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The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor- idleness- was a
condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has
retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only because
we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because our moral
nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An inner voice tells us
we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could find a state in which he felt
that though idle he was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one of the
conditions of man's primitive blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and
irreproachable idleness is the lot of a whole class- the military. The chief
attraction of military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory
and irreproachable idleness. |
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Nicholas Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when,
after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which he already
commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov. |
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Rostov had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow
acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked and
respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well contented
with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home more frequent
complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling into greater and
greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come back to gladden and
comfort his old parents. |
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Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take him
away from surroundings in which, protected from all the entanglements of life,
he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that sooner or later he would have
to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with its embarrassments and affairs to be
straightened out, its accounts with stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties,
society, and with Sonya's love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully
difficult and complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters
in French, beginning: "My dear Mamma," and ending: "Your obedient
son," which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received
letters from his parents, in which they told him of Natasha's engagement to
Bolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the old prince
made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified Nicholas. In the first
place he was sorry that Natasha, for whom he cared more than for anyone else in
the family, should be lost to the home; and secondly, from his hussar point of
view, he regretted not to have been there to show that fellow Bolkonski that
connection with him was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved
Natasha he might dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment
he hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natasha
before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations about
Sonya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas again put it off.
But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from his mother, written
without his father's knowledge, and that letter persuaded him to return. She
wrote that if he did not come and take matters in hand, their whole property
would be sold by auction and they would all have to go begging. The count was so
weak, and trusted Mitenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took
advantage of him and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's sake,
I implore you, come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole family
wretched," wrote the countess. |
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This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a
matter-of-fact man which showed him what he ought to do. |
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The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate
to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his
after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious gray
stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he returned with the
horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka (Denisov's servant who had remained
with him) and his comrades who turned up in the evening that he was applying for
leave and was going home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect
that he would go away without having heard from the staff- and this interested
him extremely- whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the Order
of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think that he would go
away without having sold his three roans to the Polish Count Golukhovski, who
was bargaining for the horses Rostov had betted he would sell for two thousand
rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed that the ball the hussars were giving in
honor of the Polish Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the Uhlans who
had given one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take
place without him- he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to
somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he obtained his
leave. His hussar comrades- not only those of his own regiment, but the whole
brigade- gave Rostov a dinner to which the subscription was fifteen rubles a
head, and at which there were two bands and two choirs of singers. Rostov danced
the Trepak with Major Basov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped
Rostov; the soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted
"hurrah!" and then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far
as the first post station. |
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During the first half of the journey- from Kremenchug to Kiev- all
Rostov's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the
squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his three
roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously how things
would be at Otradnoe and what he would find there. Thoughts of home grew
stronger the nearer he approached it- far stronger, as though this feeling of
his was subject to the law by which the force of attraction is in inverse
proportion to the square of the distance. At the last post station before
Otradnoe he gave the driver a three-ruble tip, and on arriving he ran
breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of his home. |
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After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied
expectation- the feeling that "everything is just the same, so why did I
hurry?"- Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His father
and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them was a
certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to be, and
which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of their affairs.
Sonya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier and promised nothing
more than she was already, but that was enough. She exhaled happiness and love
from the time Nicholas returned, and the faithful, unalterable love of this girl
had a gladdening effect on him. Petya and Natasha surprised Nicholas most. Petya
was a big handsome boy of thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice
that was already breaking. As for Natasha, for a long while Nicholas wondered
and laughed whenever he looked at her. |
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"You're not the same at all," he said. |
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"How? Am I uglier?" |
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"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!" he whispered
to her. |
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"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Natasha, joyfully. |
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She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to
Otradnoe and showed him his last letter. |
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"Well, are you glad?" Natasha asked. "I am so tranquil and
happy now." |
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"Very glad," answered Nicholas. "He is an excellent
fellow.... And are you very much in love?" |
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"How shall I put it?" replied Natasha. "I was in love with
Boris, with my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at
peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am calm and
contented now. Not at all as before." |
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Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage
for a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving to him
that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing to enter a
family against the father's will, and that she herself wished it so. |
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"You don't at all understand," she said. |
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Nicholas was silent and agreed with her. |
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Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at all
like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was even-tempered
and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed Nicholas and even made him
regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically. He could not believe that her fate was
sealed, especially as he had not seen her with Prince Andrew. It always seemed
to him that there was something not quite right about this intended marriage. |
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"Why this delay? Why no betrothal?" he thought. Once, when he
had touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and
somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too had doubts
about this marriage. |
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"You see he writes," said she, showing her son a letter of
Prince Andrew's, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a
daughter's future married happiness, "he writes that he won't come before
December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health is very
delicate. Don't tell Natasha. And don't attach importance to her being so
bright: that's because she's living through the last days of her girlhood, but I
know what she is like every time we receive a letter from him! However, God
grant that everything turns out well!" (She always ended with these words.)
"He is an excellent man!" |
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After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was
worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business matters
for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this burden as quickly as
possible, on the third day after his arrival he went, angry and scowling and
without answering questions as to where he was going, to Mitenka's lodge and
demanded an account of everything. But what an account of everything might be
Nicholas knew even less than the frightened and bewildered Mitenka. The
conversation and the examination of the accounts with Mitenka did not last long.
The village elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting
in the passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count's voice
roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of abuse,
dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other. |
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"Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I'll hack the dog to pieces! I'm
not my father!... Robbing us!..." and so on. |
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Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in
the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the scruff of the neck
and applied his foot and knee to him behind with great agility at convenient
moments between the words, shouting, "Be off! Never let me see your face
here again, you villain!" |
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Mitenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the shrubbery.
(This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits at Otradnoe.
Mitenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used to hide there, and many of
the residents at Otradnoe, hiding from Mitenka, knew of its protective
qualities.) |
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Mitenka's wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened faces
out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and where the
steward's high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt. |
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The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by with
resolute strides and went into the house. |
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The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the
lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly improve,
but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this excitement might have
on her son. She went several times to his door on tiptoe and listened, as he
lighted one pipe after another. |
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Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed
smile, said to him: |
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"But you know, my dear boy, it's a pity you got excited! Mitenka has
told me all about it." |
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"I knew," thought Nicholas, "that I should never
understand anything in this crazy world." |
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"You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they
were carried forward- and you did not look at the other page." |
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"Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have
done, I have done; but, if you like, I won't speak to him again." |
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"No, my dear boy" (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he
had mismanaged his wife's property and was to blame toward his children, but he
did not know how to remedy it). "No, I beg you to attend to the business. I
am old. I..." |
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"No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I
understand it all less than you do." |
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"Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings
forward from page to page," he thought. "I used to understand what a
'corner' and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another page I
don't understand at all," said he to himself, and after that he did not
meddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and informed
him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikhaylovna for two thousand
rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with it. |
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"This," answered Nicholas. "You say it rests with me.
Well, I don't like Anna Mikhaylovna and I don't like Boris, but they were our
friends and poor. Well then, this!" and he tore up the note, and by so
doing caused the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostov
took no further part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with
passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit- the chase- for which his
father kept a large establishment. |
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The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an
earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its bright green
stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye trodden down by the
cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the spring buckwheat. The wooded
ravines and the copses, which at the end of August had still been green islands
amid black fields and stubble, had become golden and bright-red islands amid the
green winter rye. The hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox
cubs were beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It
was the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young
sportsman Rostov had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were so jaded
that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a three days' rest
and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a distant expedition, starting
from the oak grove where there was an undisturbed litter of wolf cubs. |
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All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was
sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw. On the
fifteenth, when young Rostov, in his dressing gown, looked out of the window, he
saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was as if the sky were
melting and sinking to the earth without any wind. The only motion in the air
was that of the dripping, microscopic particles of drizzling mist. The bare
twigs in the garden were hung with transparent drops which fell on the freshly
fallen leaves. The earth in the kitchen garden looked wet and black and
glistened like poppy seed and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist
veil of mist. Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell
of decaying leaves and of dog. Milka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched bitch with
prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched her hind legs, lay
down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and licked him right on his nose
and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching sight of his master from the
garden path, arched his back and, rushing headlong toward the porch with lifted
tail, began rubbing himself against his legs. |
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"O-hoy!" came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman's call
which unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner
came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old man with
hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long bent whip in his
hand, and that look of independence and scorn of everything that is only seen in
huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap to his master and looked at him
scornfully. This scorn was not offensive to his master. Nicholas knew that this
Daniel, disdainful of everybody and who considered himself above them, was all
the same his serf and huntsman. |
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"Daniel!" Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the
weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away by that
irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his previous
resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress. |
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"What orders, your excellency?" said the huntsman in his deep
bass, deep as a proto-deacon's and hoarse with hallooing- and two flashing black
eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent. "Can you
resist it?" those eyes seemed to be asking. |
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"It's a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?" asked
Nicholas, scratching Milka behind the ears. |
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Daniel did not answer, but winked instead. |
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"I sent Uvarka at dawn to listen," his bass boomed out after a
minute's pause. "He says she's moved them into the Otradnoe enclosure. They
were howling there." (This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both
knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe copse, a small place a mile and a
half from the house.) |
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"We ought to go, don't you think so?" said Nicholas. "Come
to me with Uvarka." |
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"As you please." |
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"Then put off feeding them." |
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"Yes, sir." |
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Five minutes later Daniel and Uvarka were standing in Nicholas' big
study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was like seeing a
horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and surroundings of human life.
Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood just inside the door, trying to
speak softly and not move, for fear of breaking something in the master's
apartment, and he hastened to say all that was necessary so as to get from under
that ceiling, out into the open under the sky once more. |
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Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that
the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas ordered the
horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to go Natasha came in with
rapid steps, not having done up her hair or finished dressing and with her old
nurse's big shawl wrapped round her. Petya ran in at the same time. |
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"You are going?" asked Natasha. "I knew you would! Sonya
said you wouldn't go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you couldn't
help going." |
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"Yes, we are going," replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today,
as he intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natasha and Petya.
"We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you." |
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"You know it is my greatest pleasure," said Natasha. "It's
not fair; you are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said
nothing to us about it." |
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"'No barrier bars a Russian's path'- we'll go!" shouted Petya. |
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"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't," said Nicholas to
Natasha. |
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"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go," said Natasha decisively.
"Daniel, tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my
dogs," she added to the huntsman. |
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It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to
have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast down his
eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business, careful as he went not
to inflict any accidental injury on the young lady. |
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The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment
but had now handed it all completely over to his son's care, being in very good
spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out with the others. |
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In an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,
with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for attending to
trifles, went past Natasha and Petya who were trying to tell him something. He
had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen on
ahead to find the quarry, mounted his chestnut Donets, and whistling to his own
leash of borzois, set off across the threshing ground to a field leading to the
Otradnoe wood. The old count's horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led
by the groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a
small trap straight to a spot reserved for him. |
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They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and
whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and more than
forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash belonging to members of
the family, there were about a hundred and thirty dogs and twenty horsemen. |
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Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his
business. his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the fence
they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk, along the road
and field leading to the Otradnoe covert. |
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The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then
splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still seemed to
descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air was still, warm, and
silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the snort of a horse, the crack
of a whip, or the whine of a straggling hound could be heard. |
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When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with dogs
appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostovs. In front rode a
fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache. |
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"Good morning, Uncle!" said Nicholas, when the old man drew
near. |
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"That's it. Come on!... I was sure of it," began
"Uncle." (He was a distant relative of the Rostovs', a man of small
means, and their neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and
it's a good thing you're going. That's it! Come on! (This was
"Uncle's" favorite expression.) "Take the covert at once, for my
Girchik says the Ilagins are at Korniki with their hounds. That's it. Come
on!... They'll take the cubs from under your very nose." |
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"That's where I'm going. Shall we join up our packs?" asked
Nicholas. |
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The hounds were joined into one pack, and "Uncle" and Nicholas
rode on side by side. Natasha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager
face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Petya who always
kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a groom appointed to look
after her. Petya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled at his horse. Natasha sat
easily and confidently on her black Arabchik and reined him in without effort
with a firm hand. |
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"Uncle" looked round disapprovingly at Petya and Natasha. He
did not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting. |
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"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!" shouted Petya. |
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"Good morning, good morning! But don't go overriding the
hounds," said "Uncle" sternly. |
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"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me," said
Natasha, referring to her favorite hound. |
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"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier,"
thought Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the
distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natasha understood it. |
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"You mustn't think we'll be in anyone's way, Uncle," she said.
"We'll go to our places and won't budge." |
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"A good thing too, little countess," said "Uncle,"
"only mind you don't fall off your horse," he added, "because-
that's it, come on!- you've nothing to hold on to." |
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The oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,
the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally settled with
"Uncle" where they should set on the hounds, and having shown Natasha
where she was to stand- a spot where nothing could possibly run out- went round
above the ravine. |
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"Well, nephew, you're going for a big wolf," said
"Uncle." "Mind and don't let her slip!" |
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"That's as may happen," answered Rostov. "Karay,
here!" he shouted, answering "Uncle's" remark by this call to his
borzoi. Karay was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having
tackled a big wolf unaided. They all took up their places. |
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The old count, knowing his son's ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not to
be late, and the hunstmen had not yet reached their places when Count Ilya
Rostov, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with his black
horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him, where a wolf might
come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened on his hunting knives and
horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed, and comfortable horse, Viflyanka,
which was turning gray, like himself. His horses and trap were sent home. Count
Ilya Rostov, though not at heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt
well, and rode to the bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his
reins, settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked
about with a smile. |
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Beside him was Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old horseman now
somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable wolfhounds,
who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse. Two wise old dogs
lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along the edge of the wood stood
Mitka, the count's other groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds.
Before the hunt, by old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled
brandy, taken a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite
Bordeaux. |
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He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were rather
moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle, wrapped up in
his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an outing. |
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The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready, kept
glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for thirty
years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant chat. A third
person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was plain that he had had a
lesson) and stopped behind the count. This person was a gray-bearded old man in
a woman's cloak, with a tall peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who
went by a woman's name, Nastasya Ivanovna. |
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"Well, Nastasya Ivanovna!" whispered the count, winking at him.
"If you scare away the beast, Daniel'll give it you!" |
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"I know a thing or two myself!" said Nastasya Ivanovna. |
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"Hush!" whispered the count and turned to Simon. "Have you
seen the young countess?" he asked. "Where is she?" |
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"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass," answered
Simon, smiling. "Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting." |
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"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?" said
the count. "She's as good as many a man!" |
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"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!" |
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"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?" |
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"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so
well that Daniel and I are often quite astounded," said Simon, well knowing
what would please his master. |
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"Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?" |
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"A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the
Zavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight when they
rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles and the rider beyond
all price! Yes, one would have to search far to find another as smart." |
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"To search far..." repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon
had not said more. "To search far," he said, turning back the skirt of
his coat to get at his snuffbox. |
|
|
"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael
Sidorych..." Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had distinctly
caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds giving tongue. He
bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning finger at his master.
"They are on the scent of the cubs... " he whispered, "straight
to the Lyadov uplands." |
|
|
The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into
the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding the
snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds came the
deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's hunting horn; the pack joined the
first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry, with that peculiar lift
in the note that indicates that they are after a wolf. The whippers-in no longer
set on the hounds, but changed to the cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose
Daniel's voice, now a deep bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill
the whole wood and carried far beyond out into the open field. |
|
|
After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant
convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the sound of
the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in the distance, the
other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it was with this that Daniel's
voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds of both packs mingled and broke
apart again, but both were becoming more distant. |
|
|
Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had
entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand, opened
it and took a pinch. "Back!" cried Simon to a borzoi that was pushing
forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the snuffbox. Nastasya
Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and Simon were looking at him. |
|
|
Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly
approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just in
front of them. |
|
|
The count turned and saw on his right Mitka staring at him with eyes
starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the other
side. |
|
|
"Look out!" he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had
long fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped toward
the count. |
|
|
The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a wolf
which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet lope farther to
the left to the very place where they were standing. The angry borzois whined
and getting free of the leash rushed past the horses' feet at the wolf. |
|
|
The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,
like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying from side to
side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail disappeared into the
skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry like a wail, first one hound,
then another, and then another, sprang helter-skelter from the wood opposite and
the whole pack rushed across the field toward the very spot where the wolf had
disappeared. The hazel bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut
horse appeared, dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward,
capless, his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face. |
|
|
"Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!..." he cried. When he caught sight of the
count his eyes flashed lightning. |
|
|
"Blast you!" he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at
the count. |
|
|
"You've let the wolf go!... What sportsmen! and as if scorning to
say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving flanks of
his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had aroused and flew
off after the hounds. The count, like a punished schoolboy, looked round, trying
by a smile to win Simon's sympathy for his plight. But Simon was no longer
there. He was galloping round by the bushes while the field was coming up on
both sides, all trying to head the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before
they could do so. |
|
|
Nicholas Rostov meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. By
the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs whose notes
were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen approached, receded,
and rose, he realized what was happening at the copse. He knew that young and
old wolves were there, that the hounds had separated into two packs, that
somewhere a wolf was being chased, and that something had gone wrong. He
expected the wolf to come his way any moment. He made thousands of different
conjectures as to where and from what side the beast would come and how he would
set upon it. Hope alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer
to God that the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and
shame-faced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement arising
from trivial causes. "What would it be to Thee to do this for me?" he
said to God. "I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask this of
Thee, but for God's sake do let the old wolf come my way and let Karay spring at
it- in sight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over there- and seize it by the
throat in a death grip!" A thousand times during that half-hour Rostov cast
eager and restless glances over the edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks
rising above the aspen undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and
"Uncle's" cap just visible above the bush on his right. |
|
|
"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostov, "yet what
wouldn't it be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am
always unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed rapidly and
clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I want
only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the left and
then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of note in the cries
of the dogs. |
|
|
Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across
the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostov, taking a deep
breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The height of
happiness was reached- and so simply, without warning, or noise, or display,
that Rostov could not believe his eyes and remained in doubt for over a second.
The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over a gully that lay in her path. She
was an old animal with a gray back and big reddish belly. She ran without hurry,
evidently feeling sure that no one saw her. Rostov, holding his breath, looked
round at the borzois. They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the
situation. Old Karay had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,
baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs. |
|
|
"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois
jumped up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay
finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with
quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down. |
|
|
"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole physiognomy
changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never seen before- human
eyes fixed upon her- and turning her head a little toward Rostov, she paused. |
|
|
"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to
say to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a
quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope. |
|
|
"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its
own accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to head
off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still. Nicholas did not
hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor see the borzois, nor the
ground over which he went: he saw only the wolf, who, increasing her speed,
bounded on in the same direction along the hollow. The first to come into view
was Milka, with her black markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf.
Nearer and nearer... now she was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to
face her, and instead of putting on speed as she usually did Milka suddenly
raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs. |
|
|
"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas. |
|
|
The reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang impetuously
at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but immediately jumped aside in
terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, and again rose and bounded
forward, followed at the distance of a couple of feet by all the borzois, who
did not get any closer to her. |
|
|
"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!" thought Nicholas, still
shouting with a hoarse voice. |
|
|
"Karay, ulyulyu!..." he shouted, looking round for the old
borzoi who was now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left him,
stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped heavily aside
to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf's lope and the borzoi's slower
pace made it plain that Karay had miscalculated. Nicholas could already see not
far in front of him the wood where the wolf would certainly escape should she
reach it. But, coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost
straight at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one
Nicholas did not know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the wolf from
in front and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped up more quickly than
anyone could have expected and, gnashing her teeth, flew at the yellowish
borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell with its head on the ground, bleeding
from a gash in its side. |
|
|
"Karay? Old fellow!..." wailed Nicholas. |
|
|
Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old
dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of it. As
if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karay, tucked her tail yet
further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here Nicholas only saw
that something happened to Karay- the borzoi was suddenly on the wolf, and they
rolled together down into a gully just in front of them. |
|
|
That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with the
dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and outstretched hind
leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears laid back (Karay was pinning
her by the throat), was the happiest moment of his life. With his hand on his
saddlebow, he was ready to dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust
her head up from among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge
of the gully. She clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat),
leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged
herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karay, his hair
bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with difficulty out of the
gully. |
|
|
"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair. |
|
|
"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the
wolf's path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance. She was
again hemmed in. |
|
|
Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were
all riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to
dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward again
every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she would be safe. |
|
|
Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,
had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf, and checked his
horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the horsemen did
not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for safety, Daniel set his
chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight toward the wood, just as Karay
had run to cut the animal off. As a result of this, he galloped up to the wolf
just when she had been stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois. |
|
|
Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and
thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if it were a
flail. |
|
|
Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing
heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel lying
on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the ears. It was
evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself that all was now over.
The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and tried to rise, but the borzois
stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took a step, and with his whole weight, as
if lying down to rest, fell on the wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was
about to stab her, but Daniel whispered, "Don't! We'll gag her!" and,
changing his position, set his foot on the wolf's neck. A stick was thrust
between her jaws and she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were
bound together, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to side. |
|
|
With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying
and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her to the
place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of the cubs and the
borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty and their stories, and
all came to look at the wolf, which, with her broad-browed head hanging down and
the bitten stick between her jaws, gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of
dogs and men surrounding her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs
and looked wildly yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostov also rode up and
touched the wolf. |
|
|
"Oh, what a formidable one!" said he. "A formidable one,
eh?" he asked Daniel, who was standing near. |
|
|
"Yes, your excellency," answered Daniel, quickly doffing his
cap. |
|
|
The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with
Daniel. |
|
|
"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!" said the count. |
|
|
For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable smile. |
|
|
The old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return very
soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they put the
hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees. Nicholas standing in a
fallow field could see all his whips. |
|
|
Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone
in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed before
Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at intervals; other hounds
joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A moment later he heard a
cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been found, and the whole pack,
joining together, rushed along the ravine toward the ryefield and away from
Nicholas. |
|
|
He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the
ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself at any
moment on the ryefield opposite. |
|
|
The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and
Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard across
the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close to the fox which
began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper curves, trailing its
brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed in followed by a black one,
and everything was in confusion; the borzois formed a star-shaped figure,
scarcely swaying their bodies and with tails turned away from the center of the
group. Two huntsmen galloped up to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a
stranger, in a green coat. |
|
|
"What's this?" thought Nicholas. "Where's that huntsman
from? He is not 'Uncle's' man." |
|
|
The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping
it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood near them
and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their arms and did
something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of a horn, with the
signal agreed on in case of a fight. |
|
|
"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan," said
Nicholas' groom. |
|
|
Nicholas sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode at a
footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together. Several
of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on. |
|
|
Nicholas dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden up,
stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of the
bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his young master,
with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a distance he took off his cap
and tried to speak respectfully, but he was pale and breathless and his face was
angry. One of his eyes was black, but he probably was not even aware of it. |
|
|
"What has happened?" asked Nicholas. |
|
|
"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my
gray bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I gave
him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste of
this?..." said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably imagining
himself still speaking to his foe. |
|
|
Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Petya to
wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ilagin's, hunting party
was. |
|
|
The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there, surrounded
by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits. |
|
|
The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and were
at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostovs, and had now,
as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostovs were hunting and let
his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased. |
|
|
Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of
moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his arbitrariness
and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He rode in angry agitation
toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully prepared to take the most
resolute and desperate steps to punish his enemy. |
|
|
Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in a
beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse, accompanied
by two hunt servants. |
|
|
Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous
gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's acquaintance.
Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver cap and said he much
regretted what had occurred and would have the man punished who had allowed
himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else's borzois. He hoped to become
better acquainted with the count and invited him to draw his covert. |
|
|
Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had
followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly
greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still higher to
Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young countess resembled Diana
in her passion for the chase as well as in her beauty, of which he had heard
much. |
|
|
To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to come to
an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and which,
he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the hunt, now doubled, moved
on. |
|
|
The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell
into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostov, and Ilagin kept
stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed by their
companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois. |
|
|
Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred,
red-spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a
delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness of
Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own Milka. |
|
|
In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the year's
harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch. |
|
|
"A fine little bitch, that!" said he in a careless tone.
"Is she swift?" |
|
|
"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after,"
answered Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year
before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. "So in your
parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he went on,
continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to return
the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and picked out Milka
who attracted his attention by her breadth. "That black-spotted one of
yours is fine- well shaped!" said he. |
|
|
"Yes, she's fast enough," replied Nicholas, and thought:
"If only a full-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort
of borzoi she is," and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble
to anyone who found a hare. |
|
|
"I don't understand," continued Ilagin, "how some
sportsmen can be so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you,
Count, I enjoy riding in company such as this... what could be better?" (he
again raised his cap to Natasha) "but as for counting skins and what one
takes, I don't care about that." |
|
|
"Of course not!" |
|
|
"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches
something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so, Count?
For I consider that..." |
|
|
"A-tu!" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi
whippers-in, who had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his
whip aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, "A-tu!" (This call
and the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.) |
|
|
"Ah, he has found one, I think," said Ilagin carelessly.
"Yes, we must ride up.... Shall we both course it?" answered Nicholas,
seeing in Erza and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had
a chance of pitting against his own borzois. "And suppose they outdo my
Milka at once!" he thought as he rode with "Uncle" and Ilagin
toward the hare. |
|
|
"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who
had sighted the hare- and not without agitation he looked round and whistled to
Erza. |
|
|
"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?" he said, addressing
"Uncle." |
|
|
The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face. |
|
|
"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your
borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours against one
another, you two, and I'll look on!" |
|
|
"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he
added, involuntarily by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes
he placed on this red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly
men and her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it. |
|
|
The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the
gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on the
horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the gentlefolk, also
moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately. |
|
|
"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces
toward the whip who had sighted the hare. |
|
|
But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming next
morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed downhill in
full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that were not on leash
darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt, who had been moving slowly,
shouted, "Stop!" calling in the hounds, while the borzoi whips, with a
cry of "A-tu!"galloped across the field setting the borzois on the
hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas, Natasha, and "Uncle" flew,
reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the borzois and the hare and
fearing only to lose sight even for an instant of the chase. The hare they had
started was a strong and swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at once,
but pricked his ears listening to the shouting and trampling that resounded from
all sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois
gain on him, and, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger,
laid back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble,
but in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The two
borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the nearest, were the
first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far before Ilagin's
red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew at the hare with
terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had seized him, rolled
over like a ball. The hare arched his back and bounded off yet more swiftly.
From behind Erza rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted Milka and began
rapidly gaining on the hare. |
|
|
"Milashka, dear!" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as
if Milka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and flew
past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached him, but when
close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as not to make
a mistake this time but seize his hind leg. |
|
|
"Erza, darling! Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did
not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her
prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye and the
stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a pair of carriage
horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier for the hare to run on
the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so quickly. |
|
|
"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!" came a third voice
just then, and "Uncle's" red borzoi, straining and curving its back,
caught up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the
terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk onto
the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to his knees in
the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying his back, he rolled
over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded him. A moment later everyone
had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only the delighted "Uncle"
dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, and
anxiously glancing round with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He
spoke without himself knowing whom to or what about. "That's it, come on!
That's a dog!... There, it has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as
the one-ruble borzois. That's it, come on!" said he, panting and looking
wrathfully around as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies
and had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in justifying
himself. "There are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it, come
on!..." |
|
|
"Rugay, here's a pad for you!" he said, throwing down the
hare's muddy pad. "You've deserved it, that's it, come on!" |
|
|
"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by
herself," said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of
whether he were heard or not. |
|
|
"But what is there in running across it like that?" said
Ilagin's groom. |
|
|
"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take
it," Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and his
excitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing breath, screamed
joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone's ear tingling.
By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by all talking at once,
and it was so strange that she must herself have been ashamed of so wild a cry
and everyone else would have been amazed at it at any other time.
"Uncle" himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly and smartly
across his horse's back as if by that gesture he meant to rebuke everybody, and,
with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone, mounted his bay and rode off. The
others all followed, dispirited and shamefaced, and only much later were they
able to regain their former affectation of indifference. For a long time they
continued to look at red Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and
clanking the ring of his leash, walked along just behind "Uncle's"
horse with the serene air of a conqueror. |
|
|
"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of
coursing. But when it is, then look out!" his appearance seem to Nicholas
to be saying. |
|
|
When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nicholas and began talking
to him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, "Uncle"
deigned to speak to him. |
|
|
Toward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were so
far from home that he accepted "Uncle's" offer that the hunting party
should spend the night in his little village of Mikhaylovna. |
|
|
"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it,
come on!" said "Uncle." "You see it's damp weather, and you
could rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap." |
|
|
"Uncle's" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe
for a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natasha and Petya to "Uncle's"
house. |
|
|
Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front
porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as well as
children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at the hunters who
were arriving. The presence of Natasha- a woman, a lady, and on horseback-
raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a degree that many of them came up to
her, stared her in the face, and unabashed by her presence made remarks about
her as though she were some prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear
or understand what was said about her. |
|
|
"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt
dangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!" |
|
|
"Goodness gracious! See her knife?..." |
|
|
"Isn't she a Tartar!" |
|
|
"How is it you didn't go head over heels?" asked the boldest of
all, addressing Natasha directly. |
|
|
"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house
which stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his
retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take
themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to receive the
guests and the visitors. |
|
|
The serfs all dispersed. "Uncle" lifted Natasha off her horse
and taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The house,
with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean- it did not seem that
those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless- but neither was it noticeably
neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh apples, and wolf and fox
skins hung about. |
|
|
"Uncle" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall
with a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round
birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where there was a
tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvorov, of the host's father and
mother, and of himself in military uniform. The study smelt strongly of tobacco
and dogs. "Uncle" asked his visitors to sit down and make themselves
at home, and then went out of the room. Rugay, his back still muddy, came into
the room and lay down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth.
Leading from the study was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains
could be seen. From behind this came women's laughter and whispers. Natasha,
Nicholas, and Petya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Petya,
leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natasha and Nicholas were silent.
Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at one
another (now that the hunt was over and they were in the house, Nicholas no
longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority over his sister),
Natasha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long from bursting into a peal of
ringing laughter even before they had a pretext ready to account for it. |
|
|
After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue
trousers, and small top boots. And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one
she had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the right
thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat. "Uncle"
too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother's and
sister's laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be laughing at
his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment. |
|
|
"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw
anyone like her!" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and,
with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been cut
short. "She's ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever! |
|
|
Soon after "Uncle's" reappearance the door was opened,
evidently from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking
woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a
large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance and in
every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant smile, bowed
respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which caused her to
protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head, this woman (who was
"Uncle's" housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went to the table, set
down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles
and various hors d'oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she
had finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her
face. "Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand 'Uncle'?" her
expression said to Rostov. How could one help understanding? Not only Nicholas,
but even Natasha understood the meaning of his puckered brow and the happy
complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fedorovna entered.
On the tray was a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled
mushrooms, rye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and
sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets.
Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with
honey, and preserves made with sugar. |
|
|
All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered and
prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya Fedorovna
herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles. |
|
|
"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she
offered Natasha first one thing and then another. |
|
|
Natasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such
buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such a
chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room. |
|
|
After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and "Uncle"
talked of past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat
upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several times to
wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only muttered incoherent words
without waking up. Natasha felt so lighthearted and happy in these novel
surroundings that she only feared the trap would come for her too soon. After a
casual pause, such as often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in
one's own house, "Uncle," answering a thought that was in his
visitors' mind, 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 Rostov 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 balalayka on
which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was playing. Natasha had
been listening to those strains for some time and now went out into the passage
to hear better. |
|
|
"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka. I'm
fond of it," said "Uncle." |
|
|
It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka 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 Natasha 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 Natasha at the door as soon as the
balalayka ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalayka
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 balalayka 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. Anisya Fedorovna came in and leaned her portly person against
the doorpost. |
|
|
"You like listening?" she said to Natasha, 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 Natasha. |
|
|
"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled. |
|
|
"Anisya, 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." |
|
|
Anisya Fedorovna, 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 Anisya
Fedorovna, 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 Natasha, arousing in
them the same kind of sober mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole
being. Anisya Fedorovna 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 Anisya Fedorovna 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 Natasha 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. Anisya Fedorovna'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," Natasha 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
naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance. |
|
|
"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand
that had just struck a chord. |
|
|
Natasha 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 emigree
French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit and
obtained that manner which the pas de chale* 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 Anisya Fedorovna, 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 Anisya and in Anisya'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 Natasha, 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 Bolkonski 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 naive 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. Natasha 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 Natasha and Petya. The count and countess did
not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of the men. |
|
|
Petya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two traps.
Natasha and Nicholas got into the other. "Uncle" wrapped Natasha 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 Natasha 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 Natasha, 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 Natasha, 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
Natasha. |
|
|
They were fond of asking one another that question. |
|
|
"I?" said Nicholas, trying to remember. "Well, you see,
first I thought that Rugay, 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 Otradnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I thought... No, nothing
else." |
|
|
"I know, I expect you thought of him," said Nicholas, smiling
as Natasha knew by the sound of his voice. |
|
|
"No," said Natasha, 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 Anisya 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 Natasha 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 Natasha. |
|
|
"Ah, there are still lights in the drawingroom!" she said,
pointing to the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist
velvety darkness of the night. |
|
|
Count Ilya Rostov had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility
because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did not
improve. Natasha and Nicholas often noticed their parents conferring together
anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the fine ancestral
Rostov house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary to entertain so freely
as when the count had been Marshal, and life at Otradnoe was quieter than in
former years, but still the enormous house and its lodges were full of people
and more than twenty sat down to table every day. These were all their own
people who had settled down in the house almost as members of the family, or
persons who were, it seemed, obliged to live in the count's house. Such were
Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family,
Belova, an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as
Petya's tutors, the girls' former governess, and other people who simply found
it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count's house than at home.
They had not as many visitors as before, but the old habits of life without
which the count and countess could not conceive of existence remained unchanged.
There was still the hunting establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the
same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents
and dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the
count's games of whist and boston, at which- spreading out his cards so that
everybody could see them- he let himself be plundered of hundreds of rubles
every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to play a rubber with
Count Rostov as a most profitable source of income. |
|
|
The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe
that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and feeling
too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and patiently to
disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt that her children
were being ruined, that it was not the count's fault for he could not help being
what he was- that (though he tried to hide it) he himself suffered from the
consciousness of his own and his children's ruin, and she tried to find means of
remedying the position. From her feminine point of view she could see only one
solution, namely, for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be
their last hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him,
she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match was
with Julie Karagina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents, a girl the
Rostovs had known from childhood, and who had now become a wealthy heiress
through the death of the last of her brothers. |
|
|
The countess had written direct to Julie's mother in Moscow suggesting a
marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from her.
Karagina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and everything depend
on her daughter's inclination. She invited Nicholas to come to Moscow. |
|
|
Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that now
both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him married. She said
she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that were accomplished. Then she
told him that she knew of a splendid girl and tried to discover what he thought
about marriage. |
|
|
At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow
during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his mother's remarks
were leading to and during one of these conversations induced her to speak quite
frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting their affairs disentangled
now lay in his marrying Julie Karagina. |
|
|
"But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you
expect me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?" he
asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only wishing to
show his noble-mindedness. |
|
|
"No, you have not understood me," said his mother, not knowing
how to justify herself. "You have not understood me, Nikolenka. It is your
happiness I wish for," she added, feeling that she was telling an untruth
and was becoming entangled. She began to cry. |
|
|
"Mamma, don't cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I
will give my life, anything, to put you at ease," said Nicholas. "I
would sacrifice anything for you- even my feelings." |
|
|
But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not
want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice for him. |
|
|
"No, you have not understood me, don't let us talk about it,"
she replied, wiping away her tears. |
|
|
"Maybe I do love a poor girl," said Nicholas to himself.
"Am I to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma
could speak so to me. Because Sonya is poor I must not love her," he
thought, "must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should
certainly be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always
sacrifice my feelings for my family's welfare," he said to himself,
"but I can't coerce my feelings. If I love Sonya, that feeling is for me
stronger and higher than all else." |
|
|
Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the
conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes with
exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and the
portionless Sonya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not refrain from
grumbling at and worrying Sonya, often pulling her up without reason, addressing
her stiffly as "my dear," and using the formal "you" instead
of the intimate "thou" in speaking to her. The kindhearted countess
was the more vexed with Sonya because that poor, dark-eyed niece of hers was so
meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to her benefactors, and so faithfully,
unchangingly, and unselfishly in love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds
for finding fault with her. |
|
|
Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had
come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have been on
his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly reopened in the
warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till the beginning of the
new year. Natasha was still as much in love with her betrothed, found the same
comfort in that love, and was still as ready to throw herself into all the
pleasures of life as before; but at the end of the fourth month of their
separation she began to have fits of depression which she could not master. She
felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no
use to anyone- while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved. |
|
|
Things were not cheerful in the Rostovs' home. |
|
|
Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and
wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the new
dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though the calm
frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day, and the starlight
of the winter nights seemed to call for some special celebration of the season. |
|
|
On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the
inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time of the
day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning, was asleep on
the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his study. Sonya sat in the
drawing room at the round table, copying a design for embroidery. The countess
was playing patience. Nastasya Ivanovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the
window with two old ladies. Natasha came into the room, went up to Sonya,
glanced at what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without
speaking. |
|
|
"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?" asked her
mother. "What do you want?" |
|
|
"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!" said
Natasha, with glittering eyes and no sign of a smile. |
|
|
The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter. |
|
|
"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly." |
|
|
"Sit down with me a little," said the countess. |
|
|
"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?" |
|
|
Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to
hide them and left the room. |
|
|
She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then
went into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a young
girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from the serfs'
quarters. |
|
|
"Stop playing- there's a time for everything," said the old
woman. |
|
|
"Let her alone, Kondratevna," said Natasha. "Go,
Mavrushka, go." |
|
|
Having released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and went to
the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing cards. They
broke off and rose as she entered. |
|
|
"What can I do with them?" thought Natasha. |
|
|
"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the
yard and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats." |
|
|
"Just a few oats?" said Misha, cheerfully and readily. |
|
|
"Go, go quickly," the old man urged him. |
|
|
"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk." |
|
|
On her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar,
though it was not at all the time for tea. |
|
|
Foka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natasha
liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked whether the
samovar was really wanted. |
|
|
"Oh dear, what a young lady!" said Foka, pretending to frown at
Natasha. |
|
|
No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as
Natasha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send them on
some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would get angry or
sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one's orders so readily as they did
hers. "What can I do, where can I go?" thought she, as she went slowly
along the passage. |
|
|
"Nastasya Ivanovna, what sort of children shall I have?" she
asked the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman's jacket. |
|
|
"Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers," answered the buffoon. |
|
|
"O Lord, O Lord, it's always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am
I to do with myself?" And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs
to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story. |
|
|
Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were
plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing whether
it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natasha sat down, listened to their
talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got up again. |
|
|
"The island of Madagascar," she said,
"Ma-da-gas-car," she repeated, articulating each syllable distinctly,
and, not replying to Madame Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went
out of the room. |
|
|
Her brother Petya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him he
was preparing fireworks to let off that night. |
|
|
"Petya! Petya!" she called to him. "Carry me
downstairs." |
|
|
Petya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her arms
round his neck, and he pranced along with her. |
|
|
"No, don't... the island of Madagascar!" she said, and jumping
off his back she went downstairs. |
|
|
Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure
that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natasha betook
herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark corner behind
a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings in the bass, picking
out a passage she recalled from an opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince
Andrew. What she drew from the guitar would have had no meaning for other
listeners, but in her imagination a whole series of reminiscences arose from
those sounds. She sat behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of
light escaping from the pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She
was in a mood for brooding on the past. |
|
|
Sonya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natasha glanced at
her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she
remembered the light failing through that crack once before and Sonya passing
with a glass in her hand. "Yes it was exactly the same," thought
Natasha. |
|
|
"Sonya, what is this?" she cried, twanging a thick string. |
|
|
"Oh, you are there!" said Sonya with a start, and came near and
listened. "I don't know. A storm?" she ventured timidly, afraid of
being wrong. |
|
|
"There! That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling
timidly when all this happened before," thought Natasha, "and in just
the same way I thought there was something lacking in her." |
|
|
"No, it's the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen! " and
Natasha sang the air of the chorus so that Sonya should catch it. "Where
were you going?" she asked. |
|
|
"To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the
design." |
|
|
"You always find something to do, but I can't," said Natasha.
"And where's Nicholas?" |
|
|
"Asleep, I think." |
|
|
"Sonya, go and wake him," said Natasha. "Tell him I want
him to come and sing." |
|
|
She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened
before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting not
having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was with him and
he was looking at her with a lover's eyes. |
|
|
"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!
And, worst of all, I am growing old- that's the thing! There won't then be in me
what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come immediately. Perhaps
he has come and is sitting in the drawing room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I
have forgotten it." She rose, put down the guitar, and went to the drawing
room. |
|
|
All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already at
the tea table. The servants stood round the table- but Prince Andrew was not
there and life was going on as before. |
|
|
"Ah, here she is!" said the old count, when he saw Natasha
enter. "Well, sit down by me." But Natasha stayed by her mother and
glanced round as if looking for something. |
|
|
"Mamma!" she muttered, "give him to me, give him, Mamma,
quickly, quickly!" and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs. |
|
|
She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the
elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. "My God, my God! The
same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the same
way!" thought Natasha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion rising up
in her for the whole household, because they were always the same. |
|
|
After tea, Nicholas, Sonya, and Natasha went to the sitting room, to
their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began. |
|
|
Does it ever happen to you," said Natasha to her brother, when they
settled down in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you to feel as if
there were nothing more to come- nothing; that everything good is past? And to
feel not exactly dull, but sad?" |
|
|
"I should think so!" he replied. "I have felt like that
when everything was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come
into my mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once
in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was music... and
suddenly I felt so depressed..." |
|
|
"Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!" Natasha interrupted him.
"When I was quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I
was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat sobbing in
the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for everyone, for
myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent- that was the chief thing,"
said Natasha. "Do you remember?" |
|
|
"I remember," answered Nicholas. "I remember that I came
to you afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed to.
We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give it to you.
Do you remember?" |
|
|
"And do you remember," Natasha asked with a pensive smile,
"how once, long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into
the study- that was in the old house- and it was dark- we went in and suddenly
there stood..." |
|
|
"A Negro," chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. "Of
course I remember. Even now I don't know whether there really was a Negro, or if
we only dreamed it or were told about him." |
|
|
"He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and
looked at us..." |
|
|
"Sonya, do you remember?" asked Nicholas. |
|
|
"Yes, yes, I do remember something too," Sonya answered
timidly. |
|
|
"You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro," said
Natasha, "and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you
remember!" |
|
|
"Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen
them." |
|
|
"How strange it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that." |
|
|
"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom,
and suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real or
not? Do you remember what fun it was?" |
|
|
"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in
the porch?" |
|
|
So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad
memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones- those impressions of one's most
distant past in which dreams and realities blend- and they laughed with quiet
enjoyment. |
|
|
Sonya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared
the same reminiscences. |
|
|
Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she
recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She simply
enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it. |
|
|
She only really took part when they recalled Sonya's first arrival. She
told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a corded jacket
and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with cords. |
|
|
"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a
cabbage," said Natasha, and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it then,
but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable." |
|
|
While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of
the sitting room. |
|
|
"They have brought the cock, Miss," she said in a whisper. |
|
|
"It isn't wanted, Petya. Tell them to take it away," replied
Natasha. |
|
|
In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and went
up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth covering, and
the harp gave out a jarring sound. |
|
|
"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field," came
the old countess' voice from the drawing room. |
|
|
Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nicholas, and Sonya,
remarked: "How quiet you young people are!" |
|
|
"Yes, we're philosophizing," said Natasha, glancing round for a
moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams. |
|
|
Dimmler began to play; Natasha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,
took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly in her
former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were sitting on the
sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of the full moon fell on the
floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but still sat softly running his fingers
over the strings, evidently uncertain whether to stop or to play something else. |
|
|
"Do you know," said Natasha in a whisper, moving closer to
Nicholas and Sonya, "that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one
at last begins to remember what happened before one was in the world..." |
|
|
"That is metempsychosis," said Sonya, who had always learned
well, and remembered everything. "The Egyptians believed that our souls
have lived in animals, and will go back into animals again." |
|
|
"No, I don't believe we ever were in animals," said Natasha,
still in a whisper though the music had ceased. "But I am certain that we
were angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we
remember...." |
|
|
"May I join you?" said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he
sat down by them. |
|
|
"If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?" said
Nicholas. "No, that can't be!" |
|
|
"Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I was
before?" Natasha rejoined with conviction. "The soul is immortal- well
then, if I shall always live I must have lived before, lived for a whole
eternity." |
|
|
"Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity," remarked
Dimmler, who had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now
spoke as quietly and seriously as they. |
|
|
"Why is it hard to imagine eternity?" said Natasha. "It is
now today, and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the
day before..." |
|
|
"Natasha! Now it's your turn. Sing me something," they heard
the countess say. "Why are you sitting there like conspirators?" |
|
|
"Mamma, I don't at all want to," replied Natasha, but all the
same she rose. |
|
|
None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off their
conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but Natasha got up and
Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing as usual in the middle of the hall
and choosing the place where the resonance was best, Natasha began to sing her
mother's favorite song. |
|
|
She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had
sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The count, from
his study where he was talking to Mitenka, heard her and, like a schoolboy in a
hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk while giving orders to the
steward, and at last stopped, while Mitenka stood in front of him also listening
and smiling. Nicholas did not take his eyes off his sister and drew breath in
time with her. Sonya, as she listened, thought of the immense difference there
was between herself and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be
anything like as bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful
yet sad smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She
thought of Natasha and of her own youth, and of how there was something
unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natasha and Prince Andrew. |
|
|
Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with closed
eyes. |
|
|
"Ah, Countess," he said at last, "that's a European
talent, she has nothing to learn- what softness, tenderness, and
strength...." |
|
|
"Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!" said the
countess, not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her
that Natasha had too much of something, and that because of this she would not
be happy. Before Natasha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old Petya rushed in
delightedly, to say that some mummers had arrived. |
|
|
Natasha stopped abruptly. |
|
|
"Idiot!" she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair,
threw herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long
time. |
|
|
"It's nothing, Mamma, really it's nothing; only Petya startled
me," she said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still
choked her. |
|
|
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 Petya. A
clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natasha, and a Circassian was Sonya 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 Melyukovs'" |
|
|
Melyukova was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and
governesses, lived three miles from the Rostovs. |
|
|
"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
Ivanovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies might go to the
Melyukovs', Sonya, generally so timid and shy, more urgently than anyone begging
Louisa Ivanovna not to refuse. |
|
|
Sonya'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 Ivanovna 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. |
|
|
Natasha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing from
one to another, grew stronger and 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 Orlov 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. |
|
|
Natasha, Sonya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas' sleigh;
Dimmler, his wife, and Petya, into the old count's, and the rest of the mummers
seated themselves in the other two sleighs. |
|
|
"You go ahead, Zakhar!" 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 Natasha's voice
through the frost-bound air. |
|
|
"How light it is, Nicholas!" came Sonya's voice. |
|
|
Nicholas glanced round at Sonya, 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 Sonya," 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 Zakhar 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 Kosoy meadow, I
suppose. But no- this is something new I've never seen before. This isn't the
Kosoy meadow nor the Demkin 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. |
|
|
Zakhar held back his horses and turned his face, which was already
covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows. |
|
|
Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhar, 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. Zakhar, 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 Zakhar. 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. |
|
|
"Zakhar is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the
left?" thought Nicholas. "Are we getting to the Melyukovs'? Is this
Melyukovka? 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 Natasha," 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
Melyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and have come
to Melyukovka," thought Nicholas. |
|
|
It really was Melyukovka, 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. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
