loved any other woman more
than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod forests she
could demand this, and she received what she demanded.

The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and
melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in
Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.

CHAPTER VI

At the end of January old Count Rostov went to Moscow with Natasha and
Sonya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was
impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in
Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near
Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his
future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkonski while he was in Moscow
could not be missed. The Rostovs' Moscow house had not been heated that
winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess
was not with them, the count decided to stay with Marya Dmitrievna
Akhrosimova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them.

Late one evening the Rostovs' four sleighs drove into Marya Dmitrievna's
courtyard in the old Konyusheny street. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone.
She had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the
service.

She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,
loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach
to others for any weakness, passion, or temptation--the possibility of
which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing
jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out:
on holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on
affairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after
dressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there
were always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal
at which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played
a game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read
to her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to
pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.

She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostovs arrived and the pulley of
the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostovs and their
servants. Marya Dmitrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her nose
and her head flung ba