The Rostóv’s dire finances bring Nicholas home. He senses something is not quite right about Natásha’s planned marriage.
Summary:
Nicholas is enjoying the carefree life in the peacetime army. He ignores his mother’s request he return until the family is on the brink of bankruptcy. Returning home, he finds everyone seems well. He learns of Natásha’s engagement with Andrew. Certain aspects of the planned marriage seem odd to Nicholas. He wonders why Nicholas is nowhere to be seen, and why the two need to wait so long to marry. He finds that his mother too has doubts. The Countess Rostóv wonders, for example, if Prince Andrew might be in poor health.
quote from the chapter:
This amazed Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkónski’s courtship skeptically. He could not believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was something not quite right about this intended marriage.
Why this delay? Why no betrothal? he thought. Once, when he had touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too had doubts about this marriage.
You see he writes, said she, showing her son a letter of Prince Andrew’s, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a daughter’s future married happiness, he writes that he won’t come before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health is very delicate. Don’t tell Natásha.
Book 7, Chapter 1
The Rostóv’s dire finances bring Nicholas home. He senses something is not quite right about Natásha’s planned marriage.
Summary:
Nicholas is enjoying the carefree life in the peacetime army. He ignores his mother’s request he return until the family is on the brink of bankruptcy. Returning home, he finds everyone seems well. He learns of Natásha’s engagement with Andrew. Certain aspects of the planned marriage seem odd to Nicholas. He wonders why Nicholas is nowhere to be seen, and why the two need to wait so long to marry. He finds that his mother too has doubts. The Countess Rostóv wonders, for example, if Prince Andrew might be in poor health.
quote from the chapter:
This amazed Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkónski’s courtship skeptically. He could not believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was something not quite right about this intended marriage.
Why this delay? Why no betrothal? he thought. Once, when he had touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too had doubts about this marriage.
You see he writes, said she, showing her son a letter of Prince Andrew’s, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a daughter’s future married happiness, he writes that he won’t come before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health is very delicate. Don’t tell Natásha.
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