War and Peace
The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,
innkeepers, and ladies—frightening and funny—bringing in with
them the cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first
timidly, into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed
into the ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily
and heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas
games. The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their
costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,
smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had
disappeared.
Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the
ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt—this was Nicholas. A Turkish
girl was Pétya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natásha, and a
Circassian was Sónya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.
After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those
who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their
costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.
Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take
them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a
dozen of the serf mummers and drive to “Uncle’s.”
“No, why disturb the old fellow?” said the countess. “Besides,
you wouldn’t have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the
Melyukóvs’.”
Melyukóva was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and
governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs.
“That’s right, my dear,” chimed in the old count, thoroughly
aroused. “I’ll dress up at once and go with them. I’ll make
Pashette open her eyes.”
But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all
these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if
Louisa Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies
might go to the Melyukóvs’, Sónya, generally so timid and shy, more
urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivánovna not to refuse.
Sónya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were
extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,
and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some
inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and
in her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivánovna
consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and
small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,
drove up to the porch.
Natásha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing
from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all
came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to
one another, laughing, and shouting.
Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the
old count’s with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as shaft horse,
the fourth was Nicholas’ own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.
Nicholas, in his old lady’s dress over which he had belted his hussar
overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.
It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal
harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm
at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.
Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas’
sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya, into the old count’s, and the
rest of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.
“You go ahead, Zakhár!” shouted Nicholas to his father’s
coachman, wishing for a chance to race past him.
The old count’s troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,
squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned
bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the
middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,
and threw it up.
Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others
moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady
trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows
of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant
moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain
bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering
like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the
first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of
the other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the
frost-bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one
after the other.
“A hare’s track, a lot of tracks!” rang out Natásha’s voice
through the frost-bound air.
“How light it is, Nicholas!” came Sónya’s voice.
Nicholas glanced round at Sónya, and bent down to see her face closer.
Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up
at him from her sable furs—so close and yet so distant—in the
moonlight.
“That used to be Sónya,” thought he, and looked at her closer and
smiled.
“What is it, Nicholas?”
“Nothing,” said he and turned again to the horses.
When they came out onto the beaten highroad—polished by sleigh runners
and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the
moonlight—the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and
increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking
into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from
side to side, moving his ears as if asking: “Isn’t it time to begin
now?” In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing
farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhár could be
clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the
shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.
“Gee up, my darlings!” shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one
side and flourishing the whip.
It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the
side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that
one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With
screams, squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses
to gallop—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily
beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and
ready to put on speed when required.
Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and
coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.
“Where are we?” thought he. “It’s the Kosóy meadow, I suppose.
But no—this is something new I’ve never seen before. This isn’t
the Kosóy meadow nor the Dëmkin hill, and heaven only knows what it
is! It is something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be...”
And shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.
Zakhár held back his horses and turned his face, which was already
covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.
Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhár, stretching out his arms,
clucked his tongue and let his horses go.
“Now, look out, master!” he cried.
Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved
the feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead.
Zakhár, while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the
reins.
“No you won’t, master!” he shouted.
Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhár. The horses
showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh—beside
them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of
swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing.
The whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls
shrieking were heard from different sides.
Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still
surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with
stars.
“Zakhár is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the
left?” thought Nicholas. “Are we getting to the Melyukóvs’? Is
this Melyukóvka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows
what is happening to us—but it is very strange and pleasant whatever
it is.” And he looked round in the sleigh.
“Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!” said one of the
strange, pretty, unfamiliar people—the one with fine eyebrows and
mustache.
“I think this used to be Natásha,” thought Nicholas, “and that
was Madame Schoss, but perhaps it’s not, and this Circassian with the
mustache I don’t know, but I love her.”
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.
They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind
shouted something—probably something funny—but they could not make
out what he said.
“Yes, yes!” some voices answered, laughing.
“But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter
of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy
buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really
Melyukóvka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and
have come to Melyukóvka,” thought Nicholas.
It really was Melyukóvka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came
running, out to the porch carrying candles.
“Who is it?” asked someone in the porch.
“The mummers from the count’s. I know by the horses,” replied some
voices.
CHAPTER XI
Pelagéya Danílovna Melyukóva, a broadly built, energetic woman
wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded
by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They
were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows
the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and
voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.
Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their
throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule,
came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The
clown—Dimmler—and the lady—Nicholas—started a dance. Surrounded
by the screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and
disguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves
about the room.
“Dear me! there’s no recognizing them! And Natásha! See whom
she looks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr
Dimmler—isn’t he good! I didn’t know him! And how he dances. Dear
me, there’s a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sónya.
And who is that? Well, you have cheered us up! Nikíta and Vanya—clear
away the tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The
hussar, the hussar! Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can’t look at
him...” different voices were saying.
Natásha, the young Melyukóvs’ favorite, disappeared with them into
the back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments
were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from
behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukóvs joined the
mummers.
Pelagéya Danílovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the
visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,
went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering
into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any
of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostóvs she failed to
recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late
husband’s, dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.
“And who is this?” she asked her governess, peering into the face of
her own daughter dressed up as a Kazán-Tartar. “I suppose it is one
of the Rostóvs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?”
she asked Natásha. “Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!”