ust what he liked done always. He had only to
express a wish and Natasha would jump up and run to fulfill it.

The entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed orders,
that is, by his wishes which Natasha tried to guess. Their way of
life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natasha's
occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely
with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natasha from the
thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she
deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once
arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to
change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.

Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their
first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse
three times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her
of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet
nurse is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite
the opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband
himself--who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby
herself, a thing then unheard of and considered injurious--she insisted
on having her own way, and after that nursed all her babies herself.

It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife
would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and
delight would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought
against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous
that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his
opinion.

After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm
consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw
himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself
inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in
him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.
And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and
mysterious reflection.

CHAPTER XI

Two months previously when Pierre was already staying with the Rostovs
he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come
to Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were being
discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal
fo