When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natásha sitting at the window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him, frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.

“What has happened?” asked Pierre, entering Márya Dmítrievna’s room.

“Fine doings!” answered Dmítrievna. “For fifty-eight years have I lived in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!”

And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him, Márya Dmítrievna informed him that Natásha had refused Prince Andréy without her parents’ knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole Kurágin into whose society Pierre’s wife had thrown her and with whom Natásha had tried to elope during her father’s absence, in order to be married secretly.