one another than she had ever been to any man. Natásha kept turning to Elèn and to her father, as if asking what it all meant, but Elèn was engaged in conversation with a general and did not answer her look, and her father’s eyes said nothing but what they always said: “Having a good time? Well, I’m glad of it!”
During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole’s prominent eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natásha, to break the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow.
She asked the question and blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her.
“At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant ce sont les jolies femmes , isn’t that so? But now I like it very much indeed,” he said, looking at her significantly.
“You’ll come to the costume tournament, Countess? Do come!”
and putting out his hand to her bouquet and dropping his voice, he added,
“You will be the prettiest there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!”
Natásha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that he was there, behind, so close behind her.
“How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?” she asked herself, and she could not refrain