THE MORNING came with daily cares and bustle. Every one got up and began to move about and to talk; dressmakers came again; again Marya Dmitryevna went out and they were summoned to tea. Natasha kept uneasily looking round at every one with wide-open eyes, as though she wanted to intercept every glance turned upon her. She did her utmost to seem exactly as usual.

After luncheon—it was always her best time—Marya Dmitryevna seated herself in her own arm-chair and drew Natasha and the old count to her.

“Well, my friends, I have thought the whole matter over now, and I'll tell you my advice,” she began. “Yesterday, as you know, I was at Prince Bolkonsky's; well, I had a talk with him…He thought fit to scream at me. But there's no screaming me down! I had it all out with him.”

“Well, but what does he mean?” asked the count.

“He's crazy…he won't hear of it, and there's no more to be said. As it is we have given this poor girl worry enough,” said Marya Dmitryevna. “And my advice to you is, to make an end of it and go home to Otradnoe…and there to wait.”

“Oh no!” cried Natasha.

“Yes, to go home,” said Marya Dmitryevna, “and to wait there. If your betrothed comes here now, there'll be no escaping a quarrel; but alone here he'll have it all out with the old man, and then come on to you.”

Count Ilya Andreitch approved of this suggestion, and at once saw all the sound sense of it. If the old man were to come round, then it would be better to visit him at Moscow or Bleak Hills, later on; if not, then the wedding, against his will, could only take place at Otradnoe.

“And that's perfectly true,” said he. “I regret indeed that I ever went to see him and took her too,” said the count.

“No, why regret it? Being here, you could do no less than show him respect. If he wouldn't receive it, that's his affair,” said Marya Dmitryevna, searching for something in her reticule. “And now the trousseau's ready, what have you to wait for? What is not ready, I'll send after you. Though I'm sorry to lose you, still the best thing is for you to go, and God be with you.” Finding what she was looking for in her reticule, she handed it to Natasha. It was a letter from Princess Marya. “She writes to you. How worried she is, poor thing! She is afraid you might think she does not like you.”

“Well, she doesn't like me,” said Natasha.

“Nonsense, don't say so,” cried Marya Dmitryevna.

“I won't take any one's word for that, I know she doesn't like me,” said Natasha boldly as she took the letter, and there was a look of cold and angry resolution in her face, that made Marya Dmitryevna look at her more closely and frown.

“Don't you answer me like that, my good girl,” she said. “If I say so, it's the truth. Write an answer to her.”

Natasha made no reply, and went to her own room to read Princess Marya's letter.

Princess Marya wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that had arisen between them. Whatever her father's feelings might be, wrote Princess Marya, she begged Natasha to believe that she could not fail to love her, as the girl chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to make any sacrifice.

“Do not believe, though,” she wrote, “that my father is ill-disposed to you. He is an old man and an invalid, for whom one must make excuses. But he is good-hearted and generous, and will come to love the woman who makes his son happy.” Princess Marya begged Natasha, too, to fix a time when she might see her again.

After reading the letter, Natasha sat down to the writing-table to answer it. “Dear princess,” she began, writing rapidly and mechanically in French, and there she stopped. What more could she write after what had happened the day before? “Yes, yes, all that had happened, and now everything was different,” she thought, sitting before the letter she had begun. “Must I refuse him? Must I really? That's awful!…” And to avoid these horrible thoughts, she went in to Sonya, and began looking through embroidery designs with her.

After dinner Natasha went to her own room and took up Princess Marya's letter again. “Can everything be over?” she thought. “Can all this have happened so quickly and have destroyed all that went before?” She recalled in all its past strength her love for Prince Andrey, and at the same time she felt that she loved Kuragin. She vividly pictured herself the wife of Prince Andrey, of her happiness with him, called up the picture she had so often dwelt on in her imagination, and at the same time, all aglow with emotion, she recalled every detail of her interview the previous evening with Anatole.

“Why could not that be as well?” she wondered sometimes in complete bewilderment. “It's only so that I could be perfectly happy: as it is, I have to choose, and without either of them I can't be happy. There's one thing,” she thought, “to tell Prince Andrey what has happened; to hide it from him—are equally impossible. But with him nothing is spoilt. But can I part for ever from the happiness of Prince Andrey's love, which I have been living on for so long?”

“Madame,” whispered a maid, coming into the room with a mysterious air, “a man told me to give you this.” The girl gave her a letter. “Only for Christ's sake …” said the girl, as Natasha, without thinking, mechanically broke the seal and began reading a love-letter from Anatole, of which she did not understand a word, but understood only that it was a letter from him, from the man whom she loved. “Yes, she loved him; otherwise, how could what had happened have happened? How could a love-letter from him be in her hand?”

With trembling hands Natasha held that passionate love-letter, composed for Anatole by Dolohov, and as she read it, she found in it echoes of all that it seemed to her she was feeling herself.

“Since yesterday evening my fate is sealed: to be loved by you or to die. There is nothing else left for me,” the letter began. Then he wrote that he knew her relations would never give her to him, to Anatole; that there were secret reasons for that which he could only reveal to her alone; but that if she loved him, she had but to utter the word Yes, and no human force could hinder their happiness. Love would conquer all. He could capture her and bear her away to the ends of the earth.

“Yes, yes, I love him!” thought Natasha, reading the letter over for the twentieth time, and finding some special deep meaning in every word.

That evening Marya Dmitryevna was going to the Arharovs', and proposed taking the young ladies with her. Natasha pleaded a headache and stayed at home.

早晨随着操劳与奔忙来临了。大家都起床，开始活动、谈天，女时装师又来了，玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜又走出来，呼唤大家饮早茶。娜塔莎睁大眼睛，好像她要抓住第一道向她凝视的目光，焦急不安地环顾大家，极力地现出她平素常有的神态。

吃罢早餐后，玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜（这是她的最好的时光）在她的安乐椅中坐下来，把娜塔莎和老伯爵喊到身边来。

“喏，我的朋友们，现在我把一切事情都考虑到了，我要给你们出个这样的主意，”她开始说。“你们知道，昨天我到过尼古拉公爵那里，唉，我跟他谈了一阵子……他忽然想大声喊叫，可是他压不倒我高声喊叫的声音啊！我把一切都跟他直说了！”

“他怎么样？”伯爵问道。

“他怎么样？疯疯癫癫的……他不愿意听进去，唔，有什么可说的，我们简直把一个可怜的女孩折磨到极点。”玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜说，“我劝你们把事情干完，就回家去，到奥特拉德诺耶去……在那里等候……”

“唉，不行！”娜塔莎突然喊道。

“不，你们要去，”玛丽·德米特里耶夫娜说，“在那里等候。如果未婚夫以后到这里来，非吵闹不可，那时他和老头子面对面地把一切谈妥，然后再到你们那里去。”

伊利亚·安德烈伊奇立即明了这个建议是合乎情理的，于是表示赞成。如果老头儿心软下来，那就更好，以后再到莫斯科或者童山去看他，如果不成，那么就只有违反他的意旨在奥特拉德诺耶举行结婚典礼。

“真是这样，”他说道，“我到他那儿去过一趟，并且把她带去了，我真懊悔。”老伯爵说。

“不，为什么懊悔？既然人在这里，不能不表示敬意。得啦吧，他不愿意，是他的事，”玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜在女用手提包中寻找什么东西时说。“但是嫁妆准备好了，你们还要等待什么，没有准备齐的东西，我一定给你们送去。即使我舍不得你们，但是最好还是走吧。”她在手提包中找到她要找的东西后，便把它交给娜塔莎。这是公爵小姐玛丽亚的一封信，“她写给你的信。她真受折磨，一个可怜的人！她害怕你以为她不喜欢你。”

“她真不喜欢我。”娜塔莎说。

“废话，你甭说吧。”玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜喊了一声。

“我谁也不相信，我知道她不喜欢，”娜塔莎把信拿在手上，大胆地说，她脸上流露着一种冷淡、愤懑而坚定的表情，这就使得玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜更加凝神地瞥她一眼，而且蹙起了额角。

“亲爱的，不要那样回答我的话吧，”她说，“我所说的句句都是实话。你写回信吧。”

娜塔莎不回答，便走进自己房间里去看公爵小姐玛丽亚的信。

公爵小姐玛丽亚在信中写到，她对她们之间发生的误会感到失望，公爵小姐玛丽亚在信中写到，不管她父亲怀有什么感情，她请娜塔莎相信，她不会不喜爱她，因为她是她哥哥选择的配偶，为着哥哥的幸福她愿意牺牲一切。

“不过，”她写道，“您别认为我父亲对您怀有恶意。他是个有病的老年人，应该原谅他，但是他很善良，对人宽宏大量，他必将疼爱给他儿子带来幸福的人。”公爵小姐玛丽亚接着在信中提到，请求娜塔莎定一个时间，她和她能够再一次见面。

娜塔莎看完信后便在写字台前坐下来写回信：“Chére　princesse，”①她飞快地、机械地写了两个字就停下来。在昨天发生这一切之后，她能够再写什么呢？“对，对，这一切已经发生了，现在什么都不同了，”她面对这封写了个开头的信，心里这样想，“应该拒绝他？难道应该吗？这非常可怕！……”为了不去思忖这些可怕的心事，她走到索尼娅面前，和索尼娅一同挑选刺绣的花样。

①法语：亲爱的公爵小姐。

午饭后娜塔莎走到自己房间里，又拿起那封公爵小姐玛丽亚的信。“难道这一切已经完结了？”她想道。“难道这一切就会这么快地发生，而且毁灭了从前的一切？”她还像从前那样全神贯注地回想她对安德烈公爵的爱情，与此同时她又觉得她爱过库拉金。她维妙维肖地把她自己说成是安德烈公爵的妻子，想到在她脑际多次重现的、她和他共享幸福的情景，同时又想起昨天她和阿纳托利会面的详情，激动得满面通红。

“为什么这二者不能兼顾呢？”她有时悖晦地想。“只有到那时我才会完全幸福，而今我得加以选择，二者缺少其一，我都得不到幸福。二者择其一，”她想：“把生的事告知安德烈公爵，或者向他隐瞒下来，同样是不可能的。然而对此人，并无丝毫损伤。难道要永远舍弃我和安德烈公爵如此长久地共享的爱情的幸福么？”

“小姐，”一名女仆向房里走来时带着神秘的神情用耳语说，“有个人叫我把它交给您，”女仆递交了一封信。“只不过看在基督面上……”当娜塔莎毫不犹豫地、机械地拆开信封、正在看阿纳托利的情书时，女仆又这样说，娜塔莎一句话也没有看懂，她只懂得这么一点：这是她所爱的那个人的一封信。“对，她在爱他，否则怎么会发生已经发生的事呢？她手里怎么会有他的情书呢？”

娜塔莎用那巍颤颤的手捧着多洛霍夫为阿纳托利写的充满激情的一封情书，她一面读着，一面觉得她从书信中寻找到她所体察到的一切的回声。

“自从昨日夜晚起，我的命运已经决定了：或者我得到您的爱，或者我死去。我没有别的出路，”这封信的开头就是这样写的。然后他写道，他心里知道她的父母亲是不会把她许配给他——阿纳托利的。其中必有隐秘的原因，他可以向她一个人赤诚地倾诉，但是，如果她爱他，她只要说一个“是”字，人间的任何力量都不能妨碍他们的无上幸福。爱情能战胜一切。他将秘密地把她携带到天涯海角。

“是啊，是啊，我爱他！”娜塔莎想道，她把这封信重读二十遍，在每个字里寻找某种特别深刻的涵义。

这天晚上，玛丽亚·德米特里耶夫娜要到阿尔哈罗夫家里去，并且吩咐小姐们和她同去，娜塔莎遂以头痛为借口，留在家里。