The complete works of Count Tolstoy Volume 6

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...frequently broke off his sentences. He sat not longer than ten minutes and then rose to bow himself out. The same curious, provoking, and slightly sarcastic eyes were looking at him. After his first visit, Boris said to himself that Natasha was as attractive to him as she had been before, but that he must not submit to this feeling because marrying that girl, who had hardly any fortune, would be the death of his career, and while the renewal of his former relations without any marriage in view would be an ignoble act. Boris decided to avoid meeting Natasha, but, in spite of his determination, he came back after a few days, and began to call often and to pass whole days at the house of the Rostdvs. He felt that he had to have an explanation with Natasha, to tell her that the past had to be forgotten, that in spite of everything she could not be his wife, that he had no fortune, and that her parents would never give her to him. But he somehow never had a chance to make that explanation, and he was too embarrassed to talk to her about it. With every day he became more and more entangled. Natasha, so her mother and Sdnya thought, seemed to be in love with Boris, as of old. She sang her favourite songs to him, showed him her album, compelling him to write something in it, did not allow him to mention the past, and, instead, gave him to understand that the present was nice; every day he went away in a mist without saying that which he had intended to say, not knowing what he was doing or why he had come, or how it would all end. Boris quit calling on Heltme, received every day reproachful letters from her, and still continued passing whole days at a time with the Rostdvs. XIII. One evening, when the old countess, wearing a nightcap and nightgown and having put aw...