Inside the salon they were greeted immediately by Zinaida. Prince Andrei noticed the poets, and Viazemsky rose from among them to greet his old friend from Bogucharevo. Pushkin had just read a new poem and was now reaching his long fingernails toward a plate of cakes while pleading with the gloomy Baratynsky. Prince Andrei stared, resolving not to eat from that plate of cakes, when Viazemsky bent to Prince Andrei’s ear, “Expect much praise for our great poet Pushkin. It has been ceaseless admiration for his new work since his return from exile in the south. Quite deserved I must say,” and winking at Prince Andrei, Viazemsky whispered, “Pushkin is now looking for a wife.”

And indeed two young women had now drawn Pushkin’s attention temporarily from Baratynsky. Prince Andrei fixed on the poet and the young women for a moment and thought of the disaster of his own first marriage to a woman who seemed just like those talking now to Pushkin, women who lived only for these parties.

Prince Andrei looked up again and sought Natasha whom Zinaida had taken into her arms as they had entered. As Zinaida had promised, Polina was there, Senicourt too. Embracing Natasha with tears and kisses, Natasha, whom she had not seen in fifteen years, Polina was full of pride that Natasha would sing that evening. In their separation they had become characters of novels to each other, beloved but imagined, and to see each other again stirred deep feelings.

They talked in hurried bursts. With fresh feeling Polina burned to confide that her best poems had been rejected from the journal Northern Flowers even though she had written them in Russian. Earlier in the evening, she had implored the distracted Pushkin to intercede with the editor on her behalf lest her thoughts remain forever unpublished and unknown.

“He appears disinterested,” confided Polina with downcast eyes, “il m’abandonne”*.

*He is abandoning me.