she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of
the military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs'
quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?" Prince Andrew
asked himself with instinctive curiosity.

In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as he had done
in former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with
hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince
Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying
the night.

During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his
elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count's
house was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince Andrew
repeatedly glanced at Natasha, gay and laughing among the younger
members of the company, and asked himself each time, "What is she
thinking about? Why is she so glad?"

That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He
read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the
room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the
stupid old man (as he called Rostov), who had made him stay by assuring
him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he
was vexed with himself for having stayed.

He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the
shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst
into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and
very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking
black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the
trees grewsome kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit
leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a
roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly
white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its
full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his
elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.

His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also
awake. He heard female voices overhead.

"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew
recognized at once.

"But when are you coming to bed?" replied another voice.

"I won't, I can't sleep, what's the use? Come now for the last time."

Two girlish voices sang a musical passage--the end of