War and Peace: Original Version. Лев Толстой
on the contrary, with almost childish resentment. Nikolai glanced by turns at the guests and the door, evidently with no desire to conceal the fact that he was bored, and hardly even answered the questions put to him by the guests. Boris, on the contrary, immediately found the right tone and informed them with mock gravity that he had known this Mimi doll as a young girl when her nose was still perfect, that she had aged a lot in the five years he had known her, what with her head splitting open right across the skull. Then he enquired after the lady’s health. Everything he said was simple and decorous, neither too witty nor too foolish, but the smile playing about his lips indicated that even as he spoke he did not ascribe the slightest importance to his own words and was speaking purely out of a sense of decorum.
“Mama, what is he speaking like a grown-up for? I don’t want him to,” said Natasha, going up to her mother and pointing at Boris like a capricious child. Boris smiled at her.
“You just want to play dolls with him all the time,” replied Princess Anna Mikhailovna, patting Natasha’s bare shoulder, which shrank away nervously and withdrew into its bodice at the touch of her hand.
“I’m bored,” whispered Natasha. “Mama, nanny is asking if she can go visiting, can she? Can she?” she repeated, raising her voice, with that characteristic capacity of women for quick-wittedness in innocent deception. “She can, mama!” she shouted, barely able to restrain her laughter and, glancing at Boris, she curtseyed to the guests and walked as far as the door, but once outside it started running as fast as her little legs could carry her. Boris became pensive.
“I thought you wanted to go too, maman. Do you need the carriage?” he said, blushing as he addressed his mother.
“Yes, off you go now and tell them to get it ready,” she said, smiling. Boris went out quietly through the door and set off after Natasha; the fat boy in the smock ran behind him angrily, as if he were annoyed by some interruption to his studies.
XV
Of the young people, aside from the countess’s elder daughter, who was four years older than her sister and already behaved like a grown-up, and the young lady visitor, the only ones left in the drawing room were Nikolai and Sonya the niece, who sat there, with that rather artificial, festive smile that many adults believe they should wear when present at other people’s conversations, repeatedly casting tender glances at her cousin. Sonya was a slim, petite brunette with a gentle gaze shaded by long eyelashes, a thick black plait wound twice around her head and sallow skin on her face and especially on her bare, lean but graceful and sinewy arms and neck. With the smoothness of her movements, the gentle flexibility of her little limbs and her rather cunning and reticent manner she involuntarily reminded people of a beautiful but still immature kitten that would become a delightful cat. She evidently thought it proper to indicate her interest in the general conversation with her festive smile but, against her will, her eyes gazed out from under their long lashes at her cousin, who was leaving for the army, with such passionate girlish adoration, that her smile could not possibly have deceived anyone for even a moment, and it was clear that the little cat had only sat down in order to spring up even more energetically and start playing with her cousin just as soon as they got out of this drawing room.
“Yes, ma chère,” said the old count, addressing the guest and pointing to his Nikolai. “His friend Boris there has been appointed an officer, and out of friendship he does not want to be left behind, so he’s abandoning university and this old man and he’s going to join the army. And there was a place all ready for him in the archive and everything. How’s that for friendship!” the count queried.
SONYA Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1866
“But after all, they do say that war has been declared,” said the guest.
“They’ve been saying that for a long time,” the count said, still speaking vaguely. “They’ll say it again a few times, and then again, and leave it at that. How’s that for friendship, then!” he repeated. “He’s joining the hussars.”
Not knowing what to say, the guest shook her head.
“It’s not out of friendship at all,” responded Nikolai, flaring up and speaking as if he were defending himself against a shameful slander. “It’s not at all out of friendship, it’s just that I feel a calling for military service.”
He glanced round at the young lady guest: the young lady was looking at him with a smile, approving the young man’s action.
“We have Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars Regiment, dining with us today. He’s been on leave here and is going to take him back with him. What can one do?” said the count, shrugging and speaking jocularly about a matter that evidently pained him a great deal.
For some reason Nikolai suddenly became angry.
“But I told you, papa, that if you don’t wish to let me go, I shall stay. I know I’m no good for anything but military service. I’m not a diplomat, I don’t know how to conceal what I feel,” he said, gesticulating too enthusiastically for his words and glancing all the time with the coquettishness of handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady guest.
The little cat, devouring him with her eyes, seemed ready at any second to launch into her game and demonstrate her full feline nature. The young lady continued to approve him with her smile.
“Perhaps something might just come of me,” he added, “but I am no good for anything here …”
“Well, well, all right!” said the old count. “He’s always getting worked up. Bonaparte has turned everyone’s heads: everyone thinks about how he rose from a corporal to an emperor. Well, then, if it pleases God …” he added, not noticing the guest’s mocking smile.
“Well, off you go, off you go, Nikolai, I can see you’re keen to be off,” said the countess.
“Not at all,” her son replied, but nonetheless a moment later he got up, bowed and left the room.
Sonya carried on sitting a little longer, smiling more and more falsely all the while, then got up, still with the same smile, and went out.
“How very transparent all these young people’s secrets are!” said Countess Anna Mikhailovna, pointing to Sonya and laughing. The guest laughed.
“Yes,” said the countess, after the ray of sunshine that this young generation had brought into the drawing room had disappeared, and as if she were answering a question that no one had asked her, but which was constantly on her mind. “So much suffering, so much worry,” she continued, “all borne so that we can rejoice in them now. But even now, truly, there is more fear than joy. You’re always afraid, always afraid! It’s the very age that holds so much danger for girls and for boys.”
“Everything depends on upbringing,” said the guest.
“Yes, you are right,” the countess continued. “So far, thank God, I have been my children’s friend and I have their complete trust,” she said, repeating the error of many parents who believe their children keep no secrets from them. “I know I shall always be my daughters’ first confidante and if Nikolenka, with his fiery character, should get up to mischief (boys will be boys), then it would be nothing like those Petersburg gentlemen.”
“Yes, they are splendid, splendid children,” agreed the count, who always resolved matters that he found complicated by finding everything splendid. “Just imagine! Decided to join the hussars! What about that, ma chère!”
“What a sweet creature your youngest is,” said the guest, glancing round reproachfully at her own daughter, as though impressing on her with this glance that that was how she ought to be in order to be liked, not the stiff doll that she was. “Full