- Natasha is more animated, but she’s still pretty shell-shocked by what happened. She has a hard time enjoying anything or feeling pleasure, so she just avoids everything.
- Mostly she tries not to be a burden to her family.
- She also hangs out with Pierre, who is super nice to her. He never talks about his feelings for her, and she just assumes all that stuff about proposing was a way to make her feel better and doesn’t really mean anything. (Yeah, we all frequently ask people to marry us just to make them feel better.)
- Anyway, later in the summer Natasha gets really into church and starts preparing for communion the old-fashioned way – mass three times a day for a week.
- Her mom thinks this is a good sign.
- Listening to the service, Natasha doesn’t understand everything that is being said. (Russian Orthodox services are conducted in Church Slavonic, a language that is related to, but not the same as, Russian.) Still, it makes her happy to feel like God is guiding her.