War and Peace
“Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?” said Natásha. “Now, just one on
your throat and another... that’ll do!” And seizing her mother round
the neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother
Natásha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however
she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her
or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.
“Well, what is it tonight?” said the mother, having arranged her
pillows and waited until Natásha, after turning over a couple of times,
had settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and
assumed a serious expression.
These visits of Natásha’s at night before the count returned from his
club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.
“What is it tonight?—But I have to tell you...”
Natásha put her hand on her mother’s mouth.
“About Borís... I know,” she said seriously; “that’s what I
have come about. Don’t say it—I know. No, do tell me!” and she
removed her hand. “Tell me, Mamma! He’s nice?”
“Natásha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Borís
is nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?...
What are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see
that....”
As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natásha
was lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany
sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess
only saw her daughter’s face in profile. That face struck her by its
peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.
Natásha was listening and considering.
“Well, what then?” said she.
“You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You
know you can’t marry him.”
“Why not?” said Natásha, without changing her position.
“Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...
and because you yourself don’t love him.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. It is not right, darling!”
“But if I want to...” said Natásha.
“Leave off talking nonsense,” said the countess.
“But if I want to...”
“Natásha, I am in earnest...”
Natásha did not let her finish. She drew the countess’ large hand to
her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it
over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the
knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, “January, February,
March, April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don’t you say anything? Speak!”
said she, turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter
and in that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to
say.
“It won’t do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship
dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may
injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all
it torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and
wealthy match, and now he’s half crazy.”
“Crazy?” repeated Natásha.
“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin...”
“I know! Cyril Matvéich... but he is old.”
“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natásha, I’ll
have a talk with Borís. He need not come so often....”
“Why not, if he likes to?”
“Because I know it will end in nothing....”
“How can you know? No, Mamma, don’t speak to him! What nonsense!”
said Natásha in the tone of one being deprived of her property.
“Well, I won’t marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy
it.” Natásha smiled and looked at her mother. “Not to marry, but
just so,” she added.
“How so, my pet?”
“Just so. There’s no need for me to marry him. But... just so.”
“Just so, just so,” repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she
went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.
“Don’t laugh, stop!” cried Natásha. “You’re shaking the whole
bed! You’re awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait...”
and she seized the countess’ hands and kissed a knuckle of the little
finger, saying, “June,” and continued, kissing, “July, August,”
on the other hand. “But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you
think? Was anybody ever so much in love with you? And he’s very nice,
very, very nice. Only not quite my taste—he is so narrow, like the
dining-room clock.... Don’t you understand? Narrow, you know—gray,
light gray...”
“What rubbish you’re talking!” said the countess.
Natásha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nicholas would
understand.... Bezúkhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is
square.”
“You flirt with him too,” said the countess, laughing.
“No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and
red.... How can I explain it to you?”
“Little countess!” the count’s voice called from behind the door.
“You’re not asleep?” Natásha jumped up, snatched up her slippers,
and ran barefoot to her own room.
It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one
could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.
“Sónya?” she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little
kitten with her enormous plait of hair. “No, how could she? She’s
virtuous. She fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know
anything more. Even Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how
clever I am and how... charming she is,” she went on, speaking
of herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise
man—the wisest and best of men—who was saying it of her. “There
is everything, everything in her,” continued this man. “She is
unusually intelligent, charming... and then she is pretty, uncommonly
pretty, and agile—she swims and rides splendidly... and her voice! One
can really say it’s a wonderful voice!”
She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself
on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately
fall asleep, called Dunyásha the maid to put out the candle, and before
Dunyásha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier
world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in
reality, and even more so because it was different.
Next day the countess called Borís aside and had a talk with him, after
which he ceased coming to the Rostóvs’.
CHAPTER XIV
On the thirty-first of December, New Year’s Eve, 1809 - 10 an old
grandee of Catherine’s day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The
diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.
The grandee’s well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with
innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance
which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of
police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.
Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried
footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men
wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine
cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them
with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize
at the entrance.
Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the
crowd and caps were doffed.
“The Emperor?... No, a minister... prince... ambassador. Don’t you
see the plumes?...” was whispered among the crowd.
One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and
mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.
A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were
to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.
There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the
Rostóv family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that
the dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged
as it should be.
Márya Ignátevna Perónskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at
the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the
countess and piloted the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society,
was to accompany them to the ball.
They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten
o’clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were
not yet dressed.
Natásha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that
morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All
her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they
all—she herself, Mamma, and Sónya—should be as well dressed as
possible. Sónya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands.
The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two
girls white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and
their hair dressed à la grecque.
Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and
ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork
silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the
hairdressing was almost done. Sónya was finishing dressing and so was
the countess, but Natásha, who had bustled about helping them all, was
behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing
jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sónya stood ready dressed in
the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her
dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went
through it.
“That’s not the way, that’s not the way, Sónya!” cried Natásha
turning her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the
maid who was dressing it had not time to release. “That bow is not
right. Come here!”
Sónya sat down and Natásha pinned the ribbon on differently.
“Allow me, Miss! I can’t do it like that,” said the maid who was
holding Natásha’s hair.
“Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That’s right, Sónya.”
“Aren’t you ready? It is nearly ten,” came the countess’ voice.
“Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?”
“I have only my cap to pin on.”
“Don’t do it without me!” called Natásha. “You won’t do it
right.”
“But it’s already ten.”
They had decided to be at the ball by half-past ten, and Natásha had
still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
When her hair was done, Natásha, in her short petticoat from under
which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket,
ran up to Sónya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning
her mother’s head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and,
hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning
up the hem of her skirt.
The cause of the delay was Natásha’s skirt, which was too long.
Two maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of
thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the
countess and Sónya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment
up high on one uplifted hand.
“Mávra, quicker, darling!”
“Give me my thimble, Miss, from there...”
“Whenever will you be ready?” asked the count coming to the door.
“Here is some scent. Perónskaya must be tired of waiting.”
“It’s ready, Miss,” said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze
dress with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if
by this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what
she held.
Natásha began putting on the dress.
“In a minute! In a minute! Don’t come in, Papa!” she cried to her
father as he opened the door—speaking from under the filmy skirt which
still covered her whole face.
Sónya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was
wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed
and his hair pomaded.
“Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!” cried Natásha, as she
stood in the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.