Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
Though by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostovs' acquaintances had left Moscow, and though everybody tried to persuade the countess to get away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving before her treasure, her adored Petya, returned. On the twenty-eighth of August he arrived.
Though she had firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her relation to Rostov. One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called.
The bustle and terror of the Rostovs' last days in Moscow stifled the gloomy thoughts that oppressed Sonya. She was glad to find escape from them in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew's presence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for Natasha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God did not intend her to be separated from Nicholas.
Marya Ignatevna Peronskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the countess and piloted the provincial Rostovs in Petersburg high society, was to accompany them to the ball. They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten o'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not yet dressed.
At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports current in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and how "the son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were saying. "I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to herself, feeling a joyous sense of her love for him.
And it seemed to her that God heard her prayer. From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own horizon from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented itself.
In Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostovs', and as they passed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows abreast.
The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August, and her son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was to join them on the march to Radzivilov. It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostovs the mother and the youngest daughter both named Nataly.
The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince Andrew was, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled by the terrible pallor of the princess' face that looked out at him from the window.
Nicholas brought many young men to his parents' house. Vera was a handsome girl of twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower; Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now girlishly enchanting. At that time in the Rostovs' house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming girls.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking