Book 2 Part 3 Chapter 12 (Chapter 115 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Natasha and Boris. Boris charmed. Natasha apparently in love.
Briggs: Natasha and Boris are mutually attracted. Sonya seems to love him too.
Maude: Natasha and Boris
Pevear and Volkhonsky (Chapters 12-13): Natasha is sixteen. Meets Boris. Talks at night with her mother.

Translation:

XII.

Natasha was sixteen years-old, and it was the year 1809, that very one, which before she four years to that backwards by fingers counted with Boris after she had been kissed by him. From that since she had not once seen Boris. Before Sonya and with her mother, when the conversation called for Boris, she completely freely said that the case was resolved, that all that was before, — was kidding, about which it was not worth speaking, and which for a long time was forgotten. Yet in the most secret depth of her soul, the question about whether the obligation to Boris was a joke or an important, binding promise, tormented her.

From the most of that since Boris in the year 1805 left from Moscow to the army, he had not seen the Rostovs. A few times he had been in Moscow, driving near Otradnoe, but not once was at the Rostovs.

To Natasha it sometimes came into her head that he did not want to see her, and this guess of hers was confirmed by that sad tone, which the seniors used to talk about him:

— The current century does not remember old friends, — said the countess following behind a mention about Boris.

Anna Mihaylovna, in the latter time rarely was at the Rostovs, also holding herself especially suitably, and at any time enthusiastically and gratefully talked about the merits of her son and about his brilliant career in which he was found. When the Rostovs arrived in Petersburg, Boris had arrived to visit with them.

He rode to them not without excitement. The memory about Natasha was a very poetic memory for Boris. Yet together with that he rode with the solid intention to clearly give the feeling to her, and her relatives, that the children's relationship between him and Natasha may not be a commitment for her, or for him. He was in a brilliant position in society, thanks to the intimacy with Countess Bezuhova, a brilliant position in the service, thanks to the patronage of an important face whose trust he quite employed and to him were emerging plans of marriage to one of the richest brides in Petersburg, which very easily could become true. When Boris entered into the living room of the Rostovs, Natasha was in her room. Upon learning about his arrival, she flushed and almost ran into the living room, beaming more than an affectionate smile.

Boris remembered that Natasha in a short dress, with black, brilliant from below curls eyes and with a desperate, childhood laugh, which he knew four years to that backwards, and because, when entered really another Natasha, he was embarrassed, and his face expressed enthusiastic surprise. This expression on his face gladdened Natasha.

— What, recognize your little mischievous friend? — said the countess. Boris kissed the hand of Natasha and said that he was surprised at what happened in her change.

— How you have become prettier!

"If it would be more!" answered the laughing eye of Natasha.

— But has papa aged? — she asked. Natasha sat and, not marching into the conversation of Boris with the countess, silently examined her children's groom to the slightest details. He felt in himself the heaviness of this stubborn, affectionate sight and occasionally looked at her.

The uniform, spurs, ties, and hairstyle of Boris, all this was very fashionable and quite decent.502 This was now noticed by Natasha. He sat a little bit sideways on the armchair beside the countess, mended in his right hand a clean, drenched glove with the left, spoke with a special, subtle squeeze of the lips about the amusements of the higher Petersburg world and with meek mockery remembered former Moscow times and Moscow acquaintances. Not accidentally, Natasha felt, he mentioned calling the higher aristocracy, about the ball of a messenger, at which he was, and about invitations to NN and to SS.

Natasha sat all the time silently, sneakily looking at him. This look all more and more bothered and embarrassed Boris. He more often looked around at Natasha and interrupted his stories. He sat not more than 10 minutes and got up, bowing. All those same curious, provocative and a little mocking eyes looked at him. After the first of his visits, Boris said to himself that Natasha for him was exactly so the same attractive as before, but that he should not give back to this feeling, because of how marriage to her — a girl almost without a state, — would ruin his career, but the renewal of the former relationship without the goal of marriage would be an ignoble act. Boris decided with himself to avoid meetings with Natasha, but despite this decision, had arrived in a few days and had begun to ride often and spend the whole day at the Rostovs. He presented that it was necessary for him to explain to Natasha, say to her that all the old must be forgotten, that, despite all... she may not be his wife, that he had no state, and hers would never be given back. Yet he did not manage and awkwardly began all of this explanation. With every afternoon he more and more got confused. Natasha, by the remarks of her mother and Sonya, saw the old love in Boris. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her album, forced him to write in it, not allowing him to commemorate about the old, giving the understanding of how it was perfectly new; and every day he was leaving in a fog, not saying what was found to say, himself not knowing what he did and for what he came, and then to finish this. Boris ceased to visit at Elen’s, daily was getting reproachful notes from her and all the same spent whole days at the Rostovs.

502 comme il faut. (properly.)

Time: 1809
Mentioned: four years, 1805, every day

Locations: St. Petersburg, the Rostovs' house
Mentioned: Moscow, army, Otradnoe

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes:

Meanwhile, Natasha is thinking about the promise she had with Boris. Boris has his intentions, but when he sees Natasha, he can't stop his face from betraying his happiness to see her (just as he couldn't hide his annoyance
with Nikolai in Part 2. Boris's lack of resolve when it comes to women comes up later on in regards to Julie). Boris is quite comme il faut (compare Tolstoy's Childhood/Boyhood/Youth trilogy). Boris doesn't want to marry or get involved with Natasha, but can't stop himself from doing it. He even stops seeing Helene.

Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):

Natasha

Boris

Sonya

Countess Rostova ("her mother")

Anna Mikhailovna

Countess Ellen Bezukhaya

Count Rostov ("papa")

(the N.N. and S.S. characters are referenced again)

Abridged Versions: No break in Bell
Gibian: Chapter 7.

Fuller: Entire Chapter is cut

Komroff: Entire Chapter is cut

Kropotkin: Chapter 4: Chapter is preserved. Followed by a line break.
Simmons: Chapter 7: Missing the countess and Sonya sections.

Additional Notes: Maude: "Tolstoy tells us that she (Natasha) is sixteen in 1809, whereas in 1805 she is a child of thirteen"

From Kathyrn Feuer's (The Book That Became War and Peace)" from the Norton Critical Edition: "Boris Drubetskoy is an interesting case; originally he was to have been wealthy and honorable, though overly ambitious (very much like Prince Andrey, who did not exist in the earliest manuscripts); after Tolstoy decides to impoverish him, however, we begin to see, in the successive manuscripts, his steady moral decline, until he becomes the careerist and hypocrite of the final novel. It seems that for Tolstoy the actions of a poor man were inevitably morally suspect…"

Moser/Rowe Page 52: “Tolstoy’s treatment of Natasha reflects Russian religious and social tradition. Before Peter the Great initiated the custom of having upperclass women appear at court and social functions, they were severely restricted, spending their entire lives in separate, prisonlike quarters called the terem. Still earlier, Byzantine Christianity had brought to Russia a dual image of woman: Mary the Virgin Mother and Eve the Temptress...the Byzantine church father St. John Chrysotom described women as “insinuating, cunning, stealthy; slanderers, ensarers, heretics…”

Briggs Introduction: "A woman of striking intelligence, she (Sonya, Tolstoy's wife) had a good education at home and at university, where she had obtained a teaching diploma. She had also tried writing, and a short novel which she destroyed was said by her sister to have contained the germ of the relationship between Natasha Rostov and her mother."

John Bayley Introduction to Eugene Onegin: Page 17: "We can see Tatyana in Dostoyevsky's spirited Dunya, the sister of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, who is himself in a sense a figure evolved from Onegin. And her influence on Tolstoy's Natasha of War and Peace is just as evident."

(Letter to A.A. Fet --November 7, 1866) “He (Prince Andrew) is monotonous, boring, and merely un homme comme il faut in the whole first part. That is true, but I am to blame, not he.”