A FEW INTIMATE FRIENDS were, as usual on Sundays, dining with the Rostovs.
Pierre came early, hoping to find them alone.
Pierre had that year grown so stout, that he would have been grotesque, had not he been so tall, so broad-shouldered, and so powerfully built that he carried off his bulky proportions with evident ease.
Puffing, and muttering something to himself, he went up the stairs. His coachman did not even ask whether he should wait. He knew that when the count was at the Rostovs’, it was till midnight. The Rostovs’ footmen ran with eager welcome to take off his cloak, and take his stick and hat. From the habit of the club, Pierre always left his stick and hat in the vestibule.
The first person he saw at the Rostovs’ was Natasha. Before he saw her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practising her solfa exercises in the hall. He knew she had given up singing since her illness, and so he was surprised and delighted at the sound of her voice. He opened the door softly, and saw Natasha, in the lilac dress she had worn at the service, walking up and down the room singing. She had her back turned to him as he opened the door; but when she turned sharply round and saw his broad, surprised face, she flushed and ran quickly up to him.
“I want to try and sing again,” she said. “It’s something to do, any way,” she added as though in excuse.
“Quite right too！”
“How glad I am you have come！ I’m so happy to-day,” she said with the old eagerness that Pierre had not seen for so long. “You know, Nikolenka has got the St. George’s Cross. I’m so proud of him.”
“Of course, I sent you the announcement. Well, I won’t interrupt you,” he added, and would have gone on to the drawing-room.
Natasha stopped him.
“Count, is it wrong of me to sing？” she said, blushing, but still keeping her eyes fixed inquiringly on Pierre.
“No.… Why should it be？ On the contrary.… But why do you ask me？”
“I don’t know myself,” Natasha answered quickly; “but I shouldn’t like to do anything you wouldn’t like. I trust you in everything. You don’t know how much you are to me, and what a great deal you have done for me！” …She spoke quickly, and did not notice how Pierre flushed at these words. “I saw in that announcement, he, Bolkonsky” （she uttered the word in a rapid whisper）, “he is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think,” she said hurriedly, evidently in haste to speak because she was afraid her strength would fail her, “will he ever forgive me？ Will he not always have an evil feeling for me？ What do you think？ What do you think？”
“I think…” said Pierre. “He has nothing to forgive… If I were in his place…” From association of ideas, Pierre was instantly carried back in imagination to the time when he had comforted her by saying that if he were not himself, but the best man in the world and free, he would beg on his knees for her hand, and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession of him, and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him time to utter them.
“Yes, you—you,” she said, uttering that word you with enthusiasm, “that’s a different matter. Any one kinder, more generous than you, I have never known—no one could be. If it had not been for you then, and now too… I don’t know what would have become of me, because…” Tears suddenly came into her eyes： she turned away, held her music before her eyes, and began again singing and walking up and down the room.
At that moment Petya ran in from the drawing-room.
Petya was by now a handsome, rosy lad of fifteen, with full red lips, very like Natasha. He was being prepared for the university, but had lately resolved in secret with his comrade, Obolensky, to go into the hussars.
Petya rushed up to his namesake, Pierre, to talk to him of this scheme.
He had begged him to find out whether he would be accepted in the hussars.
Pierre walked about the drawing-room, not heeding Petya.
The boy pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.
“Come, tell me about my plan, Pyotr Kirillitch, for mercy’s sake！ You’re my only hope,” said Petya.
“Oh yes, your plan. To be an hussar？ I’ll speak about it; to-day I’ll tell them all about it.”
“Well, my dear fellow, have you got the manifesto？” asked the old count. “My little countess was at the service in the Razumovskys’ chapel; she heard the new prayer there. Very fine it was, she tells me.”
“Yes, I have got it,” answered Pierre. “The Tsar will be here tomorrow.… There’s to be an extraordinary meeting of the nobility and a levy they say of ten per thousand. Oh, I congratulate you.”
“Yes, yes, thank God. Well, and what news from the army？”
“Our soldiers have retreated again. They are before Smolensk, they say,” answered Pierre.
“Mercy on us, mercy on us！” said the count. “Where’s the manifesto？”
“The Tsar’s appeal？ Ah, yes！” Pierre began looking for the papers in his pockets, and could not find them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the countess’s hand as she came in, and looked round uneasily, evidently expecting Natasha, who had left off singing now, but had not come into the drawing-room. “Good Heavens, I don’t know where I have put it,” he said.
“To be sure, he always mislays everything,” said the countess.
Natasha came in with a softened and agitated face and sat down, looking mutely at Pierre. As soon as she came into the room, Pierre’s face, which had been overcast, brightened, and while still seeking for the paper, he looked several times intently at her.
“By God, I’ll drive round, I must have forgotten them at home. Of course…”
“Why, you will be late for dinner.”
“Oh！ and the coachman has not waited.”
But Sonya had gone into the vestibule to look for the papers, and there found them in Pierre’s hat, where he had carefully put them under the lining. Pierre would have read them.
“No, after dinner,” said the old count, who was obviously looking forward to the reading of them as a great treat.