e, but this is something special.... Yes, of course-" he did not
finish because their eyes meeting said the rest.

"What nonsense it is," Natasha suddenly exclaimed, "about honeymoons,
and that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary, now is
the best of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember how
we quarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what we
quarreled about--I don't even remember!"

"Always about the same thing," said Pierre with a smile. "Jealo..."

"Don't say it! I can't bear it!" Natasha cried, and her eyes glittered
coldly and vindictively. "Did you see her?" she added, after a pause.

"No, and if I had I shouldn't have recognized her."

They were silent for a while.

"Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was looking at
you," Natasha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had
come over them. "You are as like him as two peas--like the boy." (She
meant her little son.) "Oh, it's time to go to him.... The milk's
come.... But I'm sorry to leave you."

They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one
another at the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with
self-satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natasha with a quiet, happy smile.
Having interrupted one another they both stopped to let the other
continue.

"No. What did you say? Go on, go on."

"No, you go on, I was talking nonsense," said Natasha.

Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent
reflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it seemed to
him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian
society and to the whole world.

"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always
simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and
constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that's simple
enough."

"Yes."

"And what were you going to say?"

"I? Only nonsense."

"But all the same?"

"Oh nothing, only a trifle," said Natasha, smilingly still more
brightly. "I only wanted to tell you about Petya: today nurse was coming
to take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I'm
sure he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now he's crying.
Well, good-by!" and she left the room.

Meanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkonski's bedroom a little lamp
was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they could
not cure him