Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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had done
anything reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him
that everyone knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.
A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna
said to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"
This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg
house done up.
"Thats a good thing, but dont move from Prince Vasilis. It is
good to have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince
Vasili. "I know something about that. Dont I? And you are still so
young. You need advice. Dont be angry with me for exercising an old
womans privilege."
She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they
have mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing,"
she continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.
When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking
of what had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely
understood that the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her
beauty was mentioned he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, shes good
looking," he had understood that this woman might belong to him.
"But shes stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought.
"There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites
in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with
her and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that thats
why he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her
father... Its bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this
(the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and
was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while
thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be
his wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all
he had thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her
not as the daughter of Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body
only veiled by its gray dress. "But no! Why did this thought never
occur to me before?" and again he told himself that it was impossible,
that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him
dishonorable, in this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks
and the words and looks of those who had seen them together. He
recalled Anna Pavlovnas words and looks when she spoke to him about
his house, recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasili and
others, and was seized by terror lest he had already, in some way,
bound himself to do something that was evidently wrong and that he
ought not to do. But at the very time he was expressing this
conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her image rose in
all its womanly beauty.
CHAPTER II
In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection
in four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to
visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son
Anatole where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince
Nicholas Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the
daughter of that rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking
these new affairs, Prince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre,
who, it is true, had latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in
Prince Vasilis house where he was staying, and had been absurd,
excited, and foolish in Helenes presence (as a lover should be),
but had not yet proposed to her.
"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince
Vasili to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that
Pierre who was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that")
was not behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well,
God be with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart,
"but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be
Lelyas name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does
not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair--yes, my
affair. I am
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