Ten years passed and the household filled with the making of art as Prince Andrei had not known before in his life, and that felt true. He now understood that Natasha had brought this truth to him. While busy with their writing and singing, Prince Andrei and Natasha were like a pair of birds on different branches, each busily occupied while also knowing and protective of the other.

Each day Prince Andrei went to his study to write his personal history of Kutuzov. He did not feel time pass he was so absorbed in his work. He wrote many letters. Letters to Pyotr Viazemsky asking him to recall the mood of the Napoleonic battles they fought together. Other letters arrived from Pavel Pestel in which Prince Andrei sensed the young man’s drive and wondered what might be happening where Pestel was stationed with the Second Army in the south of Russia. Were there stirrings of a fight for constitutional government?

In 1826, Zinaida Volkonskaya, who had returned to Moscow, came to Bogucharevo to hear Natasha in a performance with the local orchestra of former serfs, and Zinaida brought Pyotr Viazemsky, for they were good friends. So pleased was Zinaida with Natasha’s voice that she implored Natasha to come to Moscow to sing at her salon where all the poets and artists of the day met, even Pushkin and Baratynsky. Viazemsky insisted too. “You must come, my dear. Zinaida’s salons are the enchanted castle of a musical fairy”5. Zinaida gently bowed at this flattery, and when Viazemsky stepped outside to speak with his old friend Prince Andrei, Zinaida took Natasha’s arm and brought their heads close together to whisper,

“I have just sent Pushkin my opera Giovanna d’Arco. He was very charming in his praise.” And she winked. “I do hope he was telling the truth.”