第 一百五十八 章 · 第158章

Count Rostóv took the girls to Countess Bezúkhova’s. There were

a good many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natásha. Count

Rostóv was displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely

of men and women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle

George was standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young

men. There were several Frenchmen present, among them Métivier who from

the time Hélène reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The

count decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight

and to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George’s performance was over.

Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostóvs.

Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natásha and followed

her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had

had at the opera—gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at

the absence of a moral barrier between them.

Hélène welcomed Natásha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her

beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went

out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began

arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for

Natásha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never

lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.

Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl

draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and

assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.

Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and

began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her

son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,

lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse

sounds, rolling her eyes.

“Adorable! divine! delicious!” was heard from every side.

Natásha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor

understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself

again completely borne away into this strange senseless world—so

remote from her old world—a world in which it was impossible to know

what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole,

and conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of

expectancy.

After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded

Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.

“How beautiful she is!” Natásha remarked to her father who had also

risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.

“I don’t think so when I look at you!” said Anatole, following

Natásha. He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. “You

are enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased...”

“Come, come, Natásha!” said the count, as he turned back for his

daughter. “How beautiful she is!” Natásha without saying anything

stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring

eyes.

After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess

Bezúkhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.

The count wished to go home, but Hélène entreated him not to spoil her

improvised ball, and the Rostóvs stayed on. Anatole asked Natásha for

a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her

she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the écossaise, which

she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be

by themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natásha lifted her frightened

eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate

look and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she

had to say. She lowered her eyes.

“Don’t say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another,”

she said rapidly.... She glanced at him.

Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.

“Don’t speak to me of that! What can I do?” said he. “I tell

you I am madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are

enchanting?... It’s our turn to begin.”

Natásha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open

frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly

anything that went on that evening. They danced the écossaise and the

Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain.

Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes

upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let

her go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Hélène had

followed her and spoken laughingly of her brother’s love, and that she

again met Anatole in the little sitting room. Hélène had disappeared

leaving them alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender

voice:

“I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see

you? I love you madly. Can I never...?” and, blocking her path, he

brought his face close to hers.

His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw

nothing but them.

“Natalie?” he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being

painfully pressed. “Natalie?”

“I don’t understand. I have nothing to say,” her eyes replied.

Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt

herself released, and Hélène’s footsteps and the rustle of her dress

were heard in the room. Natásha looked round at her, and then, red

and trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved

toward the door.

“One word, just one, for God’s sake!” cried Anatole.

She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what

had happened and to which she could find no answer.

“Natalie, just a word, only one!” he kept repeating, evidently not

knowing what to say and he repeated it till Hélène came up to them.

Hélène returned with Natásha to the drawing room. The Rostóvs went

away without staying for supper.

After reaching home Natásha did not sleep all night. She was tormented

by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew.

She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved

him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. “Else how

could all this have happened?” thought she. “If, after that, I could

return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to

that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is

kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to

do if I love him and the other one too?” she asked herself, unable to

find an answer to these terrible questions.