Chapter 19 Chapter Nineteen

The next day Prince Andrei went to visit several families he had not yet visited, including the Rostovs, whom they had reunited at a recent ball.From the point of view of etiquette, Prince Andrew was obliged to visit the Rostovs', and besides, he wanted to see in their house this special, lively girl, who had left him with pleasant memories. Natasha came out to meet him first along with several people.She was wearing a blue home dress, which seemed to Prince Andrei to look more beautiful in her than in a ball gown.She and the whole Rostov family received Prince Andrew as if they were old friends, with generosity and kindness.Prince Andrei, who had once severely criticized the family, seemed to him now that they were good, simple, good people.The old count's hospitality and kindness had been so gracious to Petersburgers that Prince Andrew could not refuse him a luncheon. "Yes, they are good and lovely people," thought Bolkonski, "it goes without saying that they did not realize at all that Natasha was rich in inner beauty, but good people make the most beautiful background, on which , this particularly poetic, vital, and very charming girl stands out and shines!"

Prince Andrei felt that in Natasha there existed in Natasha a special world, which seemed to him completely strange, full of joys he did not know, which had been in the Otradnoe boulevard, on the windowsill, in the moonlight. At night, this strange world once aroused his desire.The world no longer teased him now, it was no longer a strange world; but having entered it himself, he had found a new pleasure in it. After lunch Natasha, at Prince Andrew's request, went up to the clavichord and began to sing.Prince Andrew was standing at the window, talking to the ladies and listening to her sing.When she was in the middle of a short sentence, Prince Andrei fell silent. , suddenly felt tears welling up in his throat, he never knew how tears would fill his eyes before.He looked at Natasha singing, and a new feeling of happiness arose in his soul.He felt happy and sad at the same time.He didn't need to cry at all, but he wanted to cry aloud.Why are you crying?For the former love?For the little duchess?Cry out of despair? ...crying for hope for the future? ... yes and no.He wanted to cry, chiefly because he suddenly became aware of the terrible contrast between the infinite, indistinct thing in his mind and the corporeal thing of the narrow mountain, himself, and even she. s things.This opposition pained him as much as he sang as she sang.

Natasha had just finished singing when she came up to him and asked him if he liked the way she sang, which she asked, and when she opened her voice and realized that she should not have asked, she was perplexed.He looked at her, smiled, and said he liked her singing as much as he liked everything she did. Duchess Andrei left the Rostov House late at night.He lay down to sleep as was his bedtime routine, but he soon learned that he couldn't fall asleep.Sometimes he lit candles, sat on the couch, sometimes stood up, and lay down again. He didn't feel troubled by insomnia at all. His heart was very happy and refreshing, as if he had walked out of a stuffy room into a free world.It never even occurred to him that he would fall in love with Rostova; he did not think of her, she was only in his mind, and it seemed to him that his life was renewed. "Why should I be afraid, why should I be busy working in this narrow, isolated box, when life, all life, and all the joys of life are unfolding before me?" he said to himself.He thus began for the first time in a long time to formulate a vision of happiness.He decided for himself that he should set about bringing up his son, find him an educator, entrust him with his son; and then he should retire and go abroad, visiting England, Switzerland, Italy. "When I feel that I am in my prime and full of energy, I should enjoy the freedom I should have," he said to himself. "Pierre is not wrong. He said that to be happy one must believe that happiness is attainable, and so I believe him now. Let the dead bury their dead, while I live I must live , should be a happy man," thought he.

-------- ①See Chapter 8, Section 22 of the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible.