“You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like that. It always seems to me …”
“Márya, don’t talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” he said gaily.
“It seems to be that you can’t love me, that I am so plain … always … and now … in this cond …”
“Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty. It is only Malvina and women of that kind who are loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don’t love her, but … I don’t know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between us like this, I seem lost and can’t do anything. Now do I love my finger? I don’t love it, but just try to cut it off!”
“I’m not like that myself, but I understand. So you’re not angry with me?”
“Awfully angry!” he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair he began to pace the room.
“Do you know, Márya, what I’ve been thinking?” he began, immediately thinking aloud in his wife’s presence now that they had made it up.
He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.
Countess Márya listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.
“You can see the woman in her already,” she said in French, pointing to little Natásha. “You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our logic. I say: ‘Papa wants to sleep!’ but she says, ‘No, he’s laughing.’ And she was right,” said Countess Márya with a happy smile.