At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Márya, and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware. He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly—clearer than any words could have done—did he betray to himself, to her, and to Princess Márya that he loved her.
“No, it’s only the unexpectedness of it,” thought Pierre. But as soon as he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Márya he again glanced at Natásha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was saying.
Pierre had failed to notice Natásha because he did not at all expect to see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.
Pierre’s confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natásha’s part, but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.
XVI
“She has come to stay with me,” said Princess Márya. “The count and countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful state; but it was necessary for Natásha herself to see a doctor. They insisted on her coming with me.”