ecting something and
that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sonya took to be
Anatole.

Sonya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that
at dinner and all that evening Natasha was in a strange and unnatural
state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not
finish, and laughed at everything.

After tea Sonya noticed a housemaid at Natasha's door timidly waiting
to let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door
learned that another letter had been delivered.

Then suddenly it became clear to Sonya that Natasha had some dreadful
plan for that evening. Sonya knocked at her door. Natasha did not let
her in.

"She will run away with him!" thought Sonya. "She is capable of
anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her
face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle," Sonya remembered.
"Yes, that's it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?"
thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natasha
had some terrible intention. "The count is away. What am I to do? Write
to Kuragin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him
to reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in case of some
misfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused Bolkonski--she
sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away...." To tell
Marya Dmitrievna who had such faith in Natasha seemed to Sonya terrible.
"Well, anyway," thought Sonya as she stood in the dark passage, "now or
never I must prove that I remember the family's goodness to me and that
I love Nicholas. Yes! If I don't sleep for three nights I'll not leave
this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the
family be disgraced," thought she.

CHAPTER XVI

Anatole had lately moved to Dolokhov's. The plan for Natalie Rostova's
abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dolokhov a few
days before, and on the day that Sonya, after listening at Natasha's
door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution.
Natasha had promised to come out to Kuragin at the back porch at ten
that evening. Kuragin was to put her into a troyka he would have
ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of Kamenka, where an
unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over
them. At Kamenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to
the Wars