Prince Andrey was standing before her, saying something to her with an expression of guarded tenderness on his face. She, lifting her head, was looking at him, flushing crimson, and visibly trying to control her breathing, which came in panting gasps. And the vivid glow of some inner fire that had been quenched before was alight in her again. She was utterly transformed. From a plain girl she was once more the beautiful creature she had been at the ball.
Prince Andrey went up to Pierre, and Pierre noticed a new, youthful expression in his friend’s face. Several times Pierre changed his seat during the play, sitting sometimes with his back to Natasha, sometimes facing her, and during all the six rubbers he was observing her and his friend.
‘Something very serious is happening between them,’ thought Pierre, and a feeling at once of gladness and of bitterness made him agitated and forgetful of the game.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying it was of no use playing like that, and Pierre was at liberty. Natasha, at one side of the room, was talking to Sonya and Boris. Vera, with a subtle smile, was saying something to Prince Andrey. Pierre went up to his friend, and, asking whether they were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, noticing Prince Andrey’s attention to Natasha, felt that at a soiree, at a real , soiree, it was absolutely necessary there should be delicate allusions to the tender passion, and seizing an opportunity when Prince Andrey was alone, began a conversation with him upon the emotions generally, and her sister in particular. She felt that, with a guest so intellectual as she considered Prince Andrey, she must put all her diplomatic tact into the Task before her. When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was in full flow of self-complacent talk, while Prince Andrey seemed embarrassed—a thing that rarely happened to him.
‘What do you think?’ Vera was saying with a subtle smile. ‘You, prince, have so much penetration and see into people’s characters at once. What do you think about Natalie? Is she capable of constancy in her ;attachments? Is she capable, like other women’ (Vera meant herself) ‘of doving a man once for all and remaining faithful to him for ever? That’s Avhat I regard as true love! What do you think, prince?’
440 W A R A N D P E A C E
‘I know your sister too little,’ answered Prince Andrey, with a sarcastic smile, under which he tried to conceal his embarrassment, ‘to decide a question so delicate; and, besides, I have noticed that the less attractive a woman is, the more constant she is apt to be,’ he added, and he looked at Pierre, who at that moment joined them.
‘Yes, that is true, prince. In these days,’ pursued Vera (talking of ‘these days,’ as persons of limited intellect as a rule love to do, supposing they have discovered and estimated the peculiarities of the times, and that human characteristics do change with the times), ‘in these days a girl has so much liberty that the pleasure of being paid attention often stifles these feelings in her. And Natalie, it must be confessed, is very susceptible on that side.’
This going back to Natasha again made Prince Andrey contract his brows disagreeably. He tried to get up, but Vera persisted with a still more subtle smile.
‘Nobody, I imagine, has been so much run after as she has,’ Vera went on; ‘but no one, until quite of late, has ever made a serious impression on her. Of course, you know, count,’ she turned to Pierre, ‘even our charming cousin, Boris, who, entre nous, was very, very far gone in the region of the tender passion . . .’ She intended an allusion to the map of love then in fashion.
Prince Andrey scowled, and was mute.
‘But, of course, you are a friend of Boris’s?’ Vera said to him.
‘Yes, I know him. . . .’
‘He has probably told you of his childish love for Natasha?’
‘Oh, was there a childish love between them?’ asked Prince Andrey, ! with a sudden, unexpected flush on his face.
‘Yes. You know between cousins the close intimacy often leads to love. Cousinhood is a dangerous neighbourhood. Isn’t it?’
‘Oh, not a doubt of it,’ said Prince Andrey, and with sudden and unnatural liveliness, he began joking with Pierre about the necessity of his being careful with his cousins at Moscow, ladies of fifty, and in the middle of these jesting remarks he got up, and taking Pierre’s arm, drew him aside.
‘Well, what is it?’ said Pierre, who had been watching in wonder his • friend’s excitement, and noticed the glance he turned upon Natasha as he got up.
‘I must, I must talk to you,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘You know that pair of women’s gloves’ (he referred to the masonic gloves given to a newly initiated brother to be entrusted to the woman he loved). ‘I . . . but no, I will talk to you later on. . . .’ And with a strange light in his eyes and a restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrey approached Natasha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw that Prince Andrey asked her some question, and she answered him, flushing hotly.
