with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. 'I couldn't begin talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,' thought Natasha. The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She knew what she ought to have said to Natasha, but she had been unable to say it because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary went up hurriedly to Natasha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh:
'Wait, I must...'
Natasha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.
'Dear Natalie,' said Princess Mary, 'I want you to know that I am glad my brother has found happiness....'
She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natasha noticed this and guessed its reason.
'I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now,' she said with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking her.
'What have I said and what have I done?' thought she, as soon as she was out of the room.
They waited a long time for Natasha to come to dinner that day. She sat in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sonya stood beside her, kissing her hair.
'Natasha, what is it about?' she asked. 'What do they matter to you? It will all pass, Natasha.'
'But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I...'
'Don't talk about it, Natasha. It wasn't your fault so why should you mind? Kiss me,' said Sonya.
Natasha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her wet face against her.
'I can't tell you, I don't know. No one's to blame,' said Natasha- 'It's my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn't he come?...'
She came in to dinner with red eyes. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostovs, pretended not to notice how upset Natasha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and the other guests.
CHAPTER VIII
That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna had taken a box.
Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.
'O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes--how I see those eyes!' thought Natasha. 'And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can't bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!' and she turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. 'And how can Sonya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?' thought she, looking at Sonya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand. 'No, she's altogether different. I can't!'
Natasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of carriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels squeaking over the snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses, jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and, passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers, they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes. Through the closed doors the music was already audible.
'Natasha, your hair!...' whispered Sonya.
An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy at Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being played. Natasha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sonya and sat down, scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not experienced for a long time--that of hundreds of eyes looking at her bare arms and neck--suddenly affected her both agreeably and disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and emotions associated with that feeling.
The two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count Rostov who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natasha's engagement to Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostovs had lived in the country ever since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancee who was making one of the best matches in Russia.
Natasha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music, crumpling her program. 'Look, there's Alenina,' said Sonya, 'with her mother, isn't it?'
'Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!' remarked the count.
'Look at our Anna Mikhaylovna--what a headdress she has on!'
'The Karagins, Julie--and Boris with them. One can see at once that they're engaged....'
'Drubetskoy has proposed?'
'Oh yes, I heard it today,' said Shinshin, coming into the Rostovs' box.
