asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on his knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Márya. With a softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms of the man she loved. Nikoláy also noticed that look and, as if understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with good natured playfulness.
As she was in mourning Princess Márya did not go out into society, and Nikoláy did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all the same the governor’s wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to Nikoláy the flattering things Princess Márya said of him and vice versa, and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Márya. For this purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop’s house before Mass.
Though Rostóv told the governor’s wife that he would not make any declaration to Princess Márya, he promised to go.
As at Tilsit Rostóv had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He knew that after his promise to Sónya it would be what he deemed base to declare his feelings to Princess Márya. And he knew that he would never act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart) that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing something very important—more important than anything he had ever done in his life.
After meeting Princess Márya, though the course of his life went on externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him