War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📕

may already have found a suitable and wealthy match, and now he’s half crazy.”

“Crazy?” repeated Natásha.

“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin⁠ ⁠…”

“I know! Kiríla Matvéich⁠ ⁠… but he is old.”

“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natásha, I’ll have a talk with Borís. He need not come so often.⁠ ⁠…”

“Why not, if he likes to?”

“Because I know it will end in nothing.⁠ ⁠…”

“How can you know? No, Mamma, don’t speak to him! What nonsense!” said Natásha in the tone of one being deprived of her property. “Well, I won’t marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy it.” Natásha smiled and looked at her mother. “Not to marry, but just so,” she added.

“How so, my pet?”

“Just so. There’s no need for me to marry him. But⁠ ⁠… just so.”

“Just so, just so,” repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.

“Don’t laugh, stop!” cried Natásha. “You’re shaking the whole bed! You’re awfully like me, just such another giggler.⁠ ⁠… Wait⁠ ⁠…” and she seized the countess’ hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger, saying, “June,” and continued, kissing, “July, August,” on the other hand. “But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was anybody ever so much in love with you? And he’s very nice, very, very nice. Only not quite my taste⁠—he is so narrow, like the dining-room clock.⁠ ⁠… Don’t you understand? Narrow, you know⁠—gray, light gray⁠ ⁠…”

“What rubbish you’re talking!” said the countess.

Natásha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nikólenka would understand.⁠ ⁠… Bezúkhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is square.”

“You flirt with him too,” said the countess, laughing.

“No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and red.⁠ ⁠… How can I explain it to you?”

“Little countess!” the count’s voice called from behind the door. “You’re not asleep?” Natásha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and ran barefoot to her own room.

It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.

“Sónya?” she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten with her enormous plait of hair. “No, how could she? She’s virtuous. She fell in love with Nikólenka and does not wish to know anything more. Even Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how⁠ ⁠… charming she is,” she went on, speaking of herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise man⁠—the wisest and best of men⁠—who was saying it of her. “There is everything, everything in her,” continued this man. “She is unusually intelligent, charming⁠ ⁠… and then she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile⁠—she swims and rides splendidly⁠ ⁠… and her voice! One can really say it’s a wonderful voice!”

She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately fall asleep, called Dunyásha the maid to put out the candle, and before Dunyásha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in reality, and even more so because it was different.

Next day the countess called Borís aside and had a talk with him, after which he ceased coming to the Rostóvs’.

XIV

On the thirty-first of December, New Year’s Eve, 1809⁠–⁠10 an old grandee of Catherine’s day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.

The grandee’s well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch. Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize at the entrance.

Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the crowd and caps were doffed.

“The Emperor?⁠ ⁠… No, a minister⁠ ⁠… prince⁠ ⁠… ambassador. Don’t you see the plumes?⁠ ⁠…” was whispered among the crowd.

One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.

A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.

There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the Rostóv family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as it should be.

Márya Ignátevna Perónskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the countess and piloted the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society, was to accompany them to the ball.

They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten o’clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not yet dressed.

Natásha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they all⁠—she herself, Mamma, and Sónya⁠—should be as well dressed as possible. Sónya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands. The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their hair dressed à la grecque.

Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk stockings and white