her face for a long time, “he has somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh—as if he had just come out of a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn’t it true?”
“Yes,” replied Princess Márya. “He has greatly improved.”
“With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he had come straight from the bath … Papa used to …”
“I understand why he ” (Prince Andréy) “liked no one so much as him,” said Princess Márya.
“Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him—in everything.”
“Yes, but he’s wonderful.”
“Well, good night,” said Natásha.
And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as if it had been