Bab Bab 139 · 第139章

Toward evening Ilágin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were

so far from home that he accepted “Uncle’s” offer that the hunting

party should spend the night in his little village of Mikháylovna.

“And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That’s it,

come on!” said “Uncle.” “You see it’s damp weather, and you

could rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap.”

“Uncle’s” offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otrádnoe for

a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natásha and Pétya to “Uncle’s”

house.

Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front

porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as

well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at

the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natásha—a woman, a

lady, and on horseback—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a

degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and

unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some

prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what

was said about her.

“Arínka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt

dangles.... See, she’s got a little hunting horn!”

“Goodness gracious! See her knife?...”

“Isn’t she a Tartar!”

“How is it you didn’t go head over heels?” asked the boldest of

all, addressing Natásha directly.

“Uncle” dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which

stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his

retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take

themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to

receive the guests and the visitors.

The serfs all dispersed. “Uncle” lifted Natásha off her horse and

taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The

house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean—it

did not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless—but

neither was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of

fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about.

“Uncle” led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with

a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round

birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where

there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, of

the host’s father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The

study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. “Uncle” asked his visitors

to sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.

Rugáy, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the

sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study

was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be

seen. From behind this came women’s laughter and whispers. Natásha,

Nicholas, and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa.

Pétya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natásha and Nicholas

were silent. Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful.

They looked at one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in

the house, Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly

superiority over his sister), Natásha gave him a wink, and neither

refrained long from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before

they had a pretext ready to account for it.

After a while “Uncle” came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and

small top boots. And Natásha felt that this costume, the very one she

had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otrádnoe, was just the

right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.

“Uncle” too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the

brother’s and sister’s laughter (it could never enter his head that

they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the

merriment.

“That’s right, young countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw

anyone like her!” said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem

and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that

had been cut short. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and is as

fresh as ever!”

Soon after “Uncle’s” reappearance the door was opened, evidently

from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking

woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered

carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in

her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with

a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional

stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw

back her head, this woman (who was “Uncle’s” housekeeper) trod

very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her

plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors

d’oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had

finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her

face. “Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her

expression said to Rostóv. How could one help understanding? Not only

Nicholas, but even Natásha understood the meaning of his puckered brow

and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when

Anísya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb wine,

different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with

buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples,

nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards she brought

a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves

made with sugar.

All this was the fruit of Anísya Fëdorovna’s housekeeping, gathered

and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack

of Anísya Fëdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness,

whiteness, and pleasant smiles.

“Take this, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, as she offered

Natásha first one thing and then another.

Natásha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such

buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such

a chicken anywhere. Anísya Fëdorovna left the room.

After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostóv and “Uncle” talked

of past and future hunts, of Rugáy and Ilágin’s dogs, while Natásha

sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried

several times to wake Pétya that he might eat something, but he

only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natásha felt so

lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared

the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as

often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one’s own

house, “Uncle,” answering a thought that was in his visitors’

minds, said:

“This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come.

That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?”

“Uncle’s” face was very significant and even handsome as he said

this. Involuntarily Rostóv recalled all the good he had heard about

him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province

“Uncle” had the reputation of being the most honorable and

disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes,

chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a

justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public

appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay

gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in

summer.

“Why don’t you enter the service, Uncle?”

“I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That’s it, come

on! I can’t make head or tail of it. That’s for you—I haven’t

brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter—that’s it, come on!

Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why have you shut it?”

The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen’s room, as they

called the room for the hunt servants.

There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the

door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sounds of a

balaláyka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was

playing. Natásha had been listening to those strains for some time and

now went out into the passage to hear better.

“That’s Mítka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balaláyka.

I’m fond of it,” said “Uncle.”

It was the custom for Mítka to play the balaláyka in the huntsmen’s

room when “Uncle” returned from the chase. “Uncle” was fond of

such music.

“How good! Really very good!” said Nicholas with some unintentional

superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him

very much.

“Very good?” said Natásha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s

tone. “Not ‘very good’--it’s simply delicious!”

Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had

seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment,

seemed to her the acme of musical delight.

“More, please, more!” cried Natásha at the door as soon as the

balaláyka ceased. Mítka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming

the balaláyka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations.

“Uncle” sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side.

The air was repeated a hundred times. The balaláyka was retuned several

times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did

not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anísya

Fëdorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.

“You like listening?” she said to Natásha, with a smile extremely

like “Uncle’s.” “That’s a good player of ours,” she added.

“He doesn’t play that part right!” said “Uncle” suddenly, with

an energetic gesture. “Here he ought to burst out—that’s it, come

on!—ought to burst out.”

“Do you play then?” asked Natásha.

“Uncle” did not answer, but smiled.

“Anísya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I

haven’t touched it for a long time. That’s it—come on! I’ve

given it up.”

Anísya Fëdorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her

errand and brought back the guitar.

Without looking at anyone, “Uncle” blew the dust off it and, tapping

the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in

his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching

his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at

Anísya Fëdorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then

quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not

My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The

tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the

hearts of Nicholas and Natásha, arousing in them the same kind of

sober mirth as radiated from Anísya Fëdorovna’s whole being. Anísya

Fëdorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing

out of the room. “Uncle” continued to play correctly, carefully,

with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression

at the spot where Anísya Fëdorovna had just stood. Something seemed to

be laughing a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches,

especially as the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here

and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to

snap.

“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” shouted Natásha as soon as

he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. “Nicholas,

Nicholas!” she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: “What

is it moves me so?”

Nicholas too was greatly pleased by “Uncle’s” playing, and

“Uncle” played the piece over again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling

face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces...

Fetching water clear and sweet,

Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—

played “Uncle” once more, running his fingers skillfully over the

strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.

“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her

life depended on it.

“Uncle” rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of

them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck

a naïve and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.

“Now then, niece!” he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that

had just struck a chord.

Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face

“Uncle,” and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her

shoulders and struck an attitude.

Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an émigrée

French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit

and obtained that manner which the pas de châle * would, one would have

supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were

those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that “Uncle” had

expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled

triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at

first seized Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right

thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her.

* The French shawl dance.

She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,

that Anísya Fëdorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she

needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she

watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so

different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was

in Anísya and in Anísya’s father and mother and aunt, and in every

Russian man and woman.

“Well, little countess; that’s it—come on!” cried “Uncle,”

with a joyous laugh, having finished the dance. “Well done, niece! Now

a fine young fellow must be found as husband for you. That’s it—come

on!”

“He’s chosen already,” said Nicholas smiling.

“Oh?” said “Uncle” in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natásha,

who nodded her head with a happy smile.

“And such a one!” she said. But as soon as she had said it a new

train of thoughts and feelings arose in her. “What did Nicholas’

smile mean when he said ‘chosen already’? Is he glad of it or not?

It is as if he thought my Bolkónski would not approve of or understand

our gaiety. But he would understand it all. Where is he now?” she

thought, and her face suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a

second. “Don’t dare to think about it,” she said to herself,

and sat down again smilingly beside “Uncle,” begging him to play

something more.

“Uncle” played another song and a valse; then after a pause he

cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:

As ‘twas growing dark last night

Fell the snow so soft and light...

“Uncle” sang as peasants sing, with full and naïve conviction that

the whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes

of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists

only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered

tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natásha was in

ecstasies over “Uncle’s” singing. She resolved to give up learning

the harp and to play only the guitar. She asked “Uncle” for his

guitar and at once found the chords of the song.

After nine o’clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent

to look for them, arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and

countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of

the men.

Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two

traps. Natásha and Nicholas got into the other. “Uncle” wrapped

Natásha up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He

accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,

so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride

in front with lanterns.

“Good-by, dear niece,” his voice called out of the darkness—not

the voice Natásha had known previously, but the one that had sung As

‘twas growing dark last night.

In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a

cheerful smell of smoke.

“What a darling Uncle is!” said Natásha, when they had come out

onto the highroad.

“Yes,” returned Nicholas. “You’re not cold?”

“No. I’m quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!” answered

Natásha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long

while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but

only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.

What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught

and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all

find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she

suddenly struck up the air of As ‘twas growing dark last night—the

tune of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last

caught.

“Got it?” said Nicholas.

“What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?” inquired

Natásha.

They were fond of asking one another that question.

“I?” said Nicholas, trying to remember. “Well, you see, first I

thought that Rugáy, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were

a man he would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then

for his manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don’t you think so?...

Well, and you?”

“I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving

along and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows

where we are really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and

suddenly find that we are not in Otrádnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I

thought... No, nothing else.”

“I know, I expect you thought of him,” said Nicholas, smiling as

Natásha knew by the sound of his voice.

“No,” said Natásha, though she had in reality been thinking about

Prince Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would

have liked “Uncle.” “And then I was saying to myself all the way,

‘How well Anísya carried herself, how well!’” And Nicholas heard

her spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. “And do you know,” she

suddenly said, “I know that I shall never again be as happy and

tranquil as I am now.”

“Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!” exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought:

“How charming this Natásha of mine is! I have no other friend like

her and never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive

about together!”

“What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!” thought Natásha.

“Ah, there are still lights in the drawing room!” she said, pointing

to the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety

darkness of the night.