War And Peace

‘You’re not going to ask, are you?’ said her little brother to Natasha. ‘Go on, I dare you!’

‘Oh yes I am,’ answered Natasha. Her face suddenly glowed with a comical sense of desperate determination. She half-rose, her eyes darting across to Pierre sitting opposite, inviting him to listen, and turned to her mother.

‘Mama!’ she sang out down the table in her girlish contralto.

‘What do you want?’ the countess asked in some alarm. But when she saw from her daughter’s face that she was playing up she waved her hand at her with a forbidding look and an ominous shake of her head.

The conversation died down.

‘Mama! What’s for dessert?’ Natasha’s tiny voice rang out more insistently. She would not stop.

The countess couldn’t quite manage a frown, but Marya Dmitriyevna shook a fat finger and said threateningly, ‘Cossack!’

Most of the guests looked at the parents, wondering what to make of this little outburst.

‘Watch what you’re saying!’ said the countess.

‘Mama! What is for dessert?’ Natasha called out cheerily, with deliberate impertinence, sure that her little frolic wouldn’t be taken amiss. Sonya and fat little Petya were doubled up, giggling.

‘See, I did,’ Natasha whispered to her little brother and to Pierre as she gave him another glance.

‘Ices, but you’re not having any,’ said Marya Dmitriyevna. Natasha could see there was nothing to be afraid of, not even Marya Dmitriyevna.

‘Marya Dmitriyevna! What kind of ices? I don’t like ice-cream.’

‘Carrot ices.’

‘No, but what kind, Marya Dmitriyevna, what kind?’ she almost shrieked. ‘I want to know.’ Marya Dmitriyevna and the countess burst out laughing, and so did all the guests. They were not laughing at Marya Dmitriyevna’s answer but at the unheard-of cheekiness of a clever little girl, who had the daring and the wit to take on Marya Dmitriyevna.

Natasha gave up only when she had been told it would be pineapple ice-cream. Before that course, more champagne was served. The band struck up again, the count kissed his little countess, and the guests began to get up from the table, thanking the countess and clinking glasses across the table with the count, the children and each other. Once more the waiters scurried around, chairs scraped and the guests filed out in the same order as before but with much redder faces, some to the drawing-room and others to the count’s study.

CHAPTER 17

Card-tables were set up and partners arranged for boston and the count’s guests proceeded to one of the two drawing-rooms, the sitting-room or the library.

As he fanned out his cards the count found it hard to keep awake – he usually had a nap after dinner – and this made him prone to laugh at anything. The young people, at the countess’s instigation, gathered round the clavichord and harp. Julie went first by common request, performing a short theme and variations on the harp. Then she joined the other young ladies in inviting Natasha and Nikolay to sing; they were known for their musical ability. Natasha was being treated by everyone as an adult, which made her feel proud but also rather shy.

‘What shall we sing?’ she asked.

‘ “The Spring”,’³¹

answered Nikolay.

‘Come on then, quick! Over here Boris,’ said Natasha. ‘Where’s Sonya gone?’ She looked around, saw that her companion was not in the room and ran out to find her.

She raced up to Sonya’s room, but her friend wasn’t there, so Natasha ran to the nursery – she wasn’t there either. Natasha knew she must be out in the corridor sitting on the chest. That chest in the corridor was a place of sorrow for the females of the younger generation of the house of Rostov. Yes, there she was face-down on the chest, squashing her filmy pink party-dress on their old nanny’s dirty, striped feather mattress. Her face was buried in her tiny fingers, and her bare little shoulders were convulsed with sobbing. Natasha’s face, glowing from the day’s excitement, changed at once; her eyes narrowed, her broad neck quivered and her mouth turned down at the corners.

‘Sonya! What’s wrong? What’s happened? Oo-oo-oo!’

And Natasha, with her large mouth gaping, which made her look quite ugly, howled like a baby, for no reason, just because Sonya was crying. Sonya tried to look up, tried to answer, but she couldn’t, and she buried her face deeper than ever. Still crying, Natasha sat down on the dark-blue mattress and hugged her friend. With a big effort, Sonya struggled half-way up, wiped tears away and began to talk: ‘Nikolay’s going away next week, his . . . papers . . . have come . . . he told me himself . . . I ought not to cry . . .’ (she showed Natasha the sheet of paper she was holding in her hand – poetry written by Nikolay), ‘I know I ought not to cry, but you just can’t . . . no one can understand . . . he’s got such a lovely . . . soul.’

And she burst into floods of tears again at the thought of how lovely his soul was.