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Updated: June 28, 2025
Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was expected back every minute. Besides the Bezukhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired General Vasili Dmitrich Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this fifth of December.
"Well, that can't happen twice! Eh?" said Anatole, with a good-humored laugh. The day after the opera the Rostovs went nowhere and nobody came to see them. Marya Dmitrievna talked to the count about something which they concealed from Natasha. Natasha guessed they were talking about the old prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her.
"He asked you, and Vasili Dmitrich * is also going." * Denisov. "Where would I not go at the countess' command!" said Denisov, who at the Rostovs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha's knight. "I'm even weady to dance the pas de chale." "If I have time," answered Nicholas. "But I promised the Arkharovs; they have a party."
Natasha gazed at them and was ready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn of the waltz. Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the front row of the circle not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoff was talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be held next day.
Anna Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still living with the Rostovs. "My dear friend?" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to sympathize in any way. The count sobbed yet more. "Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy... the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the little countess!"
If he were now to leave Moscow like everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and his announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to this Pierre was very sensitive. Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his mental state.
Even at ten o'clock, when the Rostovs got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town.
She felt this to be their last hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match was with Julie Karagina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents, a girl the Rostovs had known from childhood, and who had now become a wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers.
"Have you any news of the Rostovs?" she asked, to change the subject. "I was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew any day. I should like them to meet here." "And how does he now regard the matter?" asked Pierre, referring to the old prince. Princess Mary shook her head. "What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing is impossible.
Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre interrupted her. "Just imagine I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he had been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!" Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation.
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