Book 2 Part 3 Chapter 24 (Chapter 127 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Relations between Natasha and Prince Andrei. Prince Andrei commends Natasha to go to Pierre for any help. And goes abroad. Effect on Natasha of his absence.
Briggs: The engagement is kept secret. Andrey leaves for western Europe.
Maude: Prince Andrew's last days with Natasha
Pevear and Volkhonsky: Prince Andrei and Natasha after the engagement. Prince Andrei leaves for abroad.

Translation:

ХХІV. The betrothal of Bolkonsky and Natasha was not announced to anyone; in this Prince Andrey insisted. He said that as he was the cause of the deferral, he should carry all the heaviness of it. He said that he was forever tied to his word, but that he did not want to associate Natasha with it and left to her complete freedom. Should she in six months feel that she did not love him, she would be in the right, should she refuse him. She from him of course, or her parents, would not like to hear about this; but Prince Andrey insisted in it. Prince Andrey had been every day at the Rostovs, but not as a fiance approached with Natasha: he spoke to her in the formal you and kissed only her hand. Between Prince Andrey and Natasha after the day of the offers installed really an other than before, a close, simple relationship. They as if before still did not know each other. He and she loved to remember about how they looked at each other, when they were still nothing; now they both felt themselves as really other creatures: then feigned, now simple and sincere. First in the family was felt an awkwardness in standing with Prince Andrey; he seemed a human from an alien world, and Natasha long taught at home to Prince Andrey and proudly assured all that he only seems so special, but that he was such the same as all, and that she was not afraid of him and that no one should be afraid of him. After several days, the family was used to him and not embarrassed to lead their former form of life, in which he took participation. He about agriculture was able to speak with the count and about outfits with the countess and Natasha, and about albums and canvases with Sonya. Sometimes the homeworkers of the Rostovs between themselves and at Prince Andrey were surprised at how all this is happened and how obvious were the omens: the arrival of Prince Andrey at Otradnoe, their arrival in Petersburg, and the similarity between Natasha and Prince Andrey, which the nurse noticed in the first arrival of Prince Andrey, the collision in the year 1805 between Andrey and Nikolay, and still many other omens that happened was noticed in the home. In the house reigned that poetic boredom and silence which always accompanies the presence of a groom and bride. Often sitting together, all was silent. Sometimes one got up and went away, and the fiance with the bride stayed alone, and all was silent. Seldom they talked about their future life. Prince Andrey was fearful and ashamed to speak about this. Natasha shared this feeling, As all of his feelings, which she constantly guessed. One time Natasha began to question about his son. Prince Andrey was red, what with him often happened now and what especially loved Natasha, and said that his son will not live with them. — From what? — scaredly said Natasha. — I cannot take him away from father and then... — How would I have loved him! — said Natasha, immediately again guessing his idea; — but I know, you want so that there is not a pretext to accuse you and I. The old count sometimes approaching to Prince Andrey, kissed him, and asked him for council in the score of upbringing Petya or the service of Nikolay. The old countess sighed, looking at them. Sonya was afraid at all moments of being unnecessary and tried to find a pretext to abandon them alone when she was not needed. When Prince Andrey spoke (he talked very well), Natasha with pride listened to him; when she talked, with fear and joy noticing that he carefully and probingly watched her. She with disbelief asked herself: "For what is he looking at me? For what is he getting his look? For what, as in there is nothing, what is he looking for by this look?" Sometimes she entered into her peculiar crazy fun location of spirit, and then she especially loved to listen and look at how Prince Andrey laughed. He seldom laughed, but when he laughed, he gave back all his laughter, and any time after this laughter she felt herself nearer to him. Natasha would be completely happy, should the idea about the lying ahead and approaching separation not frightened her. On the eve of his departure from Petersburg, Prince Andrey brought with himself Pierre, from the time of the ball not once arriving at the Rostovs. Pierre seemed bewildered and embarrassed. He talked with the mother. Natasha sat with Sonya at the chess table, inviting this to herself Prince Andrey. He came up to it. — You for a long time have known Bezuhov? — he asked. — Do you love him? — Yes, he is nice, but very funny. And she, as always talking about Pierre, began telling anecdotes about his distraction, anecdotes, which were invented to him. — You know, I shared our secret with him, — said Prince Andrey. — I know him from childhood. This is a golden heart. I beg you, Natalie, — she said suddenly seriously; — I will leave, God knows, what may happen. You may split... well, you know that I should not speak about that. Another, — what should happen with you, when I will... — But what will happen?... — What would be a grief, — continued Prince Andrey, — I beg you, m-lle Sophie that would something happen, turn to him alone for advice and help. This is the most absent-minded and funny person, but the most golden heart. Father, mother, Sonya, or Prince Andrey himself could not foresee how Natasha would act in parting with her groom. Red and agitated, with dry eyes, she went this day by the home, occupied by the most insignificant business, as if not understanding what awaited her. She did not cry in that moment, as he, saying goodbye, for the last time kissed her hand. — Do not go away! — she alone spoke to him in such a voice that made him get deep into thinking about whether he really needed to stay and which he long remembered after this. When he left, she also did not cry; but for a few days she, not crying, sat in her room, not interested in anything and only saying sometimes: "Ah, for what has he left!" Yet two weeks after he departure, she so the same suddenly for the surrounding her, woke up from her moral disease, became such the same as before, but only with a changed moral physiognomy, as children with another face get up from bed after a long disease.
Time: in a few days, the eve of his departure, two weeks after his departure
Mentioned: six months

Locations: the Rostovs' house in St. Petersburg
Mentioned: Otradnoe, 1805

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes:

A lot of detail about how Andrei and Natasha's relations and the engagement "works", as well as the revelation that Andrei's son will not live with them.

"He laughed rarely, but when he did, he gave himself wholly to his laughter, and each time after this laughter she felt closer to him." I think there is something to this laughter, the rare laughter of Speransky seeming unnatural
to Andrei and being one of the big things that turned him off. Pierre is the one confidant they bring in. "He's the most absentminded and ridiculous man, but he has a heart of gold."

Andrei leaves her to go to Petersburg, and Natasha is again despondant and detached from everyone else. After two weeks, she shakes it off, "as children get up with a diferent face after a prolonged illness."

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 Bolkonsky

Natasha (also "Nathalie")

Count Rostov ("the old count")

Countess Rostova ("countess")

Sonya (also "Mademoiselle Sophie")

Old nurse (Dole confuses the matter by choosing "an" as the article instead of "the", like Edmonds, for example, does)

Nikolai Bolkonsky ("his son")

Nikolai Bolkonsky ("his grandfather")

Petya

Nikolai (Rostov)

Pierre Bezukhoi

Abridged Versions: End of chapter 8 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 15.

Fuller: Chapter is well preserved. End of Part Five

Komroff: A lot of the detail about how the family lives with Andrei constantly around is shortened or removed. Rest of the chapter can be considered reserved and followed by a line break.

Kropotkin: Chapter 13: Chapter is preserved and followed by a line break.
Simmons: Chapter 15: Some of the family's reaction to Andrew and reminiscences about how they met is removed.

Additional Notes:

The entirety of War and Peace, as previous notes have shown, is filled with contradictions and polarities. Here, the interesting "contradiction" is the apparent destiny or fate of Natasha and

Andrey's engagement. In the text of this chapter (including the dialogue of the characters), a first time reader is set up to believe that fate (which at this point of the novel has been hinted at

being a driving force of events, but we have not yet arrived to the explicit fatalism that is hammered home in the beginning of Book 3) and chance has brought Andrey and Natasha together

(with the explicit acknowledgement, which we often see in the novel, of the unlikeliness of this encounter, a serious "lampshade" that Tolstoy often utilizes in the book, the most obvious

example being Andrey's wounded encounter with Anatole). This may strike a second-time reader (or someone who is familiar with the plot of the novel) as somewhat strange, considering

that Tolstoy will later in the novel put so much stock into the role of fate in the life of humanity, but here, has what appears to be fate to become unraveled in future sections of the novel.

However, the previous chapter (specifically with the father's prediction and motivation for delaying the wedding) gave the reader all the foreshadowing (a word Briggs uses in this chapter)

they need in order to understand that what the characters believe is fate in this chapter will not be so (not to mention a more modern reading of the novel will put emphasis on the age

difference and the unfairness of Natasha being expected to wait, both of which are probably not too far off from Tolstoy's original intention, but for different reasons). Additionally, a key

point that Tolstoy makes throughout the war and essay sections of the novel is that the way we interpret events is often incorrect (think of the way he deconstructs the narratives around the

Napoleonic Wars). Indeed, just as Pierre's Masonic activity proves to be nothing like he thought it would be, we should not be surprised that the characters around Natasha and Andrey's

engagement would misdiagnose the meaning of those events.