Natásha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he showed her.
“That’s for Belóva? Excellent!” She felt the quality of the material. “It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?”
Pierre told her the price.
“Too dear!” Natásha remarked. “How pleased the children will be and Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this,” she added, unable to suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls, of a kind then just coming into fashion.
“Adèle tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it,” returned Pierre.
“When am I to wear it?” and Natásha stuck it in her coil of hair. “When I take little Máshenka into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again by then. Well, let’s go now.”
And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to the old countess’ rooms.
The countess was sitting with her companion Belóva, playing grand-patience as usual, when Pierre and Natásha came into the drawing room with parcels under their arms.
The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper lip had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.
After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but did not live . Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted nothing from life