Princess Marya had made a favourable impression on him when they had first met at Bogucharovo. Their coming together under such unusual circumstances, together with the fact that his mother had actually singled her out as a wealthy heiress who might be a good match for him, had made him look at her very closely. During his stay in Voronezh the favourable impression had turned into a very strong one. Nikolay was deeply affected by the singular moral beauty that he could now see in her. But here he was getting ready to leave, and he hadn’t yet considered how painful it would be to go away from Voronezh and give up any chance of seeing her. Yet the experience of meeting Princess Marya that morning in church had, he felt, pierced his heart more deeply than he had anticipated, and more deeply than was good for his peace of mind. The delicacy of that sad, pale face, those radiant eyes, those gentle and graceful movements, but most of all the deep and tender sadness pervading all her features, disturbed him and moved him to compassion. In men Rostov couldn’t stand an appearance of spirituality and loftiness (which was why he hadn’t liked Prince Andrey), and he dismissed any such thing as otherworldly philosophizing, but in Princess Marya it was that very air of sadness, revealing the full depth of her spiritual world, a new experience for Nikolay, that so irresistibly attracted him.
‘She must be a wonderful girl! A positive angel!’ he said to himself. ‘Oh, if only I was free! Why did I have to rush into things with Sonya?’ And he couldn’t help but compare the two of them: one was very poor and the other very rich in those spiritual gifts that Nikolay himself lacked and therefore prized so highly. He tried to imagine what might have happened if he had been free. How would he have proposed, and would she have become his wife? No, it was too much for his imagination. He shivered with dread and couldn’t picture anything very clearly. With Sonya he had long ago formed an image of the future; everything was clear-cut and straightforward because it was all carefully thought out and he knew everything there was to know about Sonya. But with Princess Marya he couldn’t picture any future life, because he had no understanding of her; he just loved her.
His dreams of Sonya had a light-hearted quality about them; they were full of fun. But dreaming about Princess Marya was no easy matter; it was rather frightening.
‘I remember her praying!’ he thought. ‘You could tell she was putting all her soul into her prayers. Yes, that’s the kind of faith that moves mountains. I’m sure her prayers will be answered. Why shouldn’t I pray for something that I want?’ he wondered. ‘What do I want? Freedom. Freedom from Sonya. She was right,’ he thought, remembering what the governor’s wife had said. ‘There’ll be nothing but misery if I end up marrying her. A mess, heartache for Mamma . . . our finances . . . a mess, a terrible mess! Besides, I don’t even love her. Not the way I should. O God! Get me out of this terrible, hopeless situation!’ He had suddenly found himself praying. ‘Yes, faith will move mountains, but you do have to believe. You can’t pray the way Natasha and I did when we were children. We used to pray for the snow to turn into sugar, and then run outside to see whether it had done. Oh no. But I am not praying for silly little things now,’ he said, putting his pipe down in a corner and standing in front of the holy icon with his hands held together. His heart melted at the thought of Princess Marya, and he began to pray as he had not prayed for a very long time. He was standing there with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat when Lavrushka walked in with some papers.
‘Stupid fool! Bursting in when you’re not wanted!’ said Nikolay, quickly changing his demeanour.
‘A cullier’s come from the governor,’ said a sleepy Lavrushka. ‘Letter for you.’
‘Right. Thank you very much. Now get out!’
Nikolay took the two letters, one from his mother, the other from Sonya. He could tell by the handwriting, and he broke the seal on Sonya’s letter first. He had hardly read a few lines when his face turned white and his eyes goggled with a mixture of dismay and sheer delight.
‘No, it’s not possible!’ he said out loud. Unable to stay sitting down, he started to pace up and down the room, holding the letter in both hands and reading it. He skimmed the letter once, then read it through a couple more times. With a shrug of his shoulders and his hands in the air, he stood transfixed in the middle of the room, open-mouthed and staring. His prayer, which he felt sure God would answer, had been answered, but Nikolay was just as shocked as if it had been something outrageous and completely out of the blue; the very quickness of the event seemed to prove the letter hadn’t come from God as an answer to his prayers, it was pure coincidence.
