Plans for a projected match between Mary and Nicholas move forward. Both seem very pleased with the idea. Still, for some reason, Nicholas just cannot picture himself married to her.
Plans for a projected match between Mary and Nicholas move forward. Both seem very pleased with the idea. Still, for some reason, Nicholas just cannot picture himself married to her.
Book 12, Chapter 6
Plans for a projected match between Mary and Nicholas move forward. Both seem very pleased with the idea. Still, for some reason, Nicholas just cannot picture himself married to her.
Summary:
Princess Mary had settled into a new house and was doing her best to deal with all her recent losses and worries. She had already managed her feelings related to her rescue by Nicholas. Then, as promised, the governor’s wife spoke with Mary’s aunt about a possible marriage. Since Mary was still in mourning for her father, propriety required a very low-key courtship. But it was agreed Nicholas would visit the house. From the time Rostóv entered her house, Mary’s face became suddenly transformed. Nicholas saw in her an unexpected and striking beauty. Both he and Mary seemed very attracted to one another, and both appeared open to the idea of marriage. Nicholas yielded to the power he felt was irresistibly carrying him into the marriage. A day was established when Nicholas was to declare his feelings for her. But, for some unknown reason, Nicholas simply could not picture his future married life with Mary. This made him afraid.
quote from the chapter:
After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously, thought about Sónya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife, adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife’s carriage, little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on-and these pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Mary, to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture anything of future married life.
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