Love Declared and Witnessed — War and Peace

Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dines with the Rostóvs and spends the rest of the day there. Everyone in the house realises for whose sake he comes, and without concealing it he tries to be with Natásha all day. Not only in the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natásha, but in the whole house, there is a feeling of awe at something important that is bound to happen. The countess looks with sad and sternly serious eyes at Andrew when he talks to Natásha and timidly starts some artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looks her way. Sónya is afraid to leave Natásha and afraid of being in the way when she is with them. Natásha grows pale, in a panic of expectation, when she remains alone with him for a moment. Andrew surprises her by his timidity. She feels that he wants to say something to her but cannot bring himself to do so.

In the evening, when Andrew has left, the countess goes up to Natásha and whispers, Well, what? Mamma, for heaven's sake don't ask me anything now. One can't talk about that. But all the same that night Natásha, now agitated and now frightened, lies a long time in her mother's bed gazing straight before her. She tells how he complimented her, how he told her he was going abroad, asked where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he asked her about Borís. But such a, such a, never happened to me before. Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I'm with him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it's the real thing? Mamma, are you asleep? No, my love; I am frightened myself. Now go. All the same I shan't sleep. What silliness, to sleep. Such a thing never happened to me before, she says, surprised and alarmed at the feeling she is aware of in herself. And could we ever have thought. It seems to Natásha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew at Otrádnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had then chosen, she is firmly convinced she had done so, and of finding him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her. And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this. Already then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar. The countess, thoughtfully, asks about verses he wrote in Natásha's album.

Andrew tells Pierre he has never lived until now. He needed his father's consent, would not have believed anyone who told him he was capable of such love. It is not at all the same feeling that he knew in the past. The whole world is now for him divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light; the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness. I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very happy. You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake. Yes, yes, Pierre assents, looking at his friend with a touched and sad expression. The brighter Prince Andrew's lot appears to him, the gloomier seems his own. Pierre rejoices fiercely yet grows gloomier as his own marriage and court shame deepen. Andrew leaves Hélène's notes unread while the Rostóv house holds its breath for what he has not yet said aloud.