Book 2 Part 3 Chapter 21 (Chapter 124 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Natasha and Prince Andrei. Viera's subtile diplomacy Impertinent suggestions. Discussion of Natasha's character.
Briggs: The evening is exactly like all the others - just what the Bergs aspire to.

Translation:

XXI.

Pierre, as one of the most honorable guests, was to sit in Boston with Ilya Andreich, the general and colonel. Pierre behind the Boston table had to sit against Natasha and the strange turn occurring in her with the day of the ball, struck him. Natasha was silent, and not only was not as good as she was at the ball, but she would have been bad, if she would not have been so meek and indifferent to all kinds.

"What is with her?" thought Pierre, looking at her. She sat beside her sister at the tea table and reluctantly, not looking at him, answered something to the sitting next to her Boris. Moving away the whole suit and picking to pleasure his partner with five bribes, Pierre heard the dialect of cheers and a sound of some steps, entering into the room in the time of collecting bribes, and again looked at her.

"What is with her?" still more surprised he said to himself.

Prince Andrey with a frugally gentle expression stood before her and spoke something to her. She, holding up her head, reddened, and apparently trying to to hold impetuous breathing, watched him. And a vivid light of something internal, before an extinguished fire, again burned in her. She was all transformed. From the bad again was made such the same as she was at the ball.

Prince Andrey came up to Pierre and Pierre saw a new, young expression and on the face of his friend.

Pierre a few times changed in the time of the game, then back, then facing Natasha, and in all the continuation of six rubbers made security above her and his friend.

"Something very major is going on between them," thought Pierre joyfully and together with a bitter feeling that forced him to worry and forget about the game.

After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was impossible to play that way, and Pierre received freedom. Natasha on one side spoke with Sonya and Boris, and Vera about something with a subtle smile spoke with Prince Andrey. Pierre came up to his friend and asked whether it was not about a secret that they spoke and sat down beside them. Vera, noticing the attention Prince Andrey gave to Natasha, found that in an evening, to the present in the evening, it was necessarily needed to have subtle hints to the senses and improve the time when Prince Andrey was alone, beginning with him a conversation about all her feelings about her sister. Her need was with such a smart (as she counted Prince Andrey) guest to put to business their diplomatic art.

When Pierre came up to him, he saw that Vera was found in a smug infatuation of conversation, and Prince Andrey (what with him seldom happened) seemed embarrassed.

— How do you think? — with a subtle smile said Vera. — You, prince, are so perceptive and so understanding right away the character of people. What do you think about Natalie, whether she may be constant in her affections, whether she may be so as other women (Vera understood herself), to fall in love one time with a man and forever stay true to him? This I think is present love. How do you think, prince?

— I too little know your sister, — was the response of Prince Andrey with a mocking smile, below which he wanted to hide his embarrassment, — so that to solve such a small question; and then I notice that the less liked a woman is, she will be more constant, — he added and looked at Pierre approaching at this time to him.

— Yes this really is, prince; in our time, — continued Vera (mentioning about our time, as all love to mention limited people, believing that they have found and appreciated the peculiarities of our time and that the properties of people change with time), in our time a girl has so many freedoms that the pleasure to be noticed510 often drowns out her true feeling. And Natalie, it needs to be admitted, is very sensitive to this.511 The return to Natalie again made an unpleasant grimace on Prince Andrey; he wanted to get up, but Vera continued with a still more refined smile.

— I think, nothing was so the subject of courtship,512 as she, — said Vera; — but never, before herself the last time no one was seriously liked by her. Here you know, count, — she turned to Pierre, — even our sweet cousin Boris, who was, between us let it be said,513 very, very in the region of tenderness514 — she said, alluding to the former in the going then cards of love.

Prince Andrey frowningingly kept silent.

— You became friendly with Boris? — Vera said to him.

— Yes, I know him...

— He rightly spoke to you about his children's room love to Natasha?

— But it was children's love? — suddenly blushing, asked Prince Andrey.

— Yes. You know, between brother and sister cousins this close very often leads to love. Cousins — a dangerous business. Really, whether it is not?515

— Oh, without doubt, — said Prince Andrey, and suddenly, unnaturally perking up, he began to joke with Pierre about how he should be careful with his own outstanding 50-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the middle of the joking conversation got up and, taking below the arm of Pierre, took him somewhere to the side.

— Well what? — said Pierre, with surprise watching the strange revitalization of his friend and noticed the look which he, getting up, threw at Natasha.

— I need to, I need to talk with you, — said Prince Andrey. — You know our woman gloves (he spoke about those masonic gloves that were given for the choosing of a brother for presenting to a beloved woman). — I... but no, I will talk with you after... — and with a strange shine in his eyes and anxiety in movements Prince Andrey came up to Natasha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrey asked her something, and she, flaring up, answered him.

But at this time Berg came up to Pierre, strongly begging him to accept participation in the dispute between the general and the colonel about the Spanish deeds.

Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of joy did not go off from his face. The evening was very good and completely such as other evenings that he saw. All appeared. The ladies, subtle conversations, cards, behind the cards the general’s exalting voice, the samovar, and the biscuits; but one thing still lacked that he always saw in evenings, and which he desired to imitate. It lacked loud conversations between men and arguments about something important and smart. The general started this conversation and to him Berg attracted Pierre.

510  le plaisir d’être courtisée (the pleasure of being courted)

511 Et Nathalie, il faut l’аvouer, y est très sensible. (And Nathalie, we must admit, is very sensitive to it.)

512 courtisée (courted)

513 entre nous, (between us,)

514 dans le pays du tendre... (in the country of the tender...)

515 Vous savez entre cousin et cousine cette intimité mène quelquefois à l’amour: le cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. N’est ce pas? (You know between cousin and cousin this intimacy sometimes leads to love: cousinship is a dangerous neighborhood. Is not it?)

Time: See previous chapter
Mentioned: "our day" (our time in Bell and Pevear and Volkhonsky. our days in Maude, Dole, and Mandelker. our day and age in Briggs. these days in Garnett.

Locations: See previous chapter
Mentioned: Moscow, Spanish

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes:

Continuing the absurd party, Pierre sees that something is wrong with Natasha, that is, until Andrei arrives and puts the "inner fire" back in her. Andrei also looks more youthful. Vera places Andrei in an awkward conversation.
I like this parenthetical that Tolstoy puts in: "as limited people (meaning Vera) generally like to do, supposing that they have discovered and appreciated the particularities of our time and that people's qualities change with
time". More importantly, Andrei mentions the women's gloves that Pierre was supposed to keep and give to someone pure.

Berg begins a political argument to complete the soiree (or at least what he believes a soiree should have), though this argument is not shown, as we skip to the next day to start the next chapter.

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 *):

Pierre

Count Ilya Andreyitch

Natasha (also "Nathalie")

Viera

Boris

Prince Andrei

Sonya

Berg

(again the general and the colonel)

Abridged Versions: No break in Bell.
Gibian: End of Chapter 12

Fuller: Entire Chapter is removed.

Komroff: The chapter ends after the general gets irritated at cards, with the rest of it skipped besides Berg bringing them all into conversation (Komroff skips the specificity). Followed by a line break.

Kropotkin: Chapter 10: Chapter is preserved.
Simmons: Entire chapter is cut.

Additional Notes:

Herold: Page 218: “Often armed only with clubs, the men of Spain clashed with the French to protect their families from the cruelty of the invaders. The spontaneous popular uprising that greeted

Napoleon’s move to install his brother Joseph as king of Spain has no parallel in European history.”

Schopenhauer: 51: “The character of man is constant: it remains the same, throughout the whole of life. Under the changeable shell of his years, his relationships, and even his store of knowledge

and opinions, there hides, like a crab under its shell, the identical and real man, quite unchangeable and always the same.”

Gorky (Lev Tolstoi): How strange that he should like playing cards. He plays in deadly earnest, and gets very excited. And he holds the cards as nervously as if he had a live bird between his

fingers, and not just bits of cardboard.”