War and Peace Ch. 332: The Heart Recognizes

Summary

At the end of January Pierre goes to Moscow and stays in an unburned annex of his house. He calls on Rostopchin and acquaintances, meaning to leave for Petersburg in two days. The ruined city is bubbling with life. Everyone is pleased to see him and questions him. He feels well disposed, yet instinctively guards himself from new bonds. Where will he live? Will he rebuild? Will he take a parcel? He answers yes, perhaps, or I think so. He has heard the Rostovs are at Kostroma. Natasha seldom occurs to him, and then only as a pleasant memory of the distant past. He feels free even of the feeling he thinks he once aroused in himself.

On the third day he hears from the Drubetskoys that Princess Mary is in Moscow, in the unburned house on Vozdvizhenka Street. Andrew's last days recur with fresh vividness. Driving there that evening he wonders whether Andrew died in the bitter frame of mind of Borodino, whether meaning was disclosed to him, and he compares Andrew with Karataev, so different, both loved. The old footman meets him sternly, as if the prince's absence had not disturbed the order of the house, and says the princess receives on Sundays. Pierre asks to be announced. Dessalles comes: she will see him upstairs.

In a low room lit by one candle sit Mary and another person in black. Pierre takes her for a companion and talks rapidly of Andrew, glancing once at the kindly attentive gaze. When he mentions the Rostovs, Mary's face shows embarrassment. Do you really not recognize her? He looks again at the pale, delicate face, black eyes, peculiar mouth. Something long forgotten and more than sweet looks at him. It cannot be she: this stern, thin, older face. Mary says Natasha. With difficulty, like a door grown rusty, a smile opens, and from that opening comes a breath of fragrance that seizes him. When she smiles, doubt is no longer possible: it is Natasha, and he loves her. He flushes with joyful distress and betrays to her, to Mary, and to himself a secret he had not known. He tries to hide the agitation and only makes it clearer. He failed to notice her because he did not expect her, and failed to recognize her because the change was immense. Thinness was not the point. The face whose eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of life's joy now held no shadow of a smile, only a kindly, sadly interrogative look. His confusion is not reflected in her, only by pleasure that just perceptibly lights her whole face.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Recognizing Buried Feelings

We often guard with vague answers until one face undoes the story. Pierre said yes perhaps to every obligation while filing Natasha as distant memory.

When someone changed by grief smiles, ask whether your mind is lying about what your heart still knows.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Natasha

The face Pierre cannot place has dropped the old suppressed smile of life's joy. Recognition waits on a rusty smile, not on a name, and she does not perform being found. Grief has already taken its defence: look kindly, ask, do not sparkle, and the man who filed you as distant memory will flush anyway.

Continue this thoughtNatasha Cannot Stay Inside the Waiting Period

Coming Up in Chapter 333

"She has come to stay with me," says Princess Mary, explaining that Natasha had to see a doctor. Pierre turns to Natasha and says there is no family free from sorrow now: he saw Petya the day they were rescued. "What a delightful boy he was!"

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Chapter 332

The Heart Recognizes What the Mind Forgot

At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of his house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchín and on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory, everything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city. Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and everyone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his guard for fear of…

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The Heart Recognizes What the Mind Forgot

Summary

Why This Matters