e driver a three-ruble
tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of
his home.

After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied
expectation--the feeling that "everything is just the same, so why did I
hurry?"--Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His father
and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them
was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to
be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of
their affairs. Sonya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier
and promised nothing more than she was already, but that was enough.
She exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas returned, and the
faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him.
Petya and Natasha surprised Nicholas most. Petya was a big handsome
boy of thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice that was
already breaking. As for Natasha, for a long while Nicholas wondered and
laughed whenever he looked at her.

"You're not the same at all," he said.

"How? Am I uglier?"

"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!" he whispered to her.

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Natasha, joyfully.

She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to
Otradnoe and showed him his last letter.

"Well, are you glad?" Natasha asked. "I am so tranquil and happy now."

"Very glad," answered Nicholas. "He is an excellent fellow.... And are
you very much in love?"

"How shall I put it?" replied Natasha. "I was in love with Boris, with
my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at
peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am
calm and contented now. Not at all as before."

Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage
for a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving
to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing
to enter a family against the father's will, and that she herself wished
it so.

"You don't at all understand," she said.

Nicholas was silent and agreed with her.

Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at
all like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was
even-tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed
Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically.
He co