Natasha and Anatole

This goes for both War and Peace and Great Comet, the book obviously has a lot more context and stuff to go off of but:

 Natasha is not scared of Anatole. She is scared of herself.

 She is scared of her own feelings, of her desires. Yes, these feelings and desires are caused by Anatole, but he’s not the problem for her, the way she reacts to him is. I don’t have the book on hand so I can’t quote directly, but that lack of a barrier of modest that she’s never felt before? That’s her problem – she’s infatuated, she’s lusting after him and she doesn’t understand it because a) it’s the first time this has happened to her and b) no one exactly talked to girls about sex and sexual feelings back then in any way that wasn’t to make them look like a bad thing. So yes, she’s confused because she’s going through a sexual awakening and has no idea what the hell that is. Not because Anatole is so intimidating. He’s a tad pushy, sure, but he never forces or even coerces her into anything.

 It’s very clear that this is Natasha’s sexual awakening. In the book, that’s part of her character development. In fact, I’d say this is where her character development starts. She begins to slowly grow up mentally and emotionally. (Although, most of that is driven by the feelings of regret and a sudden understanding that things like consequences for one’s actions exist. But this is still the initial breaking point.) Now, Natasha is young but she’s not 13. She’s been proposed to before – twice. She’s liked men before and they have definitely liked her. But all her previous dalliances were childish and platonic/completely non-sexual. She was only 13 when she liked Boris, she was 15 when Denisov proposed and she wasn’t even into him really. Her feelings for Bolkonski were arguably adult enough, but they were still absolutely non-sexual. Even the romantic component of their relationship was mostly the fantasies that she has built up about how these things work. She likes him. She admires him. She’s flattered that he likes her. But at no point does she desire him.

 And then comes Anatole and everything explodes. He’s her first sexual attraction and it’s dizzying because the first time that happens it often times is. Also, no one has sat her down and talked to her about it, certainly, so she is unprepared. She’s scared because these feelings are new and she doesn’t know how to handle them. (One big difference between the musical and the book is that, I think, at one point Natasha tells Anatole “you’re hurting me” or something like that when he grabs her hand or something. Nothing like that happens in the book. Also, because Natasha is narrating her feelings outloud in the music and it’s hard sometimes to tell what she’s actually saying and what’s interior monologue, it feels like she’s resisting him more than she actually is.) Natasha’s struggles here aren’t about Anatole or anything he does really – they’re about her and her interior workings. This is about how she sees the world and how that worldview is starting to change, on fast-forward after this point.

 Also, something that only comes across with the book, I guess, is that this whole…incident is thematically about Natasha and the “right” sort of love. Tolstoy is huge on the whole “lust/passion is bad, platonic love is good.” This theme is even more pronounced in Anna Karenina but we see some of it here as well: Helene and Anatole are bad because they sleep around. Pierre and Andrei’s feelings for Natasha are appropriate because they are platonic (maaaybe romantic, but Tolstoy’s classifications are a little different from how we’d thing about these things today) and, at any rate, marriage-and-family-oriented. It’s that whole “spiritual elevation” type thing. (They put her on a pedestal ok? That’s the modern way of saying it, I guess.)  Natasha gets a taste of both sides of this coin. With Anatole she’s Anna Karenina, later, with Pierre, she’s Kitty. But since she’s one character, she has to go through the “bad” kind of love first to fully appreciate the “right” kind of love later. But again, Natasha is scared because she’s having “scary” feelings. It’s not about Anatole.

 (An aside: I’m annoyed that Anatole has a line in the musical that’s like “I’ve found a new pleasure and I’m taking her away.” Nothing like that exits in book canon. Because that’s not how he’s thinking about it. Natasha and Anatole are actually mirrors, especially so here when they are thrown together. They both mistake their feelings of lust for love. The difference is that Natasha is scared and confused by her feelings because they’re new. Anatole pursues his.)