‘Can he possibly have died in the bitter mood he was in then? Was not ie meaning of life revealed to him before death?’ Pierre vrondered. He nought of Karataev, of his death, and unconsciously compared those vo men, so different, and yet alike, in the love he had felt for both, and that both had lived, and both were dead.
In the most serious frame of mind Pierre drove up to the old prince’s puse. The house had remained entire. There were traces to be seen of ie havoc wrought in it, but the character of the house was unchanged, he old footman met Pierre with a stern face, that seemed to wish to ake the guest feel that the absence of the old prince did make no differ- ice in the severe routine of the household, and said that the princess id retired to her own apartments, and received on Sundays.
‘Take my name to her; perhaps she will see me,’ said Pierre.
‘Yes, your excellency,’ answered the footman; ‘kindly walk into the ortrait-gallery.’
A few minutes later the footman returned accompanied by Dessalle. 'esalle brought a message from the princess that she would be very glad ) see Pierre, and begged him, if he would excuse the lack of ceremony, ) come upstairs to her apartment.
In a low-pitched room, lighted by a single candle, he found the princess, nd some one with her in a black dress. Pierre recollected that the prin- 2ss had always had lady-companions of some sort with her, but who lose companions were, and what they were like, he did not remember. That is one of her companions,’ he thought, glancing at the lady in the lack dress.
The princess rose swiftly to meet him, and held out her hand.
, ‘Yes,’ she said, scrutinising his altered face, after he had kissed her and; ‘so this is how we meet again. He often talked of you at the last,’ he said, turning her eyes from Pierre to the companion with a sort of ashfulness 'that struck him.
‘I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the only piece of good ews we had had for a long time.’
Again the princess glanced still more uneasily at the companion, and 'ould have spoken; but Pierre interrupted her.
‘Only imagine, I knew nothing about him,’ he said. ‘I believed he had een killed. All I have heard has been through others, at third-hand. I nly know that he fell in with the Rostovs. . . . What a strange stroke f destiny!’
Pierre talked rapidly, eagerly. He glanced once at the companion’s face, aw attentively friendly, inquiring eyes fixed upon him; and as often appens, while talking, he vaguely felt that this lady-companion in the lack dress was a good, kind, friendly creature, who need be no hindrance Id his talking freely to Princess Marya.
But as he uttered the last words about the Rostovs, the embarrassment 1 Princess Marya’s face became even more marked. Again her eyes
io 4 S WAR AND PEACE
shifted from Pierre’s face to the face of the lady in the black dress, an she said:
‘You don’t recognise her?’
Pierre glanced once more at the pale, thin face of her companion, wit its black eyes and strange mouth. Something very near to him, long foi gotten, and more than sweet, gazed at him out of those intent eyes.
‘But no, it cannot be,’ he thought. ‘That stern, thin, pale face tha looks so much older? It cannot be she. It is only a reminder of it.’
But at that moment Princess Marya said, ‘Natasha!’
And the face with the intent eyes—painfully, with effort, like a rust’ door opening—smiled, and through that opened door there floated t> Pierre a sudden, overwhelming rush of long-forgotten bliss, of which especially now, he had no thought. It breathed upon him, overwhelmei him, and swallowed him up entirely. When she smiled, there could be n< doubt. It was Natasha, and he loved her.
In that first minute Pierre unwittingly betrayed to her and to Princes: Marya, and most of all to himself, the secret of which he had been himsel unaware. He flushed joyfully, and with agonising distress. He tried t( conceal his emotion. But the more he tried to conceal it, the more clearlj —more clearly than if he had uttered the most definite words—he be trayed to himself, and to her, and to Princess Marya, that he loved her
‘No, it is nothing; it’s the sudden surprise,’ Pierre thought. But a: soon as he tried to go on with the conversation with Princess Marya, he glanced again at Natasha, and a still deeper flush spread over his face and a still more violent wave of rapture and terror flooded his heart. He stammered in his speech, and stopped short in the middle of a sentence.
