cramped routine, when life, all life, with all its joys, lies open before me?”

he said to himself. And for the first time for a very long while, he began

making happy plans for the future. He made up his mind that he ought to look

after his son's education, to find a tutor, and entrust the child to him. Then

he ought to retire from the army, and go abroad, see England, Switzerland,

Italy. “I must take advantage of my liberty, while I feel so much youth and

strength in me,” he told himself. “Pierre was right in saying that one must

believe in the possibility of happiness, in order to be happy, and now I do

believe in it. Let us leave the dead to bury the dead; but while one is living,

one must live and be happy,” he thought.

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