“Natásha, what is it about?” she asked. “What do they matter to you? It will all pass, Natásha.”
“But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I...”
“Don’t talk about it, Natásha. It wasn’t your fault so why should you mind? Kiss me,” said Sónya.
Natásha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her wet face against her.
“I can’t tell you, I don’t know. No one’s to blame,” said Natásha—“It’s my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn’t he come?...”
She came in to dinner with red eyes. Márya Dmítrievna, who knew how the prince had received the Rostóvs, pretended not to notice how upset Natásha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and the other guests.
CHAPTER VIII
That evening the Rostóvs went to the Opera, for which Márya Dmítrievna had taken a box.
Natásha did not want to go, but could not refuse Márya Dmítrievna’s kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.
“O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes—how I see those eyes!” thought Natásha. “And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can’t bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!” and she turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. “And how can Sónya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?” thought she, looking at Sónya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand. “No, she’s altogether different. I can’t!”