When Old Promises Collide with New Ambitions — War and Peace

Natásha is sixteen and it is 1809, the very year to which she had counted on her fingers with Borís after they kissed four years ago. Since then she has not seen him. Before Sónya and her mother, if Borís happens to be mentioned, she speaks quite freely of that episode as of some childish, long-forgotten matter not worth mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question whether her engagement to Borís was a jest or an important, binding promise torments her. Since Borís left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he has not seen the Rostóvs. He has been in Moscow several times, and has passed near Otrádnoe, but has never been to see them. Sometimes it occurs to Natásha that he does not wish to see her, and this conjecture is confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders speak of him. Nowadays old friends are not remembered, the countess says when he is mentioned. Anna Mikháylovna also has of late visited them less frequently, seems to hold herself with particular dignity, and always speaks rapturously of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on which he has entered.

When the Rostóvs come to Petersburg, Borís calls on them. He drives to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natásha is his most poetic recollection. But he goes with the firm intention of letting her and her parents feel that the childish relations cannot be binding either on her or on him. He has a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezúkhova, a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an important personage whose complete confidence he enjoys, and he is beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realised. When he enters the drawing room Natásha is in her own room. When she hears of his arrival she almost runs in, flushed and beaming with a more than cordial smile. Borís remembered her in a short dress, dark eyes shining from under curls, boisterous childish laughter; he is taken aback when quite a different Natásha enters, and his face expresses rapturous astonishment. The expression pleases her. Well, do you recognise your little madcap playmate, the countess asks. He kisses Natásha's hand, says he is astonished at the change, how handsome she has grown. Natásha sits down and, without joining the conversation with the countess, silently and minutely studies her childhood's suitor.

He feels the weight of what he ought to say: that the old times must be forgotten, that she could not be his wife, that he has no means, and they would never let her marry him. He fails to do so and feels awkward about entering on such an explanation. From day to day he becomes more and more entangled. It seems to her mother and Sónya that Natásha is in love with Borís as of old. She sings him his favourite songs, shows him her album, making him write in it, does not allow him to allude to the past, letting it be understood how delightful the present is. Every day he goes away in a fog, without having said what he meant to, not knowing what he is doing or why he came, or how it will all end. He leaves off visiting Hélène and receives reproachful notes from her every day, and yet he continues to spend whole days with the Rostóvs.