War And Peace

‘Now, my little Cossack,²⁹ what about you?’ she said – Marya Dmitryevna always called Natasha a Cossack – stroking Natasha’s arm, as the girl came forward to kiss her hand cheerfully and without a trace of shyness. ‘I know you’re a little pest, but I like you all the same.’

From her huge reticule she extracted some teardrop amber ear-rings and gave them to Natasha, who grinned at her, flushed with pleasure on the day of her party. Then she turned away abruptly and directed her attention to Pierre.

‘Hey you, my friend! Come over here!’ she said, lowering and refining her voice with some affectation. ‘Come over here, sir!’ And, ominously, she rolled her sleeves up even higher.

Pierre approached, looking at her ingenuously over his spectacles.

‘Come a bit nearer, sir! I was the only one who told your father the truth when he was in high favour, and it’s my Christian duty to do the same for you.’ She paused. An expectant hush fell on the room: what would happen next? Surely this was only a prelude. ‘A fine young man, and no mistake. A truly fine young man! . . . His father’s on his deathbed, and he’s off enjoying himself, getting a policeman to ride on a bear! Shame on you, sir, real shame! You should have gone to the war.’

She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly contain his laughter.

‘Well, shall we sit down? I think dinner must be ready,’ said Marya Dmitriyevna. The count led the way with her, followed by the countess alongside a colonel of the hussars, a man worth cultivating, since Nikolay was due to travel with him to join his regiment; then came Anna Mikhaylovna with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera, and a smiling Julie Karagin walked in with Nikolay. After them came a string of other couples, stretching all round the hall, and right at the end the children were tagged on with their tutors and governesses, trooping in one by one. The waiters stirred themselves, chairs scraped, the band struck up in the gallery and the guests took their places. The music provided by the household band soon gave way to the clatter of knives and forks, the buzz of conversation, and the gentle tread of waiters. The countess presided over the lady guests at one end of the table, with Marya Dmitryevna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on her left. At the other end sat the count and all the male guests, with the colonel of hussars on his left and Shinshin on his right. Midway down the huge table sat the grown-up youngsters, Vera beside Berg, Pierre beside Boris. Opposite them were the younger children with their tutors and governesses. The count peeped over the glittering glassware, the decanters and fruit-dishes, looking at his wife with her tall cap and its blue ribbons, and generously poured out wine for his neighbours, not forgetting himself. The countess, too, while attending properly to her duties as hostess, cast meaningful glances over the pineapples at her spouse, whose face and bald head, she noticed, stood out with a brighter than normal redness against his grey hair. A steady babble of chatter flowed from the ladies’ end, but at the other end of the table the men’s voices grew louder and louder, especially that of the colonel of hussars as he reddened so much with all his eating and drinking that the count held him up as an example to the others. Berg was telling Vera with a tender smile that love was not an earthly emotion but a heavenly one. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre the names of the guests at table, all the time exchanging glances with Natasha sitting opposite. Saying very little, Pierre looked round at all the new faces and ate a great deal. Faced with the choice of two soups he went for the turtle, and then straight on to the fish-pasties and the game, without missing a single dish, or any of the wines offered by the butler, who would solemnly thrust a bottle wrapped in a napkin over his neighbour’s shoulder, murmuring, ‘Dry Madeira’, ‘Hungarian’, or ‘Rhine wine’. Pierre would simply lift up a goblet chosen at random from the four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s monogram that were set at each place, and he drank with great pleasure, surveying the guests with mounting benevolence. Natasha, sitting opposite, gazed at Boris as girls of thirteen gaze at a boy they have just kissed for the first time, and with whom they are in love. Sometimes this same gaze found its way to Pierre, and the look on that excited little girl’s amused face made him feel like laughing too, though he couldn’t have said why.