s is usual when
there are children, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, caressing him
and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on
his knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a
softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms
of the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if
understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with
good natured playfulness.

As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and
Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all
the same the governor's wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to
Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice
versa, and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this
purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop's
house before Mass.

Though Rostov told the governor's wife that he would not make any
declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.

As at Tilsit Rostov had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody
considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle
between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and
in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded
to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He
knew that after his promise to Sonya it would be what he deemed base to
declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never
act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart)
that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those
who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing
something very important--more important than anything he had ever done
in his life.

After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on
externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him
and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he
had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met
in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,
thought about Sonya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as
almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,
adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life:
a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage,
lit