The Rostovs were due to leave town on Friday, and on Wednesday the count took a prospective purchaser down to his estate near Moscow.
On the day he left, Sonya and Natasha were invited to a grand dinner-party at Julie Karagin’s; Marya Dmitriyevna went with them. At the dinner Natasha met Anatole again, and Sonya watched as she said something to him, taking great care not to be overheard, and all through the meal Natasha looked more excited than ever. When they got home it was Natasha who started the conversation that Sonya had been waiting for.
‘Listen, Sonya, you’ve been saying all sorts of silly things about him,’ Natasha began in a tiny voice, the kind of voice that children put on when they are looking for praise. ‘Well, I’ve had it all out with him tonight.’
‘Well, what did he say? Come on, what did he say? Natasha, I’m so glad you’re not angry with me. Tell me the whole story. Tell me the truth. What did he say?’
Natasha considered what to say.
‘Oh, Sonya, if you knew him as I do! He said . . . He asked me what kind of promise I had given Bolkonsky. He was so glad I’m in a position to refuse him.’
Sonya gave a bleak sigh.
‘But you haven’t refused Bolkonsky, have you?’ she said.
‘Well, maybe I have! Maybe it’s all over with Bolkonsky. Why do you think so badly of me?’
‘I don’t think anything. I just don’t understand . . .’
‘Just wait, Sonya, and you’ll understand. You’ll see the sort of man he is. Don’t think too badly of either of us.’
‘I don’t think badly of people. I like everybody and I’m sorry for everybody. But what can I do?’
Sonya was not won over by Natasha’s ingratiating tone. The softer and more appealing Natasha’s face grew, the more serious and severe Sonya’s became.
‘Natasha,’ she said, ‘you asked me not to talk to you, and I haven’t done. But now you’ve started things off. Natasha, I don’t trust him. Why this secrecy?’
‘Again, again!’ interrupted Natasha.
‘Natasha, I’m afraid for you.’
‘What is there to be afraid of?’
‘I’m afraid you’ll be ruined,’ said Sonya firmly, horrified to hear her own words.
Natasha’s face looked angry again.
‘All right then, I’ll be ruined, I will, I’ll be ruined for ever. But it’s nothing to do with you. You won’t suffer for it, I will. Leave me alone, just leave me alone. I hate you!’
‘Natasha!’ Sonya appealed to her in great distress.
‘I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy for ever!’ And Natasha ran out of the room.
Natasha avoided Sonya and didn’t speak to her again. With the same mixture of excitement, wonder and guilt on her face she wandered through the rooms seizing on one thing after another, and throwing everything down as soon as she picked it up.
Hard as it was on Sonya, she kept watch over her friend and never let her out of her sight.
The day before the count was due to return Sonya happened to notice that Natasha had spent all morning sitting at the drawing-room window, as if she was waiting for something, and suddenly she gave a signal to a passing officer whom Sonya assumed to be Anatole.
Sonya kept an even closer watch on her friend, and she noticed that all through dinner and afterwards during the evening Natasha was in a strange mood, most unlike her usual self. When people asked her questions she gave silly answers, she started sentences and never finished them, and she kept laughing all the time.
After tea Sonya saw a timid-looking maid waiting for her to go past Natasha’s door. She let her go in, listened at the door and found out that another letter had arrived. Suddenly it dawned on Sonya that Natasha was hatching some dreadful plan for that evening. She knocked at the door, but Natasha wouldn’t let her in.
‘She’s going to run away with him!’ thought Sonya. ‘She’s capable of anything. There’s been a pitiful kind of look on her face today and real determination. And she cried when she said goodbye to Papa,’ Sonya remembered. ‘Yes, that’s it, she’s going to run away with him. What can I do about it?’ wondered Sonya, remembering all the signals given off by Natasha showing clearly that she had some terrible plan in mind. ‘Count Rostov isn’t here. What can I do? I could write to Kuragin and demand an explanation. But who says he’s bound to answer? I could write to Pierre – that was what Prince Andrey asked me to do if there was any trouble . . . But perhaps she really has broken things off with Bolkonsky – she did send that letter to Princess Marya yesterday. And Uncle’s not here.’
To tell Marya Dmitriyevna, who had such faith in Natasha, seemed a terrible thing to do.
‘Well, one way or another,’ thought Sonya, standing in the dark corridor, ‘now or never it’s time for me to show my appreciation of all the benefits I’ve had from this family and my love for Nikolay. No, if I have to go three nights without sleep, I’m not leaving this corridor, and I’ll stop her going by brute force. I’m not going to stand by and see this family ruined and disgraced,’ she thought.
CHAPTER 16
