Texts
Book 8 References
She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow. To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant recollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince, and a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She continually fancied that either he would never come or that something would happen to her before he came.
As soon as she began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess Mary, of the theater, and of Kurágin mingled with her thoughts. The question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she had not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying feeling.
She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkónski to have an explanation with him about Natásha.
After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on the Rostóvs, and Natásha, very glad of this diversion, having shut herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying on the new dresses.
Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of her father’s voice and another’s—a woman’s—that made her flush.
Sunday Morning
Featured Characters: NATASHA, SONYA, MARYA D
[SONYA]
Early Sunday morning
[NATASHA]
I see my face
[SONYA]
Don’t be silly
They say you can see your
future
In the long row of candles
Stretching back and back and
back
Into the depths of the mirror
In the dim confused last
square
You’ll see a coffin or a man
Everyone sees a man
[NATASHA]
I see the candles
Stretching back
So
far away
I see the mirrors
I see a shape in the darkness
Is it
him or is it—
He’s lying down
Oh Sonya why is he lying down?
I’m
so frightened!
Andrey will never come
Or something will happen to me
before he does
[MARYA D]
Sunday morning!
Time for church!
[NATASHA]
I suffer more now than before
The theater and Anatole
That man who aroused such
terrible feelings
I don’t understand
Have I broken faith with
Andrey?
Am I guilty?
[SONYA]
After church, Marya left for Prince
Bolkonsky’s
[MARYA D]
The rudeness of that man!
I’ll straighten
him out!
[NATASHA]
That terrible old Prince
I can’t bear to
think of it
I’ll shut myself in my room
And try on new
dresses
[SONYA]
And just after Marya left
There was a knock
at the door
Natasha had just turned her head to the
glass
When she heard a voice that made her flush