Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different
expression of face.
"Peter Kirilovich," she began rapidly, "Prince Bolkonski was your
friend--is your friend," she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that
everything that had once been must now be different.) "He told me once
to apply to you..."
Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then
he had reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he
now felt so sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for
reproach.
"He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!" She stopped
and breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.
"Yes... I will tell him," answered Pierre; "but..."
He did not know what to say.
Natasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think
she had meant.
"No, I know all is over," she said hurriedly. "No, that can never
be. Im only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only
that I beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything...."
She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.
A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierres heart.
"I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more," said
Pierre. "But... I should like to know one thing...."
"Know what?" Natashas eyes asked.
"I should like to know, did you love..." Pierre did not know how
to refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him--"did you love
that bad man?"
"Dont call him bad!" said Natasha. "But I dont know, dont know at
all...."
She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness,
and love welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his
spectacles and hoped they would not be noticed.
"We wont speak of it any more, my dear," said Pierre, and his
gentle, cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha.
"We wont speak of it, my dear--Ill tell him everything; but one
thing I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help,
advice, or simply to open your heart to someone--not now, but when
your mind is clearer think of me!" He took her hand and kissed it.
"I shall be happy if its in my power..."
Pierre grew confused.
"Dont speak to me like that. I am not worth it!" exclaimed
Natasha and turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.
He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it
he was amazed at his own words.
"Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you," said he to her.
"Before me? No! All is over for me," she replied with shame and
self-abasement.
"All over?" he repeated. "If I were not myself, but the handsomest,
cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this
moment ask on my knees for your hand and your love!"
For the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude and
tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.
Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom,
restraining tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without
finding the sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his
sleigh.
"Where to now, your excellency?" asked the coachman.
"Where to?" Pierre asked himself. "Where can I go now? Surely not to
the Club or to pay calls?" All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in
comparison with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in
comparison with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him
through her tears.
"Home!" said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost
Fahrenheit he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and
inhaled the air with joy.
It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the
black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky
did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane
things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been
raised. At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark
starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it,
above the Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all
sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the
earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous
and brilliant comet of 1812--the comet which was said to portend all
kinds of woes and
War And Peace page 357 War And Peace page 359
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