know I heard at second hand from others. I only know
that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!"

Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the
companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,
as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion
in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not
hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.

But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed still
greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's face to
that of the lady in the black dress and said:

"Do you really not recognize her?"

Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with its
black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten
and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.

"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that
looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her."
But at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty,
effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its
hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from
that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with
a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been
thinking--especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and
enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,
it was Natasha and he loved her.

At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,
and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.
He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his
agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly--clearer
than any words could have done--did he betray to himself, to her, and to
Princess Mary that he loved her.

"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as soon as
he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he
again glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and
a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He
became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was
saying.

Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect to
see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in
her since he