cholas went up to her without waiting to
be prompted by the governor's wife and not asking himself whether or not
it was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her he
had heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As soon as
she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both
her sorrow and her joy.

"There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess," said Rostov. "It
is that if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikolievich, were not living, it
would have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel."

The princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but cheered
by the expression of regretful sympathy on his face.

"And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound" (the Gazette said
it was a shell) "either proving fatal at once or being very slight,"
continued Nicholas. "We must hope for the best, and I am sure..."

Princess Mary interrupted him.

"Oh, that would be so dread..." she began and, prevented by agitation
from finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as
everything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully,
went out, following her aunt.

That evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle some
accounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that business it
was already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go to bed,
and for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting on his
life, a thing he rarely did.

Princess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he had met
her in Smolensk province. His having encountered her in such exceptional
circumstances, and his mother having at one time mentioned her to him as
a good match, had drawn his particular attention to her. When he met her
again in Voronezh the impression she made on him was not merely pleasing
but powerful. Nicholas had been struck by the peculiar moral beauty he
observed in her at this time. He was, however, preparing to go away and
it had not entered his head to regret that he was thus depriving himself
of chances of meeting her. But that day's encounter in church had, he
felt, sunk deeper than was desirable for his peace of mind. That pale,
sad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle graceful gestures,
and especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features
agitated him and evoked his sympathy. In men Rostov could not bear to
see the expression of a higher spiritual li