War and Peace
“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, and filled a large
glass of Madeira for him.
The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing
it for manners’ sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk
handkerchief he took out of his cap.
“And when are we to start, your excellency?”
“Well...” Anatole looked at his watch. “We’ll start at once.
Mind, Balagá! You’ll get there in time? Eh?”
“That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn’t we be
there in time?” replied Balagá. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in
seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?”
“Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” said Anatole,
smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makárin who gazed
rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it,
Makárka, it took one’s breath away, the rate we flew. We came across
a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?”
“Those were horses!” Balagá continued the tale. “That time I’d
harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went
on, turning to Dólokhov. “Will you believe it, Theodore Iványch,
those animals flew forty miles? I couldn’t hold them in, my hands grew
numb in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins—‘Catch hold
yourself, your excellency!’ says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom
of the sleigh and sprawled there. It wasn’t a case of urging them on,
there was no holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took
us there in three hours! Only the near one died of it.”
CHAPTER XVII
Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing
a fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one
side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror,
and standing before Dólokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it,
he lifted a glass of wine.
“Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!” said
Anatole. “Well, comrades and friends...” he considered for a moment “...
of my youth, farewell!” he said, turning to Makárin and the others.
Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make
something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He
spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed
one leg.
“All take glasses; you too, Balagá. Well, comrades and friends of my
youth, we’ve had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when
shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time—now
farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!...” he cried, and emptying his
glass flung it on the floor.
“To your health!” said Balagá who also emptied his glass, and wiped his
mouth with his handkerchief.
Makárin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.
“Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!
“Let’s go. Let’s go!” cried Anatole.
Balagá was about to leave the room.
“No, stop!” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we have first to sit down.
That’s the way.”
They shut the door and all sat down.
“Now, quick march, lads!” said Anatole, rising.
Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all
went out into the vestibule.
“And where’s the fur cloak?” asked Dólokhov. “Hey, Ignátka! Go to
Matrëna Matrévna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what
elopements are like,” continued Dólokhov with a wink. “Why, she’ll rush
out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay
at all there’ll be tears and ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ and she’s frozen in a
minute and must go back—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first thing
and carry her to the sleigh.”
The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined cloak.
“Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrëna, the sable!” he shouted so
that his voice rang far through the rooms.
A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes
and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable
mantle on her arm.
“Here, I don’t grudge it—take it!” she said, evidently afraid of her
master and yet regretful of her cloak.
Dólokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrëna, and
wrapped her up in it.
“That’s the way,” said Dólokhov, “and then so!” and he turned the collar
up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. “And
then so, do you see?” and he pushed Anatole’s head forward to meet the
gap left by the collar, through which Matrëna’s brilliant smile was
seen.
“Well, good-by, Matrëna,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, my revels here
are over. Remember me to Stëshka. There, good-by! Good-by, Matrëna, wish
me luck!”
“Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!” said Matrëna in her gypsy
accent.
Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were
holding the horses. Balagá took his seat in the front one and holding
his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dólokhov
got in with him. Makárin, Khvóstikov, and a valet seated themselves in
the other sleigh.
“Well, are you ready?” asked Balagá.
“Go!” he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore
down the Nikítski Boulevard.
“Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!...” The shouting of Balagá
and of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could
be heard. On the Arbát Square the troyka caught against a carriage;
something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the
Arbát Street.
After taking a turn along the Podnovínski Boulevard, Balagá began to
rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyúsheny
Street.
The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole
and Dólokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate
Dólokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.
“Come into the courtyard or you’ll be seen; she’ll come out directly,”
said she.
Dólokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the
courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.
He was met by Gabriel, Márya Dmítrievna’s gigantic footman.
“Come to the mistress, please,” said the footman in his deep bass,
intercepting any retreat.
“To what Mistress? Who are you?” asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.
“Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in.”
“Kurágin! Come back!” shouted Dólokhov. “Betrayed! Back!”
Dólokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was
struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last
desperate effort Dólokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran
back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back
with him to the troyka.
CHAPTER XVIII
Márya Dmítrievna, having found Sónya weeping in the corridor, made her
confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natásha she read it and
went into Natásha’s room with it in her hand.
“You shameless good-for-nothing!” said she. “I won’t hear a word.”
Pushing back Natásha who looked at her with astonished but tearless
eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to
admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them
out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she
seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.
When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run
away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced
through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward
midnight she went to Natásha’s room fingering the key in her pocket.
Sónya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. “Márya Dmítrievna, for God’s
sake let me in to her!” she pleaded, but Márya Dmítrievna unlocked
the door and went in without giving her an answer.... “Disgusting,
abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I’m only sorry for her
father!” thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. “Hard as it may
be, I’ll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the
count.” She entered the room with resolute steps. Natásha lying on the
sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in
just the same position in which Márya Dmítrievna had left her.
“A nice girl! Very nice!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “Arranging meetings
with lovers in my house! It’s no use pretending: you listen when I speak
to you!” And Márya Dmítrievna touched her arm. “Listen when I speak!
You’ve disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I’d treat you
differently, but I’m sorry for your father, so I will conceal it.”
Natásha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with
noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Márya Dmítrievna glanced
round at Sónya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natásha.
“It’s lucky for him that he escaped me; but I’ll find him!” she said in
her rough voice. “Do you hear what I am saying or not?” she added.
She put her large hand under Natásha’s face and turned it toward her.
Both Márya Dmítrievna and Sónya were amazed when they saw how Natásha
looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her
cheeks sunken.
“Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!” she muttered,
wrenching herself from Márya Dmítrievna’s hands with a vicious effort
and sinking down again into her former position.
“Natalie!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “I wish for your good. Lie still,
stay like that then, I won’t touch you. But listen. I won’t tell you how
guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back
tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?”
Again Natásha’s body shook with sobs.
“Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?”
“I have no betrothed: I have refused him!” cried Natásha.
“That’s all the same,” continued Márya Dmítrievna. “If they hear of
this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he
challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?”
“Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked
you to?” shouted Natásha, raising herself on the sofa and looking
malignantly at Márya Dmítrievna.
“But what did you want?” cried Márya Dmítrievna, growing angry again.
“Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?
Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he
had carried you off... do you think they wouldn’t have found him?
Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he’s a scoundrel, a
wretch—that’s a fact!”
“He is better than any of you!” exclaimed Natásha getting up. “If you
hadn’t interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sónya,
why?... Go away!”
And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people
bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Márya
Dmítrievna was to speak again but Natásha cried out:
“Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!” and she threw herself
back on the sofa.
Márya Dmítrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her
that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody
would know anything about it if only Natásha herself would undertake
to forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened.
Natásha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold
and had a shivering fit. Márya Dmítrievna put a pillow under her head,
covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower
water, but Natásha did not respond to her.
“Well, let her sleep,” said Márya Dmítrievna as she went out of the room
supposing Natásha to be asleep.
But Natásha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she
looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and
did not speak to Sónya who got up and went to her several times.
Next day Count Rostóv returned from his estate near Moscow in time for