“Well, she loves me and you like that.”

Natásha suddenly flushed.

“Why, you remember before you went away?⁠ ⁠… Well, she says you are to forget all that.⁠ ⁠… She says: ‘I shall love him always, but let him be free.’ Isn’t that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn’t it?” asked Natásha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.

Rostóv became thoughtful.

“I never go back on my word,” he said. “Besides, Sónya is so charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness.”

“No, no!” cried Natásha, “she and I have already talked it over. We knew you’d say so. But it won’t do, because you see, if you say that⁠—if you consider yourself bound by your promise⁠—it will seem as if she had not meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you must, and that wouldn’t do at all.”