and the breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andréy (which they explained by Natásha’s having rejected him) and again asked Nikoláy to retire from the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nikoláy did not even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natásha was ill and her engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their wishes. To Sónya he wrote separately.
“Adored friend of my soul!” he wrote.
“Nothing but honor could keep me from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades’ eyes but in my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent breast.”
It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The autumn in Otrádnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas holidays and Sónya’s love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now allured him. > “A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a dozen leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by election …” thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nikoláy Rostóv, as was natural to him,