In the autumn the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter Denísov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought many young men to his parents’ house. Véra was a handsome girl of twenty; Sónya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower; Natásha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
At that time in the Rostóvs’ house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming girls. Every young man who came to the house—seeing those impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the same feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs’ household a readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.
Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was Dólokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha. She almost quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad man, and that in the duel with Bezúkhov, Pierre was right and Dólokhov wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.
“There’s nothing for me to understand,” she cried out with resolute self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denísov though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do understand. I don’t know how to put it... with this one everything is calculated, and I don’t like that. But Denísov...”
“Oh, Denísov is quite different,” replied Nicholas, implying that even Denísov was nothing compared to Dólokhov—“you must understand what a soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a heart!”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?”
“What nonsense...”
“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.”
Natásha’s prediction proved true. Dólokhov, who did not usually care for the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon settled. He came because of Sónya. And Sónya, though she would never have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov appeared.
Dólokhov often dined at the Rostóvs’, never missed a performance at which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people which the Rostóvs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sónya and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natásha blushed when they saw his looks.