After his meeting with Princess Marya, although his outward way of life stayed the same, all his former pleasures had lost their charm, and she was often in his mind. But he never thought of her as he had thought of all the young girls he had ever met in society, nor as he had got used to thinking about Sonya, rapturous though those thoughts had sometimes been. Like virtually every honest young man, he had seen every young girl as a possible future wife, mentally measuring them against all the usual details of married life: the white house-coat, the wife at the samovar, the wife with her own carriage, the patter of tiny feet, his mamma and papa, their attitude to her, and so on and so forth. And he had always enjoyed these images of the future. But when he thought of Princess Marya and being engaged to her, which was what the matchmakers were after, he couldn’t form the vaguest outline of his future married life. If he so much as tried, it all seemed so false and incongruous. And it filled him with nothing but dread.
CHAPTER 7
The dreadful news about the battle of Borodino and so many men killed and wounded, and the even more dreadful news about the loss of Moscow reached Voronezh in the middle of September. It was only from the newspapers that Princess Marya learnt of her brother’s wound, and since she had no definite details about him she was prepared to go off and find Prince Andrey. (This was what Nikolay heard, though he hadn’t seen her himself.)
When he heard about the battle of Borodino and the surrender of Moscow, Rostov was not seized with despair, rage, a desire for revenge or anything like that, he suddenly felt jaded, irritated with everything in Voronezh, ill at ease and also rather guilty. All the conversations he was privy to had a ring of hypocrisy. He didn’t know what to make of it all, and he sensed he would have to get back to the regiment before everything became clear again. He speeded up the purchase of the horses, and started being rough with his servant and quartermaster, often for no good reason.
Several days before Rostov’s departure a thanksgiving service was held in the cathedral to mark the victory gained by the Russian armies, and Nikolay went along. He stood throughout just behind the governor, in an attitude of prim decorum befitting a military man, letting his mind roam freely over a wide range of topics. At the end of the service the governor’s wife beckoned him over.
‘Have you seen the princess?’ she said, nodding towards a lady in black standing behind the choir.
Nikolay recognized Princess Marya immediately, not so much by the profile he could see under her hat as by the sudden sense of concern, trepidation and sympathy towards her that swept over him. Princess Marya looked deeply preoccupied as she made the last signs of the cross before leaving the church.
Nikolay looked at her face in some surprise. It was the same face he had seen before, with the same general appearance of refined, inner spirituality and suffering, but it was now suffused by a quite different light. It had a pathetic look compounded of sadness, prayer and hope. Behaving exactly as he had done before in her presence, Nikolay walked straight over without waiting to be urged by the governor’s wife and without wondering about the rights and wrongs of addressing her while they were still in church. He told her he had heard of her grief and wanted to express his heartfelt sympathy. The moment she heard his voice her face lit up in response, instantly glowing with a mixture of joy and sorrow.
‘There’s just one thing I wanted to say, Princess,’ said Rostov. ‘If Prince Andrey was not still alive it would have been in the gazettes. After all, he is a colonel.’
The princess gave him a blank look, but she was clearly comforted by the deep compassion written all over his face.
‘And I know from much experience that a shrapnel wound’ (the papers had mentioned a shell) ‘tends to be either instantly fatal or not too serious,’ Nikolay went on. ‘We must hope for the best. I’m confident . . .’
Princess Marya interrupted him.
‘Oh, it would be so aw . . .’ she exclaimed, but she was too emotional to finish what she was saying. Bowing her head with the kind of graceful gesture that typified her every movement in his presence, she thanked him with her eyes and walked out after her aunt.
That evening Nikolay didn’t go out; he decided to stay in and finish off some book-keeping work that had to do with the horse-dealers. By the time he had finished it was too late to go out, but still too early to go to bed, so Nikolay spent a long time pacing up and down the room, thinking about his life, something he rarely did.
