Natasha sat there the whole time and never said a word, glancing across at him furtively. Boris became increasingly disconcerted and embarrassed under her gaze. He began to look round more frequently at Natasha, and his speech kept breaking down. He stayed no more than ten minutes before getting up to take his leave. Those quizzical, challenging and slightly mocking eyes had never left him. After this first visit Boris told himself that Natasha was as attractive as ever, but he mustn’t give in to this feeling, because to marry her – a girl with virtually no fortune – would be the ruin of his career, and it would be dishonourable to pursue their old relationship with no intention of marriage. Boris made up his mind to avoid Natasha, but despite this decision he called again a few days later, and then he became a regular visitor, often spending whole days at the Rostovs’. He couldn’t get it out of his mind that he ought to have things out with Natasha and tell her to forget the past – tell her that in spite of everything . . . she could never be his wife because he had no fortune and they would never let her marry him. But he could never quite bring himself to do it – the whole thing was too embarrassing. He became more and more involved with each passing day. Natasha – as far as her mother and Sonya could judge – seemed to be still in love with Boris. She sang him her favourite songs, showed him her album, got him to write things in it, stopped him talking about the old days because the new days were so wonderful, and every time he went back home in a fog of doubt not having said what he had meant to say, not knowing what he was doing, why he had come or how it would all end. He stopped visiting Hélène, received reproachful notes from her every day, and still spent days on end at the Rostovs’.
CHAPTER 13
One night the old countess was kneeling on the carpet in her bed-jacket, with her false curls discarded and a single thin wisp of hair escaping from under her white cotton night-cap, bowing to the floor and sighing and moaning as she said her prayers before going to bed, when the door creaked and in ran Natasha, also in a bed-jacket, with bare legs and slippers on her feet, and her hair done up in curl papers. The countess looked round with a frown on her face. She was saying her last prayer, ‘And if this couch should be my bier . . .’ Her devotional mood had been dispelled. Natasha, excited and red in the face, stopped in her tracks when she saw her mother praying and crouched down, automatically biting her tongue in self-reproach. Seeing that her mother had not finished praying, she tiptoed quickly over to the bed, slid one little foot against the other and pushed off her slippers before jumping up on to that very couch that the countess dreaded becoming her bier. It was a high feather-bedded couch, with five pillows ascending in size. Natasha slipped into bed, sank down into the feather mattress, turned over on one side and began snuggling down under the quilt, tucking herself in, bringing her knees up under her chin and kicking out with a tiny giggle as she alternately hid her face under the quilt and peeped out at her mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to bed looking all stern, but when she saw Natasha with her head under the covers she smiled her sweet, feeble smile.
‘Now come on,’ said her mother.
‘Mamma, we can have a little talk, can’t we?’ said Natasha. ‘Come on, one kiss under the chin, one more, and that’s it.’ And she put her arms round her mother’s neck and kissed her under the chin. Natasha’s general attitude to her mother could be quite brusque, but she behaved with such delicacy and sensitivity that whenever she put her arms round her mother she always did it without hurting her or doing anything unpleasant or embarrassing.
‘Well, what is it this time?’ asked her mother, settling down on the pillows and waiting for Natasha, who had been rolling backwards and forwards, to lie down next to her under the clothes, put her arms out and assume a serious attitude.
Natasha’s late-night visits before the count came home from the club were a source of the sweetest pleasure for mother and daughter.
‘Come on, what is it this time? And listen, I want to talk to you . . .’ Natasha put her hand over her mother’s mouth.
‘About Boris . . . Yes, I know,’ she said seriously. ‘That’s why I’ve come. Don’t tell me – I know. No, do.’ She took her hand away. ‘Tell me, Mamma! He’s a nice boy, isn’t he?’
‘Natasha, you’re sixteen years old! I was married at your age. You say Boris is a nice boy. Yes, he is, very nice, and I love him like a son. But what do you want? . . . What do you think? I can see you’ve turned his head . . .’
She looked round at her daughter as she spoke. Natasha was lying there looking straight ahead at one of the mahogany sphinxes carved on the bedposts, so the countess could see her only in profile. Her face struck the countess as remarkably serious and full of concentration.
