War and Peace
often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one’s own
house, “Uncle,” answering a thought that was in his visitors’
minds, said:
“This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come.
That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?”
“Uncle’s” face was very significant and even handsome as he said
this. Involuntarily Rostóv recalled all the good he had heard about
him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province
“Uncle” had the reputation of being the most honorable and
disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes,
chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a
justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public
appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay
gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in
summer.
“Why don’t you enter the service, Uncle?”
“I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That’s it, come
on! I can’t make head or tail of it. That’s for you—I haven’t
brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter—that’s it, come on!
Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why have you shut it?”
The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen’s room, as they
called the room for the hunt servants.
There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the
door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sounds of a
balaláyka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was
playing. Natásha had been listening to those strains for some time and
now went out into the passage to hear better.
“That’s Mítka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balaláyka.
I’m fond of it,” said “Uncle.”
It was the custom for Mítka to play the balaláyka in the huntsmen’s
room when “Uncle” returned from the chase. “Uncle” was fond of
such music.
“How good! Really very good!” said Nicholas with some unintentional
superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him
very much.
“Very good?” said Natásha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s
tone. “Not ‘very good’--it’s simply delicious!”
Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had
seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment,
seemed to her the acme of musical delight.
“More, please, more!” cried Natásha at the door as soon as the
balaláyka ceased. Mítka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming
the balaláyka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations.
“Uncle” sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side.
The air was repeated a hundred times. The balaláyka was retuned several
times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did
not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anísya
Fëdorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.
“You like listening?” she said to Natásha, with a smile extremely
like “Uncle’s.” “That’s a good player of ours,” she added.
“He doesn’t play that part right!” said “Uncle” suddenly, with
an energetic gesture. “Here he ought to burst out—that’s it, come
on!—ought to burst out.”
“Do you play then?” asked Natásha.
“Uncle” did not answer, but smiled.
“Anísya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I
haven’t touched it for a long time. That’s it—come on! I’ve
given it up.”
Anísya Fëdorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her
errand and brought back the guitar.
Without looking at anyone, “Uncle” blew the dust off it and, tapping
the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in
his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching
his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at
Anísya Fëdorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then
quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not
My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The
tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the
hearts of Nicholas and Natásha, arousing in them the same kind of
sober mirth as radiated from Anísya Fëdorovna’s whole being. Anísya
Fëdorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing
out of the room. “Uncle” continued to play correctly, carefully,
with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression
at the spot where Anísya Fëdorovna had just stood. Something seemed to
be laughing a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches,
especially as the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here
and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to
snap.
“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” shouted Natásha as soon as
he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. “Nicholas,
Nicholas!” she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: “What
is it moves me so?”
Nicholas too was greatly pleased by “Uncle’s” playing, and
“Uncle” played the piece over again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling
face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces...
Fetching water clear and sweet,
Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—
played “Uncle” once more, running his fingers skillfully over the
strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.
“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her
life depended on it.
“Uncle” rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of
them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck
a naïve and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.
“Now then, niece!” he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that
had just struck a chord.
Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face
“Uncle,” and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her
shoulders and struck an attitude.
Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an émigrée
French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit
and obtained that manner which the pas de châle * would, one would have
supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were
those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that “Uncle” had
expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled
triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at
first seized Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right
thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her.
* The French shawl dance.
She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,
that Anísya Fëdorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she
needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she
watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so
different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was
in Anísya and in Anísya’s father and mother and aunt, and in every
Russian man and woman.
“Well, little countess; that’s it—come on!” cried “Uncle,”
with a joyous laugh, having finished the dance. “Well done, niece! Now
a fine young fellow must be found as husband for you. That’s it—come
on!”
“He’s chosen already,” said Nicholas smiling.
“Oh?” said “Uncle” in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natásha,
who nodded her head with a happy smile.
“And such a one!” she said. But as soon as she had said it a new
train of thoughts and feelings arose in her. “What did Nicholas’
smile mean when he said ‘chosen already’? Is he glad of it or not?
It is as if he thought my Bolkónski would not approve of or understand
our gaiety. But he would understand it all. Where is he now?” she
thought, and her face suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a
second. “Don’t dare to think about it,” she said to herself,
and sat down again smilingly beside “Uncle,” begging him to play
something more.
“Uncle” played another song and a valse; then after a pause he
cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:
As ‘twas growing dark last night
Fell the snow so soft and light...
“Uncle” sang as peasants sing, with full and naïve conviction that
the whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes
of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists
only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered
tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natásha was in
ecstasies over “Uncle’s” singing. She resolved to give up learning
the harp and to play only the guitar. She asked “Uncle” for his
guitar and at once found the chords of the song.
After nine o’clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent
to look for them, arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and
countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of
the men.
Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two
traps. Natásha and Nicholas got into the other. “Uncle” wrapped
Natásha up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He
accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,
so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride
in front with lanterns.
“Good-by, dear niece,” his voice called out of the darkness—not
the voice Natásha had known previously, but the one that had sung As
‘twas growing dark last night.
In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a
cheerful smell of smoke.
“What a darling Uncle is!” said Natásha, when they had come out
onto the highroad.
“Yes,” returned Nicholas. “You’re not cold?”
“No. I’m quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!” answered
Natásha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long
while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but
only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.
What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught
and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all
find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she
suddenly struck up the air of As ‘twas growing dark last night—the
tune of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last
caught.
“Got it?” said Nicholas.
“What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?” inquired
Natásha.
They were fond of asking one another that question.
“I?” said Nicholas, trying to remember. “Well, you see, first I
thought that Rugáy, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were
a man he would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then
for his manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don’t you think so?...
Well, and you?”
“I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving
along and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows
where we are really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and
suddenly find that we are not in Otrádnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I
thought... No, nothing else.”
“I know, I expect you thought of him,” said Nicholas, smiling as
Natásha knew by the sound of his voice.
“No,” said Natásha, though she had in reality been thinking about
Prince Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would
have liked “Uncle.” “And then I was saying to myself all the way,
‘How well Anísya carried herself, how well!’” And Nicholas heard
her spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. “And do you know,” she
suddenly said, “I know that I shall never again be as happy and
tranquil as I am now.”
“Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!” exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought:
“How charming this Natásha of mine is! I have no other friend like
her and never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive
about together!”
“What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!” thought Natásha.