ns between himself and
Natasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He had a brilliant
position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezukhova,
a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an
important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he was
beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in
Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered
the Rostovs' drawing room Natasha was in her own room. When she heard
of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming
with a more than cordial smile.

Boris remembered Natasha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from
under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her
four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different
Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This
expression on his face pleased Natasha.

"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?" asked the
countess.

Boris kissed Natasha's hand and said that he was astonished at the
change in her.

"How handsome you have grown!"

"I should think so!" replied Natasha's laughing eyes.

"And is Papa older?" she asked.

Natasha sat down and, without joining in Boris' conversation with the
countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood's suitor. He felt
the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at her
occasionally.

Boris' uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all
comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha noticed at once.
He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging
with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand
like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his
lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling
with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was
not accidentally, Natasha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the
highest aristocracy, to an ambassador's ball he had attended, and to
invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.

All this time Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her
brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris more and more. He looked
round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.
He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The
same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mo