“But what am I to do?”
“Leave it to me,” said Princess Márya. “I know …”
Pierre was looking into Princess Márya’s eyes.
“Well? … Well? …” he said.
“I know that she loves … will love you,” Princess Márya corrected herself.
Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened expression seized Princess Márya’s hand.
“What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think … ?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Princess Márya with a smile. “Write to her parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to happen and my heart tells me it will.”
“No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can’t be. … How happy I am! No, it can’t be!” Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Márya’s hands.
“Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you,” she said.
“To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I’ll go. But I may come again tomorrow?”
Next day Pierre came to say goodbye. Natásha was less animated than she had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. “Is it possible? No, it can’t be,” he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that filled his soul with joy.
When on saying goodbye he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help holding it a little longer in his own.