‘How easy he thinks it,’ thought Pierre. ‘He does not know how terrible is, how perilous. Too late or too early ... It is terrible! ’
‘What are your orders? Will you be pleased to go to-morrow?’ asked avelitch.
‘No; I will put it off a little. I will tell you later. You must excuse the •ouble I give you,’ said Pierre, and watching Savelitch’s smile, he thought ow strange it was, though, that he should not know there was no such ling as Petersburg, and that that must be settled before everything.
? ‘He really does know, though,’ he thought; ‘he is only pretending. Shall tell him? What does he think about it? No, another time.’
At breakfast, Pierre told his cousin that he had been the previous vening at Princess Marya’s, and had found there—could she fancy horn—Natasha Rostov.
I The princess looked as though she saw nothing more extraordinary in pat fact than if Pierre had seen some Anna Semyonovna.
ios6 WAR AND PEACE
‘You know her?’ asked Pierre.
‘I have seen the princess,' she answered, ‘and I had heard they wer j making a match between her and young Rostov. That would be a ver | fine thing for the Rostovs; I am told they are utterly ruined.’
‘No, I meant, do you know Natasha Rostov?’
‘I heard at the time all about that story. Very sad.’
‘She does not understand, or she is pretending,’ thought Pierre. ‘Bette not tell her either.’
The princess, too, had prepared provisions for Pierre’s journey.
‘How kind they all are,’ thought Pierre, ‘to trouble about all thi now, when it certainly can be of no interest to them. And all for nr sake; that is what’s so marvellous.’
The same day a police officer came to see Pierre, with an offer to sen< a trusty agent to the Polygonal Palace to receive the things that wer to-day to be restored among the owners.
‘And this man too,’ thought Pierre, looking into the police officer’i face, ‘what a nice, good-looking officer, and how good-natured! To trou ble about such trifles now. And yet they say he is not honest, and take bribes. What nonsense! though after ail why shouldn’t he take bribes He has been brought up in that way. They all do it. But such a pleasant good-humoured face, and he smiles when he looks at me.’
Pierre went to Princess Marya’s to dinner. As he drove through th streets between the charred wrecks of houses, he admired the beaut; of those ruins. The chimneys of stoves, and the tumbledown walls o houses stretched in long rows, hiding one another, all through the burn quarters of the town, and recalled to him the picturesque ruins of th Rhine and of the Colosseum. The sledge-drivers and men on horseback the carpenters at work on the frames of the houses, the hawkers am shopkeepers all looked at Pierre with cheerful, beaming faces, and seemei to him to say: ‘Oh, here he is! We shall see what comes of it.’
On reaching Princess Marya’s house, Pierre was beset by a suddei doubt whether it were true that he had been there the day before, anr had really seen Natasha and talked to her. ‘Perhaps it was all my owr invention, perhaps I shall go in and see no one.’ But no sooner had h entered the room than in his whole being, from his instantaneous loS' of freedom, he was aware of her presence. She was wearing the sam black dress, that hung in soft folds, and had her hair arranged in th same way, but she was utterly different. Had she looked like this whei he came in yesterday, he could not have failed to recognise her.
She was just as he had known her almost as a child, and later whej betrothed to Prince Andrey. A bright, questioning light gleamed in he eyes; there was a friendly and strangely mischievous expression in he face.
Pierre dined, and would have spent the whole evening with them; bu Princess Marya was going to vespers, and Pierre went with them.
Next day Pierre arrived early, dined with them, and stayed the whol evening. Although Princess Marya and Natasha were obviously glad t
:e their visitor, and although the whole interest of Pierre’s life was ow centred in that house, by the evening they had said all they had 1 say, and the conversation passed continually from one trivial subject 1 another and often broke off altogether. Pierre stayed so late that fening that Princess Marya and Natasha exchanged glances, plainly ondering whether he would not soon go. Pierre saw that, but he could )t go away. He began to feel it irksome and awkward, but still he sat 1 because he could, not get up and go.
Princess Marya, foreseeing no end to it, was the first to get up, and implaining of a sick headache, she began saying good-night.
'So you are going to-morrow to Petersburg?’ she said.
; 'No, I am not going,’ said Pierre hurriedly, with surprise and a sort ' resentment in his tone. 'No . . . yes, to Petersburg. To-morrow, per- ;ips; but I won’t say good-bye. I shall come to see if you have any com- issions to give me,’ he added, standing before Princess Marya, turning try red, and not taking leave.
