“Asleep, I think.”
“Sónya, go and wake him,” said Natásha. “Tell him I want him to come and sing.”
She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was with him and he was looking at her with a lover’s eyes.
“Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be! And, worst of all, I am growing old—that’s the thing! There won’t then be in me what there is now. But perhaps he’ll come today, will come immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it.” She rose, put down the guitar, and went to the drawing room.
All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already at the tea table. The servants stood round the table—but Prince Andréy was not there and life was going on as before.
“Ah, here she is!” said the old count, when he saw Natásha enter. “Well, sit down by me.” But Natásha stayed by her mother and glanced round as if looking for something.
“Mamma!” she muttered, “give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly, quickly!” and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.
She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the elders and Nikoláy, who had also come to the table. “My God, my God! The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the same way!” thought Natásha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the same.