War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
'I'm in total agreement,' Nikolay spluttered, turning his plate around and shifting his wine glasses with desperate determination, almost as if he was in dire danger at that very moment. 'It is my conviction that the Russians must win, or die in the attempt,' he said. The moment the words were out of his mouth he realized as everyone else did that they had been a little too fervent and bombastic for this occasion, and therefore slightly embarrassing.
'That was a very fine thing, what you've just said,' gushed Julie, sitting beside him. Sonya had trembled all over while Nikolay was speaking and blushed to the roots of her hair, and the colour flooded past her ears and down her neck and shoulders. But Pierre had been listening to the colonel's remarks, and he nodded his approval.
'Yes, splendid,' was his comment.
'You're a true zoldier, younk fellow,' the colonel shouted, thumping the table again.
'Why are you making all that noise?' Marya Dmitriyevna's deep voice rang down the table. 'Why do you keep banging on the table?' she asked the colonel. 'What's all the noise about? You haven't got the French here, you know!'
'I spik ze truce,' came the smiling reply.
'It's war talk,' the count shouted across the table. 'My son's going, Marya Dmitriyevna. He's off soon.'
'I have four sons in the army, but I don't go on about it. We're all in God's hands. One man can die in his bed over the stove while God spares another in battle,' the deep voice boomed back effortlessly from the far end of the table.
'That is true.'
And the conversation split in two again, one at the ladies' end and the other at the men's.
'You're not going to ask, are you?' said her little brother to Natasha. 'Go on, I dare you!'
'Oh yes I am,' answered Natasha. Her face suddenly glowed with a comical sense of desperate determination. She half-rose, her eyes darting across to Pierre sitting opposite, inviting him to listen, and turned to her mother.
'Mama!' she sang out down the table in her girlish contralto.
'What do you want?' the countess asked in some alarm. But when she saw from her daughter's face that she was playing up she waved her hand at her with a forbidding look and an ominous shake of her head.
The conversation died down.
'Mama! What's for dessert?' Natasha's tiny voice rang out more insistently. She would not stop.
The countess couldn't quite manage a frown, but Marya Dmitriyevna shook a fat finger and said threateningly, 'Cossack!'
Most of the guests looked at the parents, wondering what to make of this little outburst.
'Watch what you're saying!' said the countess.
'Mama! What is for dessert?' Natasha called out cheerily, with deliberate impertinence, sure that her little frolic wouldn't be taken amiss. Sonya and fat little Petya were doubled up, giggling.
'See, I did,' Natasha whispered to her little brother and to Pierre as she gave him another glance.
'Ices, but you're not having any,' said Marya Dmitriyevna. Natasha could see there was nothing to be afraid of, not even Marya Dmitriyevna.
'Marya Dmitriyevna! What kind of ices? I don't like ice-cream.'
'Carrot ices.'
'No, but what kind, Marya Dmitriyevna, what kind?' she almost shrieked. 'I want to know.' Marya Dmitriyevna and the countess burst out laughing, and so did all the guests. They were not laughing at Marya Dmitriyevna's answer but at the unheard-of cheekiness of a clever little girl, who had the daring and the wit to take on Marya Dmitriyevna.
Natasha gave up only when she had been told it would be pineapple ice-cream. Before that course, more champagne was served. The band struck up again, the count kissed his little countess, and the guests began to get up from the table, thanking the countess and clinking glasses across the table with the count, the children and each other. Once more the waiters scurried around, chairs scraped and the guests filed out in the same order as before but with much redder faces, some to the drawing-room and others to the count's study.
CHAPTER 17
Card-tables were set up and partners arranged for boston and the count's guests proceeded to one of the two drawing-rooms, the sitting-room or the library.
As he fanned out his cards the count found it hard to keep awake - he usually had a nap after dinner - and this made him prone to laugh at anything. The young people, at the countess's instigation, gathered round the clavichord and harp. Julie went first by common request, performing a short theme and variations on the harp. Then she joined the other young ladies in inviting Natasha and Nikolay to sing; they were known for their musical ability. Natasha was being treated by everyone as an adult, which made her feel proud but also rather shy.
'What shall we sing?' she asked.
' "The Spring",'31 answered Nikolay.
'Come on then, quick! Over here Boris,' said Natasha. 'Where's Sonya gone?' She looked around, saw that her companion was not in the room and ran out to find her.
She raced up to Sonya's room, but her friend wasn't there, so Natasha ran to the nursery - she wasn't there either. Natasha knew she must be out in the corridor sitting on the chest. That chest in the corridor was a place of sorrow for the females of the younger generation of the house of Rostov. Yes, there she was face-down on the chest, squashing her filmy pink party-dress on their old nanny's dirty, striped feather mattress. Her face was buried in her tiny fingers, and her bare little shoulders were convulsed with sobbing. Natasha's face, glowing from the day's excitement, changed at once; her eyes narrowed, her broad neck quivered and her mouth turned down at the corners.
'Sonya! What's wrong? What's happened? Oo-oo-oo!'
And Natasha, with her large mouth gaping, which made her look quite ugly, howled like a baby, for no reason, just because Sonya was crying. Sonya tried to look up, tried to answer, but she couldn't, and she buried her face deeper than ever. Still crying, Natasha sat down on the dark-blue mattress and hugged her friend. With a big effort, Sonya struggled half-way up, wiped tears away and began to talk: 'Nikolay's going away next week, his . . . papers . . . have come . . . he told me himself . . . I ought not to cry . . .' (she showed Natasha the sheet of paper she was holding in her hand - poetry written by Nikolay), 'I know I ought not to cry, but you just can't . . . no one can understand . . . he's got such a lovely . . . soul.'
And she burst into floods of tears again at the thought of how lovely his soul was.
'It's all right for you . . . I'm not jealous . . . I love you and Boris too,' she said, pulling herself together a little. 'He's so nice . . . there's nothing to stop you. But Nikolay's my cousin32 . . . it would take . . . the Archbishop . . . and they won't . . . So, if anyone tells Mamma,' (Sonya looked on the countess as a mother and called her Mamma) 'she'll just say I'm ruining Nikolay's career, I'm heartless and ungrateful, but really . . . I swear to God' (she made the sign of the cross) 'that I do love her, I love all of you - except Vera . . . What's wrong with her? What have I done to her? I really am grateful to you, I'd sacrifice anything for you, but there's nothing for me to . . .'
Sonya broke down again and buried her head in her hands and the mattress. Natasha was beginning to calm down, and her face showed that she grasped the full significance of her friend's distress.
'Sonya!' she snapped. She seemed to have guessed the real reason for her cousin's misery. 'Has Vera been talking to you since dinner? She has, hasn't she?'
'Yes, it's these poems that Nikolay wrote himself, and I copied out some other poetry, and she found it all on my table, and said she'd show it to Mamma, and she said I was an ungrateful girl, and Mamma would never let him marry me, and he was going to marry Julie. And you've seen him all day with her . . . Oh, Natasha, why?'
And again she burst into tears, more bitter than ever. Natasha pulled her up, gave her a hug and started to comfort her, smiling through her own tears.
'Sonya, you mustn't believe her, darling, you really mustn't. Do you remember us talking together in the sitting-room, the three of us, you, me and Nikolay? You remember - aft
And she kissed her on the top of her head. Sonya half-rose, and the kitten in her revived, its eyes gleaming; it seemed ready to flick its tail, pounce about on its soft paws and start playing with a ball, as good kittens do.
'Do you think so? No, really, do you?' she said rapidly, smoothing dress and hair.
'Yes, I really do,' answered Natasha, tucking some straggling hair back into place on her friend's head, and they laughed together.
'All right, then, let's go and sing "The Spring".'
'Yes, let's.'
'And you know that fat Pierre who sat opposite me, he's so funny!' Natasha said suddenly and she stopped. 'I'm having such a wonderful time!' she shouted, and ran off down the corridor.
Brushing the fluff off her dress, and hiding the poetry in her bodice next to her throat and bony little chest, Sonya ran after Natasha, with flushed face and light, happy steps, down the corridor and into the sitting-room. By popular request the youngsters sang a quartet called 'The Spring', which everyone enjoyed, then Nikolay sang a song he had just learnt by heart.
There where the evening moonlight shimmers,
How sweet and lovely to renew
And trust the happy hope that glimmers,
For somewhere, someone thinks of you!
And she will strain her little fingers
And they the golden harp will strum.
With harmony and love that lingers
She calls to you, 'O come, O come!'
Though paradise will one day beckon
Alas! Your love will not be there . . .
Before he could get to the end, out in the big hall the young people started getting ready for the dancing, and the gallery musicians began stamping their feet and coughing.
Pierre was sitting in the drawing-room, where Shinshin - knowing he was just back from abroad - came over and started up a conversation about politics which Pierre found very boring. Others joined them. When the orchestra struck up, Natasha walked in, went straight up to Pierre, laughing and blushing, and said, 'Mamma told me to ask you to dance.'
'I'm afraid I can never get the figures right,' said Pierre, 'but if you'll be my teacher . . .' and he reached down to offer his big arm to the tiny little girl.
While the couples were taking up their places and the band tuned up, Pierre sat down with his little lady. Natasha's happiness was complete. She was going to dance with a grown-up and with someone who had just come home from abroad. She sat there for all to see and talked to him like a grown-up lady. In one hand she held a fan, which a lady had given her to hold. Posing, like a real society lady - heaven knows where and when she learnt all this - she spoke to her champion with much fluttering of the fan and many a glance over it.
'What is she doing? Just look at her!' said the old countess, striding across the hall and pointing to Natasha. Her daughter blushed a little and gave a laugh.
'Well, Mama? Why are you looking at me like that? What's so surprising?'
Half-way through the third ecossaise there was a scraping of chairs in the sitting-room, where the count and Marya Dmitriyevna had been playing cards with the more distinguished and older guests, and most of them stood up to stretch after sitting for so long, before putting away their pocketbooks and purses and walking through to the ballroom. Marya Dmitriyevna and the count led the way, both looking very jolly. With flamboyant politeness and mincing like a ballet-dancer, the count crooked his arm and offered it to Marya Dmitriyevna. Then he drew himself up, a dashing figure with a clever smile on his face, and as the ecossaise came to an end he clapped his hands to the gallery musicians and called up to the leader, 'Semyon! Can you play a Daniel Cooper?' This had been his favourite dance since the days of his youth, though properly speaking the Daniel Cooper was one movement in the anglaise.33
'Watch Papa dance!' Natasha shouted to the whole ballroom, completely forgetting that her partner was a grown-up, and her laughter rang through the room as her curly head went down to her knees. Everyone was indeed enjoying the sight of the jolly old gentleman with his rather taller partner, the majestic Marya Dmitriyevna, as he linked arms with her to the rhythm of the music, put back his shoulders, tapped the floor with his turned-out toes, beaming ever more benevolently at his audience and whetting their appetite for what was to come. By the time the band struck up with the rousing strains of the Daniel Cooper, a merry country dance in all but name, every doorway into the ballroom had become filled with the smiling faces of servants, men on one side and women on the other, as they piled in to watch the master enjoying himself.
In one doorway stood the old nurse applauding the master in the traditional peasant manner, calling him 'Our little father!' and 'Our eagle!'34
The count was a good dancer and he knew it, but his lady couldn't dance at all, and didn't want to. Her great big body stood stiffly, and her sturdy arms dangled (she had handed her evening-bag to the countess). The only thing about her that did any dancing was her face, a nice mixture of grimness and beauty. Whereas the count performed with the whole of his rotund form, Marya Dmitriyevna did so with nothing more than a broadening smile and a slight quivering of the nose. The count may have enchanted the audience with his ever-increasing energy, his amazingly nimble and gentle prancing and capering, but Marya Dmitriyevna made no less impact with a mere twitch of the shoulders or the curving of an arm as they turned or halted to mark time, and her contribution was greatly admired, in view of her stout figure and legendary dourness. Their dancing became more and more hectic. The opposite couple couldn't make any impression, nor did they try to. All eyes were on the count and Marya Dmitriyevna. Natasha tugged at every sleeve and gown, urging everyone to watch Papa dancing, though that's what they were already doing. In any brief pauses the count gasped for breath and waved to the band, shouting to them to speed things up. Faster and faster he whirled, faster and nimbler than ever, rising on tiptoes, crashing down on his heels, swirling around his partner and finally swinging her back into her place with one last flourish and a leg kicked up neatly behind him. Now he bowed a perspiring head, beamed at the company and gave a huge sweep of his right arm to thunderous applause and much laughter, especially from Natasha. Both partners stood there, getting their breath back and mopping their faces with fine cambric handkerchiefs.
'That's the way we danced in our day, my dear,' said the count.
'Good for Daniel Cooper!' said Marya Dmitriyevna, taking a long, deep breath and tucking back her sleeves.
CHAPTER 18
At the moment when the sixth anglaise was being danced in the Rostovs' hall to the badly timed strains of a weary orchestra, and exhausted cooks and waiters were getting supper ready, Count Bezukhov suffered his sixth stroke. The doctors pronounced no hope of recovery, the sick man was given silent confession and Holy Communion, and the last rites were prepared. As always on such occasions, there was much coming and going in the house and a dreadful air of expectancy. Outside, hordes of undertakers hid beyond the gates, avoiding any approaching carriages, but eagerly anticipating a nice fat order for the count's funeral. The military governor of Moscow, who had sent a string of aides to inquire after the count's condition, came in person that evening to take leave of this famous grandee of Catherine's court, Count Bezukhov.
The magnificent reception-room was full. Everyone stood up respectfully when the governor emerged from the sick room after half an hour alone with the sick man. He gave a curt nod and then made his escape as qui
Those left behind in the dimly lit room murmured occasionally in hushed tones, but all paused and watched with intense interest whenever the door to the dying man's room creaked open as someone went in or out.
'The human span,' said a little old man, some sort of cleric, to a lady who had come to sit by him and was now listening naively to everything he said, 'that span is determined and may not be exceeded.'
'I was wondering whether it might be too late for the last rites?' inquired the lady, using his clerical title, herself apparently devoid of any opinion on this matter.
'It is all a great mystery, madam,' answered the cleric, stroking his bald head with its few thin strands of greying hair combed across.
'What? Did I hear you say the governor's been here?' someone asked at the other end of the room. 'Doesn't look his age, does he?'
'No, he's over sixty! I gather the count can't recognize anyone. Are they still giving him the last rites?'
'I knew a man who had the last rites seven times.'
The second princess emerged from the sick room with tears in her eyes, and sat next to Dr Lorrain, who had arranged himself in a pose under a portrait of Catherine the Great and was leaning against the table.
'It's a very nice day,' said the doctor in reply to a question about the weather, 'a very nice day, Princess, but then being in Moscow is just like being in the country.'
'Is it really?' said the princess with a sigh. 'Now, can we give him anything to drink?' Lorrain paused for reflection.