Also known as Natalia. Not to be confused with her mother.
BOOK ONE
Book 1, Part 1
7 Jan: Chapter 7
It is St Natalia’s Day, and she and her mother are celebrating their name day.
8 Jan: Chapter 8
Black-eyed, wide-mouthed and “full of life”, thirteen-year-old Natasha runs into the story with a doll folded into her dress. She is so evidently adored and indulged in by her parents. Her laughter fills the room. When she leaves the room, Boris and Petya follow.
9 Jan: Chapter 9
“A regular volcano”, the count calls Natasha. A human fireball. They admit they have spoiled her and been very lenient. “But really that seems the best plan,” says the countess.
10 Jan: Chapter 10
In the conservatory, she dons her “cap of invisibility” and hides in her ambush, savouring the romance of her brother and Sonya. She wishes Boris to make similar gestures of undying love, but one gets the sense it is from a childish joy and not a real love of Boris.
11 Jan: Chapter 11
Natasha is full of contradictions. She is feeling “kind and affectionate to everyone” on this special day. But at the same time, she is irritated with the “diplomat” Boris and her older sister Vera: “your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people!”
15 Jan: Chapter 15
Here she is at her name-day party! Beaming with pleasure. Marya Dmitrievna calls her “my Cossack” and gives her some ruby-earings. She’s clearly having a fabulous time.
16 Jan: Chapter 16
“Flushed with reckless and joyous resolution”, she goes into battle against Marya Dmitrievna, le terrible dragon, in the brave cause of finding out the pudding situation. And with a glance, she invites Pierre to join in her game.
17 Jan: Chapter 17
How our little heroine flits between childishness and maturity! Comforting her cousin with compassion and delighting in “dancing with a grown-up man, who had been broad.” That fat and funny Pierre. And while she is playing at being grownup, she is loving how her father is playing at being young again.
Book 1, Part 3
21 Feb: Chapter 6
"Who of the whole family was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of intonation, look, and expression." She surmises that there is news of her brother and gets the news out of Anna Mikhailovna. She promises not to tell anyone and goes and tells Sonya. Natasha tells Sonya she remembers Nikolai perfectly, but "I don't remember Boris." She sees Sonya loves her brother and sees there is such a love. "She believed it could be, but did not understand it."
BOOK TWO
Book 2, Part 1
7 Mar: Chapter 1
Natasha hugs and kisses her dear brother, who is back alive from the war. She also hugs and kisses “Darling Denisov,” which “made everybody feel confused.”
Next day, she and the other children go to wake up Rostov and Denisov. They see a little more of Denisov than is proper, and then she speaks privately with Nikolai. She expresses her love for Sonya, explaining that she burned herself to show her love. She says her love for Boris was “nonsense” and she doesn’t want to marry, once dance!
16 Mar: Chapter 10
Natasha is the only Rostov with the measure of Dolokhov: “He is wicked and heartless.”
17 Mar: Chapter 10
She is delighted to present her brother with the news that Dolokhov has been turned down by Sonya.
18 Mar: Chapter 12
Natasha at Iogel’s ball: “Natasha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She was not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever person she happened to look at, she was in love with for that moment.”
She drags Denisov onto the dancefloor and they do the mazurka like this moment is all that matters. Afterwards, she is breathless. “What is this?” she asks of the universe.
21 Mar: Chapter 15
When Nikolai returns from losing at cards, Natasha is with the rest of the family, grouped around the clavichord. Denisov is composing a song, and everyone is coaxing Natasha to sing. She no longer sings like a child, but with an untrained beauty and “an unconsciousness of her own powers.” Nikolai is entranced by the beauty of her voice.
22 Mar: Chapter 16
Natasha tells her mother that Denisov has proposed to her. “Nonsense,” says the countess. Natasha said it happened accidentally, but she wants to be the one who speaks to Denisov.
Book 2, Part 3
14 Apr: Chapter 2
Andrei visits Ilya Rostov on business at his house at Otradnoe. Rostov is living in the country as he always does: extravagantly, entertaining everyone with hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. Andrei is struck by Natasha’s happiness: “Why is she so happy?” On a beautiful moonlit night, he overhears Sonya and Natasha looking at the moon. Natasha would like to fly to it. The scene stirs “youthful thoughts and hopes” in Andrei.
24 Apr: Chapter 12
Natasha is tormented by a promise she prised out of Boris four years ago. Boris has been living his life in prose, in his colourless climb up the social ladder. But Natasha is “his most poetic recollection”, and when he goes to visit the Rostovs, he is “disturbed and confused” by a much-changed Natasha. Against his better judgement, he keeps returning, spending whole days with the Rostovs.
25 Apr: Chapter 13
The two Natashas (mother and daughter) talk in bed. The mother worries about her daughter’s honour and future marriage prospects if she continues to flirt with Boris. Natasha says it does not have to be for love and marriage, ‘but just so’. She describes the colours and shapes of Boris and Pierre's souls. Her mother and Sonya wouldn’t understand, she thinks. She dreams of being admired and then falls asleep, ‘where everything was as light and beautiful, as in reality, and even more so because it was different.’ The next day, her mother tells Boris to stop visiting the Rostovs.
26 Apr: Chapter 14
It is New Year’s Eve, 1809, and Natasha is going to her first ball. She’s been up since eight getting everyone dressed, but it is ten in the evening, and they are still not ready. The delay is mostly caused by Natasha’s dress, which is too long. The resourceful Dunyasha comes to the rescue with needle and thread.
27 Apr: Chapter 15
We see the ballroom from Natasha’s eyes, her heart racing and her reflection blurred into “one brilliant procession.” The elderly Peronskaya points out the most important people there, including Hélène and her husband, the universal Freemason Pierre Bezukhov. He is on his way to introduce Natasha to dancing partners but stops to talk to Andrei. “Too proud for anything,” says Peronskaya of Andrei. They are the only two men she dislikes, and the only two that Natasha notices.
28 Apr: Chapter 16
The Emperor enters, and the guests dance the polonaise. Natasha fears no one will ask her to dance – Boris turns away twice, and Anatole looks at her “as one looks at a wall.” She is left chatting with Berg and Vera, who, of course, don’t dance. Then Pierre approaches an “animated and bright” Andrei and introduces him to Natasha. We learn that Andrei not only likes dancing but is good at it. And when he dances with Natasha, the “wine of her charm” goes straight to his head.
29 Apr: Chapter 17
Natasha is having a ball. Everyone wants to dance with her now, and she is happy and loves everybody. Andrei is smitten and predicts she will be married to someone within a month, perhaps even him. In contrast, Pierre is in a gloomy mood. For the first time, he feels humiliated by Hélène. Natasha wishes to help him, but she cannot understand why anyone can be unhappy tonight.
1 May: Chapter 19
Andrei visits the Rostov house, where he is welcomed simply and cordially like an “old friend.” It is like arriving on a “strange world” previously unknown to him, and as Natasha sings, he realises he is crying. She asks him whether he likes her voice and immediately feels she should not have said this. But he says he likes her voice and everything she does.
3 May: Chapter 21
Pierre notices the effect Andrei and Natasha are having on each other, and feels both pain and joy to see it. Vera decides her party requires “subtle allusions to the tender passions”, so she asks Andrei what he thinks of Natasha.