Book 2 Part 3 Chapter 13 (Chapter 116 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Natasha's bedtime confidences. The old countess's good advice. Natasha's droll judgment of Boris and Pierre; on herself. Boris receives his conge.
Briggs: Following a late-night talk with Natasha, the countess sends Boris away.
Maude: Natasha's bedtime talks with her mother

XIII.

One night when the old countess, sighing and crumbling, in a nightcap and blouse, without false curls, and with one poor bundle of hair projecting from below her white, calico cap, placed the rug on the ground and bowed for evening prayers, her door creaked, and in shoes and bare legs, also in a blouse and in papillotes, ran in Natasha. The countess looked around and frowned. She finished reading her last prayer: "Will this bed really be my coffin?" The mood of her prayer was destroyed. Natasha, red, lively, seeing her mother in prayer, suddenly stopped her run, sat down and unwittingly stuck out her tongue, threatening mostly herself. She noticed that her mother continued her prayer, she on tiptoe ran up to the bed, quickly slipping one little leg about the other, threw off her shoes and jumped into that bed for which the countess was afraid would be her coffin. This bed was a tall featherbed with five, all diminishing pillows. Natasha jumped up, drowned into the feather bed, rolled over to the wall and began messing around under the blanket, laying down, bending her knees to her chin, kicking her feet and a little bit of laughing was heard from what covered her head, then looking at her mother. The countess finished her prayer and with a strict face came up to the bed; but, seeing how Natasha covered her head, smiled her good, weak smile.

— Well, well, well, — said the mother.

— Mama, can we talk, yes? — said Natasha. — Well, darling one time, well still we will. — And she grabbed the neck of her mother and kissed her chin. In her standing with her mother Natasha showed an external rudeness of manners, but was so empathetic and dexterous that as she would grab the hands of her mother, she always was able to do this so that her mother was not hurt, unpleasant, or awkward.

— Well, about the same now? — said her mother, arranging on the pillows and waiting while Natasha, also rolling two times through it herself, did not lie down with her nearby under one blanket, straightening out her hand and accepting a serious expression.

These night visits of Natasha, committed before the return of the count from the club, were one of the favorite pleasures of mother and daughter.

— About the same now? But I need to say to you...

Natasha closed with her hand the mouth of her mother.

— About Boris... I know, — she said seriously, — I have then come.. Do not speak, I know. No, talk! — she let her hand go. — Talk, Mama. Is he dear?

— Natasha, you are sixteen years-old, at your years I was married. You say that Borya is dear. He is very dear, and I love him as a son, but what again do you want?.. What do you think? You really whirled his head, I see this...

Saying this, the countess looked around at her daughter. Natasha lay, still looking all forward herself at one of the sphinxes of red wood cut into the corners of the bed, so that the countess saw only the profile of the face of her daughter. This face struck the countess with her serious features and focused expression.

Natasha listened and thought.

— Well, so what is it? — she said.

— You really whirled his head, and what for? What do you want from him? You know that you cannot exit for him to get married.

— From what? — not changing the situation, said Natasha.

— Because of how he is young, because of how he is poor, because of how he is kin... and because of how you yourself do not love him.

— But why do you know?

— I know. This is not okay, my friend.

— But if I want... — said Natasha.

— Stop speaking nonsense, — said the countess.

— But if I want...

— Natasha, I am serious...

Natasha did not give her a finish, pulled to herself the big hand of the countess and kissed it from above, then on the palm, then again turned it over and began to kiss it on the bone of the top joint of the fingertips, then on the gap, then again on the bone, whisperly saying: "January, February, March, April, May.”

— Speak, Mama, for what again do you keep silent? Speak, — she said, looking back at her mother, whose gentle look watched her daughter from behind this contemplation, it seemed, forgetting all that she wanted to say.

— This is not fit, my soul. Not all understand or recognize your children's connection, but seeing him so close with you may harm you in the eyes of other young people which ride to us, and, the main thing, is in vain tormenting him. He, maybe, has found himself a party for himself, a rich one; but now his mind has gone down.

—Gone down? — repeated Natasha.

— I speak to you about myself. I had one cousin...

— I know — Kiril Matveich, and because he was an old man?

— Not always an old man. But here is what, Natasha, I will talk with Borya. He does not need to so often ride...

— From what again does he not need to, if he wants?

— Because of how I know that this will finish in nothing.

— Why do you know? No, Mama, do not speak to him. For what is this nonsense! — said Natasha in the tone of a human to someone who wants to take away their own. — Well not to come to get married, so let him ride, if it is fun to him and fun to me. — Natasha smilingly looked at her mother.

— Not to get married, but so, — she repeated.

— So the same as this, my friend?

— Yes so. Well, I very much need not to get married, but... so.

— So, so, — repeated the countess and, shaking all of her body, laughed a kind, unexpected for an old woman laugh.

— Completely stop laughing, — screamed Natasha, — all the bed shakes. You are terribly similar to me, such the same at giggling... wait... — she grabbed both hands of the countess, kissed one bone on the pinky — June, and continued to kiss July, August on the other hand. — Mama, but has he extremely fallen in love? How is it in your eyes? Have you been so in love? And he is very dear, very, very dear! Only he is not really in my taste— He is narrow, such as a dining room clock... You do not understand?... Narrow, you know, gray, light colored...

— How you lie! — said the countess.

Natasha continued:

— Do you really not understand? Nikolinka would get it... Bezuhov — that is blue, dark-blue with red, and he is quadrangular.

— And you with him flirt, — laughing said the countess.

— No, he is a freemason, I recognized it. He is nice, dark-blue with red, as you interpret...

— Countess, — was heard the voice of the count from behind the door. — You do not sleep? — Natasha jumped up barefoot, seized in her hand her shoes and ran away to her room.

She for long could not fall asleep. She thought all about how there was no way for anyone to understand what only she understands, and what is in her.

"Sonya?" — she thought, looking at the sleeping, curled up kitty with her huge braid —"No, what is she! She is virtuous. She fell in love with Nikolinka and wants to know nothing more. And Mama, she does not understand. This is surprising, as I am smart and as... she is a sweetheart," — she continued, talking about herself in the third person and imagining that this one speaking about her was someone very smart, the smartest and best man..."All, all is in her, — continued this man, — unusually smart, a sweetheart and then good, unusually good, dexterous, — she swims, rides on horseback fine, but her voice! I can say, an astonishing voice!" She sang her favorite musical phrase from Cherubini’s opera, threw herself on the bed, laughed from a joyful thought that she now fell asleep, shouted to Dunyasha to put out the candle, and still Dunyasha had not managed to exit from the room, as she already went over into another, still more happy world of dreams, where all was so easy and perfect again, as in reality, but was still only better, because of how it was another.

—————

On the next day the countess, inviting Boris to herself, spoke with him, and from this day he ceased to visit at the Rostovs.

Time: One evening (night in Briggs), the following day
Mentioned: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August

Locations: see previous chapter

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes:

Natasha and her mother. "These nightly visits of Natasha, which took place before the count's return from the club, were one of the favorite pleasures of both mother and daughter."

The countess tells Natasha why the set up between Boris and her won't work. Natasha wants to know why he can't come not to court and get married but "Just so".

Boris is gray, light gray. Pierre is dark blue with red. Line break before the last sentence of the chapter, where the countess talks with Boris in order to get him to stop visiting.

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 *):

Countess Rostova ("old countess" and "her mother")

Natasha

Count Rostof ("the count")

Boris

Kirill Matveyitch (the mother's cousin. "...Matveich" in Edmonds. "Kirilla Matveitch" in Garnett. "Cyril Matveich" in Maude. "Kiril Matveich" in Mandelker and Dunnigan. "Kirila Matveich" in Briggs. "Kirill Matveyeevich" in Wiener.
"Cyril Matveevich" in Bell.)

Nikolai ("Nikolenka")

Pierre ("Bezukhoi")

Sonya

Dunyasha (perhaps previously mentioned as a nurse or maid. "Douniacha" in Bell in an alternate reading.)

Abridged Versions: Line break after "only better because it was all different" in Briggs. Edmonds, Dole, Garnett, Wiener, and Maude have one in the same spot. End of chapter 4 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 8: line break after "because it was different."

Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.

Komroff: Entire chapter is cut.

Kropotkin: Chapter is preserved (excluding the line break). End of chapter 4.
Simmons: Chapter 8: the mention of the countess's cousin is removed, as well as Natasha's thoughts about Sonya after the conversation. Line break after "because it was all different."

Edmundson: The conversation about Boris quickly segues into a conversation about Natasha's first ball.

Additional Notes: From the introduction of the Briggs' translation: "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."

S.A. Tolstaya: The Marriage of Lev Tolstoi Page 53: “One evening I slipped quietly into my mother’s bedroom. She was already in bed. “What is it, Sonya?” she asked. “Mother, nobody thinks it is me Lev Nikolayevich is going to marry, but I think he loves me,” I began timidly. That made her very angry for some reason, and she turned on me. “For ever thinking that everybody is in love with you!” she scolded. “Get along with you and stop imagining such nonsense.”’

Dmitry S. Mirsky (On Tolstoy: Materialism, Spiritualism, and Russianness)

Tolstoy was married...Countess Tolstoy...It was only owing to her that the novel could be written at all...Marriage was for him an actual window into the world of “the other,” an actual possibility to see into another’s mind….She was “other,”...And that was a first step towards seeing other “others,”

About Tolstoy One of the basic contradictions in Tolstoy is that between his irrational vitality (which in War and Peace triumphs especially in the figure of Natasha) and his all-penetrating analytical rationalism...Tolstoy’s anti-symbolism, his rejection of transcendental meaning in phenomena