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Updated: June 28, 2025
"What's to be done? I can't draw back now!" The worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better was Pierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he expected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town. Julie had gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only the Rostovs remained, but he did not go to see them.
Natasha's prediction proved true. He came because of Sonya. And Sonya, though she would never have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dolokhov appeared. Dolokhov often dined at the Rostovs', never missed a performance at which they were present, and went to Iogel's balls for young people which the Rostovs always attended.
She had decided to receive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment indulge in some freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostovs' visit. "There, my dear princess, I've brought you my songstress," said the count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince might appear.
That same day he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of Borodino for more than a month had recently died in the Rostovs' house at Yaroslavl, and Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Helene's death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its significance.
The count wished to go home, but Helene entreated him not to spoil her improvised ball, and the Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha for a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise, which she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by themselves, but merely gazed at her.
As she was leaving the Rostovs she called her protegee aside. "My brother dined with me yesterday we nearly died of laughter he ate nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite madly, in love with you, my dear." Natasha blushed scarlet when she heard this. "How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!" said Helene. "You must certainly come.
Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea.
Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs all gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room. The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring eyes off him.
Apart from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Mary was agitated just then because on the Rostovs' being announced, the old prince had shouted that he did not wish to see them, that Princess Mary might do so if she chose, but they were not to be admitted to him.
Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostovs, pretended not to notice how upset Natasha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and the other guests. That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna had taken a box. Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's kind offer which was intended expressly for her.
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