On reaching home Prince Andrey began to look back over his life in Petersburg during the last four months, and he saw it in a new light. He thought of all the trouble he had taken, the hoops he had jumped through, and the whole story of his project for army reform, which had been accepted in principle but was now being shelved because another scheme, a really dreadful one, had already been drawn up and presented to the Tsar. He thought of all those committee meetings, with Berg one of the sitting members. He thought of the long, pernickety discussions that took place over every last point of order and procedure and the short and non-pernickety treatment given to anything that mattered. He thought of his work on law reform, his painstaking translation of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and he felt thoroughly ashamed. Then came a vivid memory of Bogucharovo, his life in the country, his trip to Ryazan. He thought of his peasants, and Dron, the village elder. Relating these people to the section on Personal Rights which he had been paragraphing, he wondered how on earth he could have spent so much time on such useless work.
CHAPTER 19
The next day Prince Andrey went to various houses that he hadn’t visited before, including the Rostovs’, with whom he had renewed his acquaintance at the ball. Common courtesy called for a visit to the Rostovs, but Prince Andrey also wanted to have another look at that unusual, lively young girl who had made such a pleasant impression on him, and see her in her own home.
Natasha was one of the first to welcome him. She was wearing a plain dark-blue dress, and Andrey felt sure she looked prettier in that than she had done in her ballgown. She and all the family received Prince Andrey like an old friend, simply but very warmly. The entire family, once a target for Prince Andrey’s harshest criticism, now seemed to consist of excellent, open-hearted, kindly people. The old count was so persuasive with his charitable nature and generosity of spirit – such rare and attractive qualities in Petersburg – that Prince Andrey could not refuse an invitation to stay for dinner. ‘Yes, these are very nice, splendid people,’ thought Bolkonsky. ‘Of course they haven’t the slightest idea what a treasure they possess in Natasha, but they’re so nice, and they’re the best possible background for her to stand out against, with all her poetry and charm and all that liveliness!’
Prince Andrey recognized in Natasha a strange and special new world, brimful of unknown joys, the same strange world that had tantalized him on the avenue at Otradnoye and on that moonlight night at the window. But now it was no longer so strange and tantalizing; he had stepped into it and was already tasting its new pleasures.
After dinner Natasha went over to the clavichord at Prince Andrey’s request and began to sing. Prince Andrey stood by one of the windows talking to the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of one phrase Prince Andrey stopped talking and suddenly felt close to tears, with a lump in his throat, something he had never known before. He watched Natasha as she sang, with a new and blissful sensation stirring in his soul. He was so happy, and at the same time so sad. He had nothing at all to weep about, but here he was on the verge of tears. What for? Past love? The little princess? Lost illusions? . . . Future hopes? . . . Yes and no. The main thing that was bringing him to the verge of tears was a sudden, vivid awareness of the dreadful disparity between something infinitely great and eternal that existed within him and something else, something constraining and physical that constituted
When Natasha had finished she came over and wanted to know whether he liked her voice. Having said this, she felt embarrassed the moment the question was out of her mouth, realizing she ought never to have asked anything of the kind. He looked at her with a smile and said he liked her singing, as he liked everything else that she did.
