Chương Chương 347 · 第347章

Natásha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had

three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was

now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult

to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natásha of

former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft,

and serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing

animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm.

Now her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was

not visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and

fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That

happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home,

or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of

Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined

was jealous of Prince Andrew’s memory), or on the rare occasions when

something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite

abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire

did kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more

attractive than in former days.

Since their marriage Natásha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in

Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to

say, in Nicholas’ house. The young Countess Bezúkhova was not often seen

in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her

and found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natásha liked

solitude—she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought

that she did not—but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the nursing

of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband’s life, she had

demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing society.

All who had known Natásha before her marriage wondered at the change

in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with her

maternal instinct had realized that all Natásha’s outbursts had been due

to her need of children and a husband—as she herself had once exclaimed

at Otrádnoe not so much in fun as in earnest—and her mother was now

surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never understood

Natásha, and she kept saying that she had always known that Natásha

would make an exemplary wife and mother.

“Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all

bounds,” said the countess, “so that it even becomes absurd.”

Natásha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,

especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself

go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be

even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and

should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her

husband. Natásha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery,

of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up

just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with

her manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show

herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid

inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction

to all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly

taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of

her husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up

entirely—that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden

from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained

by the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something

else—indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.

To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic

songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn

herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps

have been agreeable—she did not know—but she had no time at all for it.

The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress, or

to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for these

things.

We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in

a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so

trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one’s entire

attention is devoted to it.

The subject which wholly engrossed Natásha’s attention was her family:

that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong

entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear,

bring into the world, nurse, and bring up.

And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole

soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger

did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers

appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet

was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.

There were then as now conversations and discussions about women’s

rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights,

though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but

these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natásha, she positively

did not understand them.

These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in

marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is,

only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which

lies in the family.

Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of

how to get the greatest gratification from one’s dinner, did not then

and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the

nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.

If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two

dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his

purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.

If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have

many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that

case will not have a family.

If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the

family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one

can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for

the family—that is, one wife or one husband. Natásha needed a husband. A

husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw no

need of any other or better husband, but as all the powers of her soul

were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not imagine

and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were

different.

Natásha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the

society of her relatives—Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother, and

Sónya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come striding

disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with joyful face

show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby’s napkin, and from whom

she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was much better.

To such an extent had Natásha let herself go that the way she dressed

and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy—she was jealous

of Sónya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain—were

habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general opinion was

that Pierre was under his wife’s thumb, which was really true. From the

very first days of their married life Natásha had announced her demands.

Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife’s view, to him a perfectly

novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and to the

family. His wife’s demands astonished him, but they also flattered him,

and he submitted to them.

Pierre’s subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not

flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did

not dare dine at the Club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a

whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on

business—in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which

she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great

importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to

regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At

home Natásha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,

and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied—that is, was

reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality for

anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only to express a

wish and Natásha would jump up and run to fulfill it.

The entire household was governed according to Pierre’s supposed orders,

that is, by his wishes which Natásha tried to guess. Their way of

life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natásha’s

occupations, the children’s upbringing, were all selected not merely

with regard to Pierre’s expressed wishes, but to what Natásha from the

thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she

deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once

arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to

change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.

Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their

first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse

three times and Natásha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her

of Rousseau’s view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet

nurse is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite

the opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband

himself—who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself,

a thing then unheard of and considered injurious—she insisted on having

her own way, and after that nursed all her babies herself.

It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife

would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and

delight would find in his wife’s ideas and actions the very thought

against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous

that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his

opinion.

After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm

consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw

himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself

inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in

him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.

And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and

mysterious reflection.