“She must be a marvellous girl！ An angel, really！” he said to himself. “Why am I not free？ Why was I in such a hurry with Sonya？” And involuntarily he compared the two： the poverty of the one and the wealth of the other in those spiritual gifts, which Nikolay was himself without and therefore prized so highly. He tried to picture what would have happened if he had been free, and in what way he would have made her an offer and she would have become his wife. No, he could not imagine that. A feeling of dread came over him and that picture would take no definite shape. With Sonya he had long ago made his picture of the future, and it was all so simple and clear, just because it was all made up and he knew all there was in Sonya. But with Princess Marya he could not picture his future life, because he did not understand her—he simply loved her.
There was something light-hearted, something of child’s play in his dreams of Sonya. But to dream of Princess Marya was difficult and a little terrible.
“How she was praying！” he thought. “One could see that her whole soul was in her prayer. Yes, it was that prayer that moves mountains, and I am convinced that her prayer will be answered. Why don’t I pray for what I want？” he bethought himself. “What do I want？ Freedom, release from Sonya. She was right,” he thought of what the governor’s wife had said, “nothing but misery can come of my marrying her. Muddle, mamma’s grief … our position … a muddle, a fearful muddle！ Besides, I don’t even love her. No, I don’t love her in the right way. My God！ take me out of this awful, hopeless position！” he began praying all at once. “Yes, prayer will move mountains, but one must believe, and not pray, as Natasha and I prayed as children for the snow to turn into sugar, and then ran out into the yard to try whether it had become sugar. No; but I am not praying for trifles now,” he said, putting his pipe down in the corner and standing with clasped hands before the holy picture. And softened by the thought of Princess Marya, he began to pray as he had not prayed for a long while. He had tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat when Lavrushka came in at the door with papers.
“Blockhead！ bursting in when you’re not wanted！” said Nikolay, quickly changing his attitude.
“A courier has come,” said Lavrushka in a sleepy voice, “from the governor, a letter for you.”
“Oh, very well, thanks, you can go！”
Nikolay took the two letters. One was from his mother, the other from Sonya. He knew them from the handwriting, and broke open Sonya’s letter first. He had hardly read a few lines when his face turned white and his eyes opened wide in dismay and joy. “No, it’s not possible！” he said aloud. Unable to sit still, he began walking to and fro in the room, holding the letter in both hands as he read it. He skimmed through the letter, then read it through once and again, and shrugging his shoulders and flinging up his hands, he stood still in the middle of the room with wide-open mouth and staring eyes. What he had just been praying for with the assurance that God would answer his prayer had come to pass; but Nikolay was astounded at it as though it were something extraordinary, and as though he had not expected it, and as though the very fact of its coming to pass so quickly proved that it had not come from God, to whom he had been praying, but was some ordinary coincidence.
The knot fastening his freedom, that had seemed so impossible to disentangle, had been undone by this unexpected and, as it seemed to Nikolay, uncalled-for letter from Sonya. She wrote that their late misfortunes, the loss of almost the whole of the Rostovs’ property in Moscow, and the countess’s frequently expressed desire that Nikolay should marry Princess Bolkonsky, and his silence and coldness of late, all taken together led her to decide to set him free from his promise, and to give him back complete liberty.
“It would be too painful to me to think that I could be a cause of sorrow and discord in the family which has overwhelmed me with benefits,” she wrote; “and the one aim of my love is the happiness of those I love, and therefore I beseech you, Nicolas, to consider yourself free, and to know that in spite of everything, no one can love you more truly than your—SONYA.”
Both letters were from Troitsa. The other letter was from the countess. It described the last days in Moscow, the departure, the fire and the loss of the whole of their property. The countess wrote too that Prince Andrey had been among the train of wounded soldiers who had travelled with them. He was still in a very critical condition, but that the doctor said now that there was more hope. Sonya and Natasha were nursing him.
With this letter Nikolay went next day to call on Princess Marya. Neither Nikolay nor Princess Marya said a word as to all that was implied by the words： “Natasha is nursing him”; but thanks to this letter, Nikolay was brought suddenly into intimate relations, almost those of a kinsman with the princess.
Next day Rostov escorted Princess Marya as far as Yaroslavl, and a few days later he set off himself to join his regiment.
