Pierre, as one of the principal guests, has to sit down to boston with Count Rostóv, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he happens to be directly facing Natásha, and is struck by a curious change that has come over her since the ball. She is silent, and not only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by her look of gentle indifference to everything around. What's the matter with her, Pierre thinks, glancing at her. She is sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking at him, makes some reply to Borís who sits down beside her. After playing out a whole suit and to his partner's delight taking five tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who has entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glances again at Natásha. What has happened to her, he asks himself with still greater surprise.
Prince Andrew is standing before her, saying something to her with a look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, is looking up at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed is again alight in her. She is completely transformed and from a plain girl has again become what she had been at the ball. Andrew goes up to Pierre, and the latter notices a new and youthful expression in his friend's face. Pierre changes places several times during the game, sitting now with his back to Natásha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six rubbers he watches her and his friend. Something very important is happening between them, Pierre thinks, and a feeling that is both joyful and painful agitates him and makes him neglect the game.
After six rubbers the general gets up, saying that it is no use playing like that, and Pierre is released. Natásha on one side is talking with Sónya and Borís, and Véra with a subtle smile is saying something to Prince Andrew. Pierre goes up to his friend and, asking whether they are talking secrets, sits down beside them. Véra, having noticed Andrew's attentions to Natásha, has decided that at a party, a real evening party, subtle allusions to the tender passion are absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Andrew is alone, begins a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considers him to be, she feels she has to employ her diplomatic tact. Pierre notices that Véra is being carried away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Andrew seems embarrassed, a thing that rarely happens with him. She asks with an arch smile about Natásha's constancy, cousin Borís, and the map of tenderness until Andrew's blush and forced jokes betray him. With awkwardness in his movements he approaches Natásha and sits down beside her. Pierre sees how he asks her something and how she flushes as she replies. But at that moment Berg comes to Pierre and begins insisting that he should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on the affairs in Spain. Berg is satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never leaves his face. The party is very successful and quite like other parties he has seen. Everything is similar: the ladies' subtle talk, the cards, the general raising his voice at the card table, the samovar and the tea cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now the general has begun such a discussion, and so Berg draws Pierre to it.
Coming Up in Chapter 128
Next day, invited by the count, Prince Andrew dines with the Rostovs and spends the rest of the day there. Everyone in the house knows for whose sake he comes, and he tries to be with Natasha all day. The countess watches him with sad, sternly serious eyes when he talks to Natasha.
