War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy (latest ebook reader .TXT) đź“•
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“Natásha,” said she, “you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven’t spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don’t trust him, Natásha. Why this secrecy?”
“Again, again!” interrupted Natásha.
“Natásha, I am afraid for you!”
“Afraid of what?”
“I am afraid you’re going to your ruin,” said Sónya resolutely, and was herself horrified at what she had said.
Anger again showed in Natásha’s face.
“And I’ll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It’s not your business! It won’t be you, but I, who’ll suffer. Leave me alone, leave me alone! I hate you!”
“Natásha!” moaned Sónya, aghast.
“I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy forever!” And Natásha ran out of the room.
Natásha did not speak to Sónya again and avoided her. With the same expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house, taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them.
Hard as it was for SĂłnya, she watched her friend and did not let her out of her sight.
The day before the count was to return, Sónya noticed that Natásha sat by the drawing room window all the morning as if expecting something and that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sónya took to be Anatole.
Sónya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that at dinner and all that evening Natásha was in a strange and unnatural state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not finish, and laughed at everything.
After tea Sónya noticed a housemaid at Natásha’s door timidly waiting to let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door learned that another letter had been delivered.
Then suddenly it became clear to Sónya that Natásha had some dreadful plan for that evening. Sónya knocked at her door. Natásha did not let her in.
“She will run away with him!” thought SĂłnya. “She is capable of anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle,” SĂłnya remembered. “Yes, that’s it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?” thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natásha had some terrible intention. “The count is away. What am I to do? Write to Kurágin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him to reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in case of some misfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused BolkĂłnski—she sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away....” To tell Márya DmĂtrievna who had such faith in Natásha seemed to SĂłnya terrible. “Well, anyway,” thought SĂłnya as she stood in the dark passage, “now or never I must prove that I remember the family’s goodness to me and that I love Nicholas. Yes! If I don’t sleep for three nights I’ll not leave this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the family be disgraced,” thought she.
Anatole had lately moved to Dólokhov’s. The plan for Natalie Rostóva’s abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dólokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sónya, after listening at Natásha’s door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution. Natásha had promised to come out to Kurágin at the back porch at ten that evening. Kurágin was to put her into a troyka he would have ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of Kámenka, where an unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over them. At Kámenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would hasten abroad with post horses.
Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with Dólokhov’s help.
Two witnesses for the mock marriage—Khvóstikov, a retired petty official whom Dólokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and Makárin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded affection for Kurágin—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov’s front room.
In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat DĂłlokhov in a traveling cloak and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his things. DĂłlokhov was counting the money and noting something down.
“Well,” he said, “Khvóstikov must have two thousand.”
“Give it to him, then,” said Anatole.
“Makárka” (their name for Makárin) “will go through fire and water for you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled,” said Dólokhov, showing him the memorandum. “Is that right?”
“Yes, of course,” returned Anatole, evidently not listening to Dólokhov and looking straight before him with a smile that did not leave his face.
DĂłlokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an ironic smile:
“Do you know? You’d really better drop it all. There’s still time!”
“Fool,” retorted Anatole. “Don’t talk nonsense! If you only knew... it’s the devil knows what!”
“No, really, give it up!” said Dólokhov. “I am speaking seriously. It’s no joke, this plot you’ve hatched.”
“What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?” said Anatole, making a grimace. “Really it’s no time for your stupid jokes,” and he left the room.
DĂłlokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had gone out.
“You wait a bit,” he called after him. “I’m not joking, I’m talking sense. Come here, come here!”
Anatole returned and looked at DĂłlokhov, trying to give him his attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.
“Now listen to me. I’m telling you this for the last time. Why should I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you? Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did it all.”
“Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?” And Anatole sighed and embraced Dólokhov.
“I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a dangerous business, and if you think about it—a stupid business. Well, you’ll carry her off—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will come out that you’re already married. Why, they’ll have you in the criminal court....”
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