War And Peace

And the more she absorbed herself in this subject, mind, body and soul, the more the subject expanded before her very eyes, and the skimpier and more inadequate her resources for coping with it seemed to be, so she ended up concentrating them totally on this one subject and still didn’t manage to do all that seemed necessary.

Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage (though these things were not called ‘serious issues’, as they now are), but Natasha had no interest in any such questions and no knowledge of them.

Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family.

All the latest issues and debates, such as the problem of getting maximum pleasure out of eating your dinner, did not exist then and do not exist now for people who see dinner as a source of nourishment, and family life as the aim of marriage.

If the purpose of dinner is nourishment for the body, anybody who eats two dinners one after the other may get some extra pleasure, but this won’t achieve the aim because the stomach cannot digest two dinners.

If the purpose of marriage is family life, anybody who fancies having several wives and several husbands may get a lot of pleasure out of it, but will have no chance of enjoying a family. If the purpose of dinner is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is family life there is only one solution: don’t eat more than the stomach can manage and don’t have more husbands or wives than you need for a family, which means one wife and one husband. Natasha had needed a husband. A husband was given to her. And her husband gave her a family. And far from sensing any need for another, better husband, she put all her spiritual energy into serving the husband and family that she had, and couldn’t imagine – she had no interest in trying to imagine – how things might have worked out if it had all been different.

Natasha was no great lover of society in general, but this made her all the more appreciative when it came to the company of her relatives – Countess Marya, her brother, her mother and Sonya. She valued the company of these people she could run to straight from the nursery, still in her dressing-gown and with her hair all over the place, and delightedly show them a diaper stained yellow instead of green, and listen to their reassurances that the baby must be getting much better.

Natasha let herself go to such an extent that her clothes, her untidy hair, her thoughtless jibes and her jealousy – she was jealous of Sonya, the governess and all women, pretty or plain – were a constant source of humour amongst her friends. The general opinion was that Pierre was under her thumb, and this was true. From the earliest days of their marriage Natasha had laid down what she wanted. Pierre had been taken aback by the novel attitude adopted by his wife – that every minute of his life belonged to her and their home. He was surprised to discover what she wanted, but so flattered by it all that he gave in immediately.

Pierre was so much under the thumb that he didn’t dare look at another woman let alone smile at one in conversation, didn’t dare drop in at his club for a spot of dinner just to enjoy himself, didn’t dare spend money on anything frivolous and didn’t dare go away for long periods except on business, though his wife conceded that this included his reading and research. This was something she had no understanding of, but she did think it was very important. Pierre was compensated by having the complete run of the house and could do what he wanted with himself and all the family. In their home Natasha was happy to be a slave to her husband, and everybody in the house had to tiptoe about when the master was busy reading or writing in his study. Pierre had only to say the word and his slightest wish was fulfilled. He had only to say he wanted something and Natasha would jump to her feet and run off and get it.

The whole household was run on the basis of orders supposedly issued by the master, in other words Pierre’s wishes as interpreted by Natasha. Their lifestyle and place of residence, their friends and contacts, Natasha’s occupations, and the children’s upbringing – everything came about in accordance with Pierre’s expressed wishes, and, what is more, Natasha did her best to draw further conclusions from ideas of his expressed in conversation. She was very good at using her intuition to grasp the essence of what Pierre was after, and once she had guessed it she stuck to it, even to the extent of turning his own weapons against him if ever he felt like deviating.