Ellen gave Natasha a delighted welcome, and was loud in her admiration of her loveliness and her dress. Soon after their arrival, Mademoiselle George went out of the room to change her dress. In the drawing-room chairs were being set in rows and people began to sit down. Anatole moved a chair for Natasha, and would have sat down by her, but the count, who was keeping his eye on Natasha, took the seat beside her. Anatole sat down behind.
i Mademoiselle George, with bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red scarf flung over one shoulder, came into the empty space left for her between the chairs and threw herself into an unnatural pose. An enthusiastic whisper was audible.
Mademoiselle George scanned her audience with stern and gloomy 3yes, and began reciting French verses, describing her guilty love for her ;on. In places she raised her voice, in places she dropped to a whisper solemnly lifting her head; in places she broke off and hissed with rolling jyes.
‘Exquisite, divine, marvellous!’ was heard on all sides. Natasha gazed ■it the fat actress; but she heard nothing, saw nothing and understood nothing of what was passing before her. She felt nothing, but that she was borne away again irrevocably into that strange and senseless world so emote from her old world, a world in which there was no knowing what vas good and what was bad, what was sensible and what was senseless. 3ehind her was sitting Anatole; and conscious of his nearness, she was in Tightened expectation of something.
i After the first monologue all the company rose and surrounded Made-_ noiselle George, expressing their admiration.
‘How handsome she is!’ said Natasha to her father, as he got up with he rest and moved through the crowd to the actress.
‘I don’t think so, looking at you,’ said Anatole, following Natasha. He aid this at a moment when no one but she could hear him. ‘You are harming . . . from the moment I first saw you, I have not ceased . .
‘Come along, come along, Natasha!’ said the count, turning back for is daughter. ‘Flow pretty she is!’
Natasha saying nothing went up to her father, and gazed at him with yes of inquiring wonder.
After several recitations in different styles, Mademoiselle George went way, and Countess Bezuhov invited all the company to the great hall.
The count would have taken leave, but Ellen besought him not to
spoil her improvised ball. The Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha for a waltz, and during the waltz, squeezing her waist and her hand, he told her she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise. which she danced again with Kuragin, when they were left alone Anatole said nothing to her, he simply looked at her. Natasha was in doubt whether she had not dreamed what he said to her during the waltz. At the end of the first figure he pressed her hand again. Natasha lifted hei frightened eyes to his face, but there was an expression of such assurance and warmth in his fond look and smile that she could not as she lookec at him say what she had to say to him. She dropped her eyes.
‘Don’t say such things to me. I am betrothed, and I love anothei man . . .’ she articulated rapidly. She glanced at him. Anatole was neither disconcerted nor mortified at what she had said.
‘Don’t talk to me of that. What is that to me,’ he said; ‘I tell you I an mad, mad with love of you. Is it my fault that you are fascinating? . . It’s for us to begin.’
Natasha, eager and agitated, looked about her with wide-open, fright ened eyes, and seemed to be enjoying herself more than usual. Shi scarcely grasped anything that happened that evening. They dancea thi ecossaise and ‘Grandfather.’ Her father suggested their going, and shi begged to stay longer. Wherever she was, and with whomsoever she wa speaking, she felt his eyes upon her. Then she remembered that she ha< asked her father’s permission to go into a dressing-room to rearrang. her dress, that Ellen had followed her, had talked to her, laughing, of he brother’s passion, and that in the little divan-room she had been met agaii by Anatole; that Ellen had somehow vanished, they were left alone, am Anatole taking her by the hand, had said in a tender voice:
‘I can’t come to see you, but is it possible that I shall never see you I love you madly. Can I never . . . ?’ and barring her way he brough his face close to hers.
His large, shining, masculine eyes were so close to her eyes, that sh could see nothing but those eyes.
‘Natalie?’ his voice whispered interrogatively, and her hands wer squeezed till it hurt. ‘Natalie?’
‘I don’t understand; I have nothing to say,’ was the answer in her eye:
Burning lips were pressed to her lips, and at the same instant she fe herself set free again, and caught the sound of Ellen’s steps and rustlin gown in the room again. Natasha looked round towards Ellen; then, re and trembling, she glanced at him with alarmed inquiry, and move towards the door.
