When Pierre got back to Moscow he was handed a letter from Marya Dmitriyevna asking him to call because something very important had come up concerning Andrey Bolkonsky and his fiancée. Pierre had been avoiding Natasha. He could sense that his feelings towards her were stronger than they ought to be between a married man and a young girl engaged to one of his friends. But somehow fate kept bringing them together.
‘What’s happened now? What do they want me for?’ he kept thinking as he dressed to go to Marya Dmitriyevna’s. ‘Oh, if only Prince Andrey would hurry up and come home and get married to her,’ thought Pierre on the journey there.
In the Tverskoy Boulevard somebody hailed him.
‘Pierre! When did you get back?’ called a familiar voice. Pierre looked up. A sledge flew by behind a pair of trotting greys kicking up snow all over the front board – it was Anatole and his constant companion Makarin. Anatole was sitting bolt upright in the classic pose of a dashing army man, the lower part of his face muffled in a beaver collar and his head bent slightly forward. His face was fresh and glowing, his hat sported white feathers and sat at a jaunty angle, showing off pomaded curls with a sprinkling of fine snow.
‘Now that’s what I call worldly wisdom!’ thought Pierre. ‘He can’t see beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing worries him, so he’s always happy and contented. What wouldn’t I give to be like him?’ he mused, full of envy.
In Marya Dmitriyevna’s entrance-hall, as the footman helped Pierre off with his coat he said that his mistress wanted him to go up to her bedroom.
As he opened the hall door Pierre caught a brief glimpse of Natasha sitting by the window looking thin, pale and crabby. She glanced round at him, scowled and left the room with an air of icy aloofness.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Pierre, going into Marya Dmitriyevna’s room. ‘A nice turn of events!’ answered Marya Dmitriyevna. ‘Fifty-eight years I’ve lived on this earth and never seen anything so disgraceful.’ And after making Pierre swear not to breathe a word of what was to follow Marya Dmitriyevna told him that Natasha had broken off her engagement without telling her parents, all because of Anatole Kuragin, Pierre’s wife having brought the two of them together, and Natasha had tried to elope with him while her father was away and get married in secret.
Pierre sat there with his shoulders hunched and his mouth wide open, listening to what Marya Dmitriyevna had to say, and he could hardly believe his ears. What, Prince Andrey’s beloved fiancée, Natasha Rostov, always such a charming girl hitherto, had given up Bolkonsky for that fool Anatole, who was already married (Pierre knew his secret), fallen in love with him and agreed to elope? It was beyond Pierre’s imagination or understanding! The lovely image of Natasha that was so dear to his soul – and he had known her since childhood – didn’t fit with this new picture of her as someone depraved, stupid and cruel. He thought of his own wife. ‘They’re all the same,’ he told himself, reflecting that he was not the only man to be tied by the unhappy hand of fate to a dreadful woman. But even so he could have wept for Prince Andrey, wept for his pride. And the more he felt for his friend, the more his feeling of contempt and revulsion grew as he thought of Natasha, who had just walked past him with that air of icy aloofness. He was not to know that Natasha’s heart was overflowing with despair, shame and humiliation, and she could hardly be blamed for her face happening to look all calm, aloof and austere.
‘What do you mean get married?’ cried Pierre when he heard Marya Dmitriyevna’s words. ‘He can’t get married – he’s married already.’
‘It never rains but it pours,’ said Marya Dmitriyevna. ‘What a splendid young man! Absolute swine! And she’s still expecting him to come – she has been for two days! We’ve got to stop her waiting for him. We must tell her.’
Once Pierre had told her all about Anatole’s marriage, and she had vented her fury in the strongest language, Marya Dmitriyevna got round to letting Pierre know why she had sent for him. She was terrified that either Count Rostov or Prince Bolkonsky, who might arrive at any moment, could easily get to know about this affair despite her best efforts to conceal it and challenge Kuragin to a duel, so she now wanted Pierre to act on her behalf and kick his brother-in-law out of Moscow with clear instructions never to darken her door again. Pierre promised to do what she wanted, suddenly recognizing the danger that threatened the old count, and Nikolay and Prince Andrey. After outlining her wishes in a few precise words, she let him go through into the drawing-room.
‘Keep the count in the dark. Behave as if you know nothing,’ she said. ‘And I’ll go and tell her she needn’t bother waiting for him! Oh, and do stay on for dinner, if you feel like it,’ she called after Pierre.
