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Chapter 21
Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with Count Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he happened to be directly facing Natasha, and was struck by a curious change that had come over her since the ball, She was silent, and not only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed1 from plainness by her look of gentle indifference2 to everything around.
“What’s the matter with her?” thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking at him, made some reply to Boris who sat 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 had entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at Natasha.
“What has happened to her?” he asked himself with still greater surprise.
Prince Andrey was standing3 before her, saying something to her with a look of tender solicitude4. She, having raised her head, was 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 was again alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had again become what she had been at the ball.
Prince Andrey went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and youthful expression in his friend’s face.
Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with his back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six rubbers he watched her and his friend.
“Something very important is happening between them,” thought Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful5 and painful agitated6 him and made him neglect the game.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one side was talking with Sonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle smile was saying something to Prince Andrey. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince Andrey’s attentions to Natasha, decided7 that at a party, a real evening party, subtle allusions8 to the tender passion were absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrey was alone, began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrey to be, she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact9.
When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being carried away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrey seemed embarrassed, a thing that rarely happened with him.
“What do you think?” Vera was saying with an arch smile. “You are so discerning, Prince, and understand people’s characters so well at a glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her attachments10? Could she, like other women” (Vera meant herself), “love a man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider true love. What do you think, Prince?”
“I know your sister too little,” replied Prince Andrey, with a sarcastic11 smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment12, “to be able to solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be,” he added, and looked up Pierre who was just approaching them.
“Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days,” continued Vera — mentioning “our days” as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised13 the peculiarities14 of “our days” and that human characteristics change with the times — “in our days a girl has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted often stifles15 real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is very susceptible16.” This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrey to knit his brows with discomfort17: he was about to rise, but Vera continued with a still more subtle smile:
“I think no one has been more courted than she,” she went on, “but till quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count,” she said to Pierre, “even our dear cousin Boris, who, between ourselves, was very far gone in the land of tenderness . . . ” (alluding to a map of love much in vogue18 at that time).
Prince Andrey frowned and remained silent.
“You are friendly with Boris, aren’t you?” asked Vera.
“Yes, I know him . . . ”
“I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?”
“Oh, there was childish love?” suddenly asked Prince Andrey, blushing unexpectedly.
“Yes, you know between cousins intimacy19 often leads to love. Le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. Cousins are dangerous neighbors. Don’t you think so?”
“Oh, undoubtedly20!” said Prince Andrey, and with sudden and unnatural21 liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.
“Well?” asked Pierre, seeing his friend’s strange animation22 with surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natasha as he rose.
“I must . . . I must have a talk with you,” said Prince Andrey. “You know that pair of women’s gloves?” (He referred to the Masonic gloves given to a newly initiated23 Brother to present to the woman he loved.) “I . . . but no, I will talk to you later on,” and with a strange light in his eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrey approached Natasha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrey asked her something and how she flushed as she replied.
But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on the affairs in Spain.
Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face. The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had seen. Everything was similar: the ladies’ subtle talk, the cards, the general raising his voice at the card table, and 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 had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.
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1
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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2
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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3
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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4
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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5
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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6
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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7
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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10
attachments
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| n.（用电子邮件发送的）附件( attachment的名词复数 )；附着；连接；附属物 | |
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11
sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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12
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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13
appraised
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| v.估价( appraise的过去式和过去分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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14
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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15
stifles
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的第三人称单数 )； 镇压，遏制 | |
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16
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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17
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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18
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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19
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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20
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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21
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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22
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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23
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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