Book 2 Part 3 Chapter 22 (Chapter 125 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: "Prince Andrei dines with the Rostofs. Natasha confides in her mother. The Countess Ellen's rout. Pierre's abstraction. Prince Andrei confides in Pierre.
Briggs: Natasha's head is turned. Pierre tells Andrey to go ahead with the match.
Maude: Natasha consults her mother. Prince Andrew confides in Pierre.
Pevear and Volkhonsky: Prince Andrei and Natasha in love. Natasha confides in her mother, Prince Andrei in Pierre."

XXII.

On the next day Prince Andrey went to the Rostov's dinner, as he was called by Count Ilya Andreich, and spent the whole day.

All in the house felt for whom Prince Andrey drove, and he, not hiding, for the whole day tried to be with Natasha. Not only in the soul was Natasha scared, but happy and enthusiastic, yet all in the house felt the fear before something important having taken place. The countess’s sad, serious and strict eyes watched Prince Andrey when he spoke with Natasha, and timidly and feignedly began a somewhat insignificant conversation as soon as he looked around at her. Sonya was afraid to leave from Natasha and was afraid to be a hindrance when she was with them. Natasha became pale from the fear of expectations when she for a moment stayed with him eye to eye. Prince Andrey hit her with his timidity. She felt that he needed to say something to her, but that he could not decide in this.

When at night Prince Andrey left, the countess came up to Natasha and whisperly said:

— Well what?

— Mama, for God ask me nothing now. This cannot be spoken, — said Natasha.

But despite that, on this night Natasha, agitated, then scared, with stopping eyes lied for long in the bed of her mother. Then she told her how he praised her, then how he spoke, how he rides for abroad, then how he asked where they will live this summer, then how he asked her about Boris.

— Yet such, such... to me has never happened! — she said. — Only I am fearful at him, I am always fearful at him, what does this mean? It means that this is the present, yes? Mama, are you asleep?

— No, my soul, I am most fearful, — answered her mother. — Go.

— All care, I will not sleep. What for nonsense is sleep! Mother, mother such with me has never happened! — she said with surprise and fright before that feeling which she recognized in herself. — And whether we could think!...

To Natasha it seemed that it was still as when she for the first time saw Prince Andrey at Otradnoe she fell in love with him. She, as if frightened at this strange, unexpected happiness that whom she chose was still so (she firmly was sure in this) now again was meeting her, and, as it seemed, not indifferent to her. "And the need was his purpose now, when we are here, coming into Petersburg. And the need was for us to meet at that ball. All this is fate. It is clear that this is fate, that all this was conducted to that. Still then, as only I saw him, I felt something special.”

— What the same he still spoke to you? What poems are those? Read... — she thoughtfully told her mother, asking about the poems that Prince Andrey wrote in the album of Natasha.

— Mama, this is not a shame that he is a widower?

— Stop, Natasha. Pray to God. Marriages take place in heaven.516

— Darling, mother, how I love you, how well I am! — shouted Natasha, crying in tears of happiness and excitement and embracing her mother.

At this very same time Prince Andrey sat at Pierre’s and spoke to him about his love to Natasha and about his firmly taken intentions to marry her.

—————

On this day at Countess Elen Vasilevna’s was a rout, a French messenger, a prince made from recent times a frequent visitor at the home of the Countess, and many brilliant ladies and men. Pierre was downstairs, walking by the halls, and struck all the guests with his focused, scattered and gloomy look.

Pierre from the time of the ball felt in himself the approximation of seizures of hypochondria and with desperate effort tried to fight against them. From the time of the rapprochement of the prince with his wife, Pierre suddenly was granted to the chamberlains, and from this time he had begun to feel the heaviness and shame in big society, and more often he began to come to the former gloomy thoughts about the vanity of humanity. At this same time he noticed the feeling between the patronizing Natasha and Prince Andrey, the opposing position of him and the position of his friend, still intensified this dark mood. He equally tried to avoid thoughts about his wife and about Natasha and Prince Andrey. Again all to him seemed insignificant in comparison with eternity, again presented the question: "why?". And he day and night forced himself to work about masonic works, hoping to drive away the approximation of the evil spirit. Pierre at the 12th hour, coming from the chambers of the countess, sat by himself upstairs before a table in a smoky, low room, in a well-worn smock and was rewriting the authentic Scottish acts when someone entered to him in the room. This was Prince Andrey.

— Ah, this is you, — said Pierre with a scattered and dissatisfied look. — But I here am working, — he said, pointing to the notebook with that look of safety from the adversity of life, with which unhappy people look at their work.

Prince Andrey with a shining, enthusiastic and updated to life face stopped before Pierre and, not noticing his sad face, with the egoism of happiness smiled to him.

— Well, my soul, — he said, — I yesterday wanted to say to you and now for this have arrived to you. Never have I felt anything like that. I fell in love, my friend.

Pierre suddenly heavily sighed and his heavy body fell on the sofa, beside Prince Andrey.

— To Natasha Rostov, yes? — he said.

— Yes, yes, to whom the same? I never believed I would, but this is a feeling stronger than me. Yesterday I was tormented, suffered, but this torment I will not give for what is in the world. I have not lived before. Now I only live, but I cannot live without her. Yet may she love me?... I am old for her... How do you not speak?...

— I? I? What can I speak to you, — suddenly said Pierre, getting up and beginning to walk by the room. — I always thought this... This girl is such a treasure, such... this is a rare girl... sweet friend, I beg you, do not be smart, do not doubt, marry, marry and marry... and I am sure that there will not be a happier man than you.

— But she?

— She loves you.

— Do not say nonsense... — said Prince Andrey, smiling and looking in the eyes of Pierre.

— She loves, I know, — angrily shouted Pierre.

— No, listen, — said Prince Andrey, stopping him behind the arm. — if you know in which position I am in? I need to say all to someone.

— Well, well, speak, I am very glad, — spoke Pierre, and really his face changed, his wrinkles smoothed out, and he happily listened to Prince Andrey. Prince Andrey seemed and really was another, new human. Where was his yearning, his contempt to life, his disappointment? Pierre was the only person before which he decided to speak; yet behind that he expressed to him all that was in his soul. Then he easily and boldly made plans for the continuous future, spoke about how he not may donate his happiness for the caprice of his father, how he would force his father to agree to this marriage and to fall in love with her or would without his consent, then he was surprised how in something strange, alien and independent from him was in this feeling which controlled him.

— I would not have believed that which would have said to me that I can so love, — spoke Prince Andrey. — This is really not that feeling which was in me before. All the world is divided for me into two halves: one — she and there is all happiness, hopes, and light; the other half — all where she is not, there all is gloom and darkness...

— Darkness and gloom, — repeated Pierre, — yes, yes, I understand this.

— I cannot not love the light, I am not to blame in this. And I am very happy. Do you understand me? I know that you are glad for me.

— Yes, yes, — confirmed Pierre, his touched and sad eyes looking at his friend. The lighter presented to him as the fate of Prince Andrey, the dark presented his own.

516 Les mariages se font dans les cieux. (Weddings take place in heaven.)

Time: the next day, the evening, that night, mid-night

Locations: the Rostovs at St. Petersburg, the Bezukhovs
Mentioned: Otradnoe, the ball, French, Scotch

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes:

Andrei at the Rostovs'. "in all the house there was a sense of fear in the face of something important that was about to be accomplished." Another Natasha/Countess conversation.

Natasha: "It's all fate. It's clearly fate, everything has been leading up to it. Back then, when I'd only just seen him, I felt something special."

Again, "marriages are made in heaven."

Line break after "Andrei was sitting with Pierre and telling him of his love for Natasha and of his firm intention to marry her."

Calling her Elena Vassilievna again seems significant, with her throwing a party, Pierre coming downstairs. "his former gloomy thoughts about the vanity of all human things had begun to visit him more often." "he made
himself work day and night over Masonic writings, hoping to ward off the approaching evil spirit." Andrei comes to Pierre to tell him that he loves Natasha, but also to bring up reservations (the reservation on the Natasha
side is that he is a widower, for Andrei, it is that she is too young.)

"The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there everything is dejection and darkness"

For Pierre: "The brighter Prince Andrei's fate seemed to him, the gloomier seemed his own."

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 *):

Prince Andrei

Count Ilya Andreyitch

Natasha Rostova

Sonya

Countess Rostova ("countess", "mamasha", and "mamma")

Pierre

Countess Elena Vasilyevna

Caulaincourt ("The French ambassador")

Abridged Versions:

Line break after "his firm resolve to make her his wife" in Mandelker. Briggs, Wiener, Dole, Maude, Dunnigan, Garnett, and Edmonds have a line break in the same place.

End of chapter 7 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 13.

Fuller: The section before the line break is preserved other than a couple of details. The second half, with Pierre and Andrei's conversation at Ellen's party, is removed.

Komroff: Line break in chapter is preserved, and the chapter on the whole is pretty well preserved, though broken off a little early with Andrei saying "there all is dejection and darkness..." followed with a line break.

Kropotkin: Chapter 11. Chapter, other than the line break, is preserved.
Simmons: Chapter 13: The chapter, after the opening set up, picks up after Andrew has left. The Helen and Pierre introduction is removed and Andrew immediately begins speaking to Pierre.

Edmundson: Act Two Scene 20: Andrei and Pierre also talk about Boris and how he was introduced into the masons. This is broken up with a conversation between Sonya (rather than the countess) and Natasha

about Andrei. After those two conversations, Pierre is left with Napoleon, who challenges him about his sadness and lack of accomplishing his goals.

Additional Notes:

Resurrection Chapter 41: Nekhlyudov stayed in this room for about five minutes, conscious of a curious sort of depression, aware of how powerless he was, how at odds with the whole world. A moral sensation

of nausea seized him, like sea-sickness on board ship."

Anna Karenina (Kent/Berberova/Garnett): End of Part Three: He (Levin) saw nothing but death or the advance toward death in everything...Darkness had fallen upon everything for him; but just because of his

darkness he felt that the one guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it and clung to it with all his strength.”

Mandelker: "the unhappy families of Anna Karenina are presaged in Pierre's disastrous marital blunder with Helene and Andrei Bolkonsky's failed marriage to Lise. Anna's psychological conflict and incapacity

for spousal love have an earlier exposition in Andrei Bolkonsky's bitterness and icy cruelty towards his wife. His marital unhappiness perhaps explains, but cannot excuse, his artificial and cliched Byronic

posing in the salons of St Petersburg. his tragedy in losing Natasha is somehow a just and severe mercy demanded by what we know of his failure to lost Lise, a judgement confirmed by the subsequent

depiction of the happy and successful family life of Natasha and Pierre."