Natasha was listening, and her mind was working.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘You’ve completely turned his head – but why? What do you want him to do? You know you can’t marry him.’
‘Why not?’ said Natasha, with no change in her attitude.
‘Because he’s young, he’s poor, he’s related to you . . . oh, because you don’t love him.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do. It’s not right, my love.’
‘But what if I want to . . . ?’ Natasha began.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said the countess.
‘No, what if I want to . . . ?’
‘Natasha, I’m being serious . . .’
Natasha didn’t let her go on. She pulled the countess’s large hand over and kissed it on the back and on the palm, then she turned it over again and started kissing it all over, one knuckle after another, and the spaces in between, then back to a knuckle, and as she did so she whispered, ‘January, February, March, April, May.’
‘Come on, Mamma, say something. Tell me,’ she said, looking round at her mother, who was gazing at her daughter so fondly that she seemed to have forgotten what she was going to say.
‘It won’t do, darling. People are not going to understand your childish feelings for each other, and when they see you two so close together it could do you a lot of harm in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and anyway, what’s more important, it’s making him miserable for no good reason. He might have found someone who suits him, some girl with money, and now he’s going crazy.’
‘What do you mean, going crazy?’ repeated Natasha.
‘I’ll tell you what happened to me. I used to have a cousin . . .’
‘I know who you mean – Kirila Matveich. He’s an old man.’
‘Well he didn’t used to be. But listen, Natasha, I’ll have a word with Boris. He mustn’t come here as often as he does . . .’
‘Why mustn’t he, if that’s what he wants?’
‘Because I know it won’t lead anywhere.’
‘How do you know? No, Mamma, please don’t have a word with him. Don’t you dare. It’s so stupid!’ said Natasha, in the tone of one being robbed of her property. ‘Look, I’m not going to marry him, so let him come, as long as we both enjoy it.’ Natasha looked at her mother, smiling. ‘No marriage, but carry on as before,’ said she, reinforcing her message.
‘What do you mean, darling?’
‘Just let’s carry on as before. Yes, it’s important that I never marry him, but . . . just let things carry on.’
‘Carry on!’ repeated the countess, and she surprised Natasha by bursting out laughing. It was well meant, the laughter of an old lady, and it made her shake from head to foot.
‘Oh, please don’t laugh,’ cried Natasha. ‘Look, the bed’s shaking. You’re just like me, we’re both gigglers . . . Stop it . . .’ She snatched her mother’s hands, took one and kissed the knuckle on her little finger – that was June – and then she went on to the other one with July and August . . . ‘Mamma, does he really love me? What do you think? Did men love you like this? And he’s so nice, he really is nice! Though he’s not really my type – he’s a bit . . . sort of narrow, like a clock on the wall . . . Do you know what I mean? . . . Narrow, you know, all grey and pale . . .’
‘You do say some silly things,’ said the countess.
Natasha persisted. ‘Don’t you understand? Nikolay would. Now, take Bezukhov – he’s blue, dark blue with a bit of red, and his shape is square.’
‘You flirt with him, too,’ said the countess with a laugh.
‘No, I don’t. He’s a freemason. I’ve just found out. He’s a very nice man – dark blue with some red. How can I explain it?’
‘Little Countess!’ came the count’s voice through the door, ‘are you still up?’
Natasha snatched up her slippers and skipped off to her room in her bare feet. But she couldn’t get to sleep. She kept worrying about no one ever being able to understand everything that she understood, everything deep inside her.
‘What about Sonya?’ she wondered, looking at her friend sleeping there, curled up like a kitten with her great mass of hair. ‘No, she wouldn’t. She’s too good. She’s in love with dear Nikolay, and she’s not interested in anything else. Mamma – even she doesn’t understand. I’m amazingly clever . . . Oh, she’s such a charming girl,’ she went on, speaking about herself in the third person and imagining that it was some very clever man, the cleverest and best of all men, who was talking about her . . . ‘This girl has everything, absolutely everything,’ he continued. ‘She’s incredibly clever, so charming and so pretty – she’s out of this world, she moves so well, she can swim and ride like nobody else, and that voice! – you’ve got to admit, that’s a wonderful voice!’ She intoned a bit of her favourite music from a Cherubini opera, flopped down on the bed, laughed out loud at the delightful thought that she would soon be asleep, called across to Dunyasha to blow out the candle, and before Dunyasha had left the room she was in another world, the happier world of dreamland, where everything was as light and beautiful as it was in the real world, only better because it was all different.
