‘Natalya! . . .’ said Marya Dmitriyevna. ‘This is for your own good. Now just lie still. Come on, lie still like that. I won’t touch you. But listen to me . . . I’m not going to go on about how bad you’ve been. You’re aware of that yourself. But your father’s due back tomorrow, and I want to know what I’m supposed to tell him. Do you hear me?’
Once again Natasha’s body was convulsed with sobs.
‘If he gets to know, what will your brother do, and your fiancé?’
‘I have no fiancé. I’ve broken it off,’ cried Natasha.
‘It makes no difference,’ Marya Dmitriyevna insisted. ‘I mean, if they do find out, do you think they’ll leave it at that? I know your father – he could easily challenge him to a duel. That will be all right, will it?’
‘Oh, just leave me alone. Why did you have to interfere? Why? Why? Who asked you to?’ cried Natasha, sitting up on the sofa and fixing Marya Dmitriyevna with a vicious glare.
‘So what did you want?’ screamed Marya Dmitriyevna, roused to fury again. ‘I mean, you weren’t exactly locked away, were you? Did anybody stop him coming to the house? Why did he have to carry you off, like some gypsy girl? . . . And if he’d managed it, do you imagine they wouldn’t have caught him? Your father, your brother, your fiancé? He’s a swine and a scoundrel, and that’s all there is to it!’
‘He’s better than any of you,’ cried Natasha, raising herself up. ‘If you hadn’t got in the way . . . Oh my God, what now? Sonya, why . . . ? Oh, go away! . . .’ And she sobbed with the kind of despair that people feel when they weep for troubles they know they have brought upon themselves.
Marya Dmitriyevna was about to speak again, but Natasha suddenly yelled, ‘Go away, go away! You all hate me and despise me!’ And she flung herself back down on the sofa.
Marya Dmitriyevna went on for some time pouring shame on Natasha, drumming it into her that everything had to be hidden from the count, and no one would know anything about it if only she would undertake to forget the whole thing, and not give off any signs that something might have happened. Natasha wouldn’t respond. She had stopped sobbing, but she was now seized with bouts of shivering and trembling. Marya Dmitriyevna put a pillow under her head, covered her with two blankets, and brought her some lime-water with her own hands, but Natasha wouldn’t respond to anything she said.
‘Oh well, let her sleep,’ said Marya Dmitriyevna, and she left the room, thinking Natasha must have dropped off. But she hadn’t. Her staring eyes gazed out vacantly from her pale face. She never slept a wink all night long, she didn’t cry and she never said a word to Sonya, who got up several times and went in to see her.
Next day Count Rostov arrived back from his estate, as promised, in time for lunch. He was in a very good mood, being on the point of agreeing terms with the purchaser, and there was now nothing to keep him in Moscow away from his countess, and he had begun to miss her dearly. Marya Dmitriyevna came to welcome him with the news that Natasha had been quite poorly the previous day, but they had sent for the doctor and now she was feeling better. Natasha had not left her room all morning. With pinched, cracked lips, and dry, staring eyes, she sat by the window, uneasily watching people drive past down the street, and looking round nervously at anyone who entered the room. She was obviously waiting for news of him, waiting for him to come or at least write to her.
When the count walked in to see her, she turned uneasily at the sound of his man’s heavy tread, and her face resumed its earlier cold, even vindictive expression. She didn’t even get up to greet him.
‘What is it, my angel. Are you ill?’ asked the count.
Natasha was silent for a moment.
‘Yes, I am,’ she answered.
When the count asked anxiously why she was so depressed and whether anything had happened to her fiancé she assured him that nothing had, and told him not to worry. Marya Dmitriyevna confirmed Natasha’s insistence that nothing had happened. This imaginary illness, his daughter’s agitated state and the embarrassment written all over the faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitriyevna told the count all too clearly that something must have happened while he had been away. But it was just too awful for him to imagine that anything scandalous might have happened to his beloved daughter, and he valued his present good humour and peace of mind so much that he shied away from further inquiries and tried to reassure himself that nothing very unusual could have happened, his only regret being that her indisposition would delay their return to the country.
CHAPTER 19
Ever since the day of his wife’s arrival in Moscow Pierre had been intending to leave town, if only to get away from her. Shortly after the Rostovs’ arrival, the deep impression made on him by Natasha caused him to carry out his intention with all speed. He left for Tver to see Osip Bazdeyev’s widow, who had promised some time ago to hand over her late husband’s papers.
