Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

Count Ilya Andreitch sent his two girls to Countess Bezukhova.Quite a number of people attended the party.Natasha, however, did not know nearly everyone present.Count Ilya Andreitch noticed to his displeasure that most of the people present at the evening party were men and women known for their free-spiritedness.A group of young people surrounded Miss George, who stood in a corner of the drawing room.Several Frenchmen were also present at the evening, one of whom had been Helen's family since her arrival.Count Ilya Andreitch resolved not to play cards, not to leave his daughters, but to go home as soon as George had finished his performance.

Anatole was evidently waiting at the door for the Rostovs to come in.He greeted the count as soon as he approached, went up to Natasha, and followed her.As in the theater, Natasha was seized by the vain pleasure of seeing him the moment she saw him--a vanity that he liked her, and because she had nothing to do with him. There is no moral barrier between them, so she has a sense of fear in her heart. Helen received Natasha cheerfully, and praised her beauty and dress loudly.Miss George came out of the room shortly after their arrival and dressed.They set up chairs in the living room and sat down.Anatole moved his chair towards Natasha, intending to sit beside her, but the count, looking intently at Natasha, sat down beside her.Anatoly sat behind them.

Mademoiselle George, with her thick, dimpled arms, and a red shawl over one shoulder, came to the space vacated for her between the easy chairs, and stopped in an awkward position.Cheerful murmurs can be heard. Miss Georges, looking gravely and gloomily about the audience, began to recite a poem in French about her illegitimate love for her son.She raised her voice at a certain point in the recitation, and at a certain point she raised her head solemnly, whispered in a low voice, paused at a certain point, and made a hoarse voice with wide-eyed eyes. "Adorable, divin, delicieux!" cries could be heard from all directions.Natasha looked at plump George, but she could hear nothing, see nothing, could not understand what was happening before her, and felt herself irretrievably removed from the world of the past, immersed in the frightful madness. In this world, she has no way of knowing what is good, what is ugly, what is rational, and what is arrogance.Anatole sat behind her, and she felt that he was too close to her, and she waited in panic for something.

-------- ①French: Intoxicating and magical, beyond words! After the first monologue, all the people stood up, surrounded Miss George, and expressed their joy to her. "How beautiful she is!" said Natasha to her father, and she got up with the others, and walked through the crowd to the actress. "When I looked at you, I didn't think she was more beautiful," said Anatole, following Natasha.He said this when she alone could hear the voice. "You are very lovely... Ever since I saw you, I have always..." "Natasha, let us go, let us go," the count called his daughter, coming back, "she is very beautiful!"

Natasha went up to her father without saying a word, and looked at him with strangely puzzled eyes. Mademoiselle George left after reading a few times, and Countess Bezukhova invited everyone into the hall. The Earl wants to go, but Helen begs him not to ruin her impromptu dance.The Rostov family stayed behind.Anatole asked Natasha to dance a waltz, and during the waltz he held her waist and arms tightly and told her that she was ravissante and that he loved her very much.When she danced the Scottish folk dance with Kuragin again, and when they were alone, Anatole said nothing but looked at her eagerly.Natasha wondered if she was still dreaming what he had said to her during the waltz.At the end of the first round, he held her hand again.Natasha raised her frightened eyes to him, and there was such confidence and tenderness in his kindly eyes and smile that, while she gazed at him, she could not say what she should have said to him.She lowered her eyes.

-------- ①French: very charming. "Don't tell me this kind of thing. I'm engaged and I'm in love with someone else." She said hurriedly... She glanced at him.Anatole did not become shy, he was not sorry for what she had said. "You don't mention it to me. What does it matter to me?" he said. "I'm going to say, I'm in love with you, madly, madly. Is it my fault that you're attractive? . . . We're going to dance." Natasha, excited and uneasy, looked around with wide-eyed frightened eyes, and seemed happier than usual.She hardly knew what had happened that night.They danced Scottish folk and Grossfate, and her father asked her to leave the ballroom, and she begged him to let her stay.Wherever she was, whoever she was talking to, she felt his gaze on her.Then it occurred to her that she had asked her father to allow her to go to the dressing room to adjust the dress, and Helen followed her, laughing, and talking to her about his brother's love, and then met Ah in a lounge with a sofa. Where, Anatole, Helen slipped off, and they remained there alone, Anatole squeezed her hand, and said in that soft voice:

"I can't go to you, but can I never see you? I love you madly, can I never? . . . " And he blocked the way, bringing his face close to hers. His big shining man's eyes were so close to hers that she could hardly see anything, all she saw was the pair of eyes. "Natasha?!" he murmured suspiciously as someone squeezed her hand so painfully. "Natasha?!" "I don't understand at all, I have nothing to say," her eyes seemed to say. The hot lips pressed against hers tightly. At this moment, she felt that she was too indulgent. Helen's footsteps and the rustling of her dress could be heard in the room.Natasha looked back at Helen, flushed and trembling, she glanced at him with fearful and questioning eyes, and went to the door.

"Unmot, unseul, aunom de Dieu," said Anatole. She stopped.She wanted him to say that, and if it explained to her what had happened, she would answer him. "Nathalie, unmot, unseul." He kept repeating the sentence, obviously not knowing what to say, and he said it over and over until Helen came up to them. -------- ①French: There is one sentence, only one sentence, for God's sake. ② French: Natasha, there is a sentence, a sentence. Helen and Natasha walked into the living room together again.The Rostovs set off without staying for supper. When Natasha came home she did not sleep all night; whom she had loved--Anatole or Prince Andrey--was troubled by the unresolved question.She had loved Prince Andrew, and she clearly remembered that she had loved him firmly.But she also loved Anatole, there was no doubt about that. "Would all this have happened otherwise?" she wondered. "Since I was able after this, to answer his smile when I said good-bye to him, and as I was able to permit it, it means that I loved him at first. That is to say, he was kind, noble, and handsome, It is impossible not to love him. If I love him and love someone else, what shall I do?" She said to herself, unable to find answers to these terrible questions.