บทที่ บทที่ 142 · 第142章

“Does it ever happen to you,” said Natásha to her brother, when

they settled down in the sitting room, “does it ever happen to you to

feel as if there were nothing more to come—nothing; that everything

good is past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?”

“I should think so!” he replied. “I have felt like that when

everything was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come

into my mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all

die. Once in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there

was music... and suddenly I felt so depressed...”

“Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!” Natásha interrupted him. “When

I was quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when

I was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat

sobbing in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry

for everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent—that

was the chief thing,” said Natásha. “Do you remember?”

“I remember,” answered Nicholas. “I remember that I came to you

afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed

to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give

it to you. Do you remember?”

“And do you remember,” Natásha asked with a pensive smile, “how

once, long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into

the study—that was in the old house—and it was dark—we went in and

suddenly there stood...”

“A Negro,” chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. “Of course

I remember. Even now I don’t know whether there really was a Negro, or

if we only dreamed it or were told about him.”

“He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked

at us....”

“Sónya, do you remember?” asked Nicholas.

“Yes, yes, I do remember something too,” Sónya answered timidly.

“You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro,” said

Natásha, “and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you

remember!”

“Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them.”

“How strange it is! It’s as if it were a dream! I like that.”

“And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom,

and suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that

real or not? Do you remember what fun it was?”

“Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in

the porch?”

So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad

memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions of

one’s most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and they

laughed with quiet enjoyment.

Sónya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared

the same reminiscences.

Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she

recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She

simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.

She only really took part when they recalled Sónya’s first arrival.

She told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a

corded jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up

with cords.

“And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a

cabbage,” said Natásha, “and I remember that I dared not disbelieve

it then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable.”

While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of

the sitting room.

“They have brought the cock, Miss,” she said in a whisper.

“It isn’t wanted, Pólya. Tell them to take it away,” replied

Natásha.

In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and

went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth

covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.

“Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field,” came the

old countess’ voice from the drawing room.

Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natásha, Nicholas, and Sónya,

remarked: “How quiet you young people are!”

“Yes, we’re philosophizing,” said Natásha, glancing round for a

moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing

dreams.

Dimmler began to play; Natásha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,

took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly

in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were

sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of

the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but

still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently

uncertain whether to stop or to play something else.

“Do you know,” said Natásha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas

and Sónya, “that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at

last begins to remember what happened before one was in the world....”

“That is metempsychosis,” said Sónya, who had always learned well,

and remembered everything. “The Egyptians believed that our souls have

lived in animals, and will go back into animals again.”

“No, I don’t believe we ever were in animals,” said Natásha,

still in a whisper though the music had ceased. “But I am certain that

we were angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we

remember....”

“May I join you?” said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat

down by them.

“If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?” said Nicholas.

“No, that can’t be!”

“Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I

was before?” Natásha rejoined with conviction. “The soul is

immortal—well then, if I shall always live I must have lived before,

lived for a whole eternity.”

“Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity,” remarked Dimmler,

who had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now

spoke as quietly and seriously as they.

“Why is it hard to imagine eternity?” said Natásha. “It is now

today, and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and

the day before....”

“Natásha! Now it’s your turn. Sing me something,” they heard the

countess say. “Why are you sitting there like conspirators?”

“Mamma, I don’t at all want to,” replied Natásha, but all the

same she rose.

None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off

their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but

Natásha got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing

as usual in the middle of the hall and choosing the place where the

resonance was best, Natásha began to sing her mother’s favorite song.

She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had

sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The

count, from his study where he was talking to Mítenka, heard her and,

like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk

while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mítenka

stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take

his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sónya, as she

listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself

and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as

bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad

smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She

thought of Natásha and of her own youth, and of how there was something

unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natásha and Prince

Andrew.

Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with

closed eyes.

“Ah, Countess,” he said at last, “that’s a European talent, she

has nothing to learn—what softness, tenderness, and strength....”

“Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!” said the countess,

not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her

that Natásha had too much of something, and that because of this

she would not be happy. Before Natásha had finished singing,

fourteen-year-old Pétya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers

had arrived.

Natásha stopped abruptly.

“Idiot!” she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw

herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long

time.

“It’s nothing, Mamma, really it’s nothing; only Pétya startled

me,” she said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs

still choked her.

The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,

innkeepers, and ladies—frightening and funny—bringing in with

them the cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first

timidly, into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed

into the ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily

and heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas

games. The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their

costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,

smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had

disappeared.

Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the

ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt—this was Nicholas. A Turkish

girl was Pétya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natásha, and a

Circassian was Sónya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.

After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those

who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their

costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.

Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take

them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a

dozen of the serf mummers and drive to “Uncle’s.”

“No, why disturb the old fellow?” said the countess. “Besides,

you wouldn’t have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the

Melyukóvs’.”

Melyukóva was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and

governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs.

“That’s right, my dear,” chimed in the old count, thoroughly

aroused. “I’ll dress up at once and go with them. I’ll make

Pashette open her eyes.”

But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all

these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if

Louisa Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies

might go to the Melyukóvs’, Sónya, generally so timid and shy, more

urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivánovna not to refuse.

Sónya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were

extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,

and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some

inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and

in her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivánovna

consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and

small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,

drove up to the porch.

Natásha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing

from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all

came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to

one another, laughing, and shouting.

Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the

old count’s with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as shaft horse,

the fourth was Nicholas’ own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.

Nicholas, in his old lady’s dress over which he had belted his hussar

overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.

It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal

harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm

at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.

Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas’

sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya, into the old count’s, and the

rest of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.

“You go ahead, Zakhár!” shouted Nicholas to his father’s

coachman, wishing for a chance to race past him.

The old count’s troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,

squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned

bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the

middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,

and threw it up.

Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others

moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady

trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows

of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant

moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain

bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering

like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the

first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of

the other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the

frost-bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one

after the other.

“A hare’s track, a lot of tracks!” rang out Natásha’s voice

through the frost-bound air.

“How light it is, Nicholas!” came Sónya’s voice.

Nicholas glanced round at Sónya, and bent down to see her face closer.

Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up

at him from her sable furs—so close and yet so distant—in the

moonlight.

“That used to be Sónya,” thought he, and looked at her closer and

smiled.

“What is it, Nicholas?”

“Nothing,” said he and turned again to the horses.

When they came out onto the beaten highroad—polished by sleigh runners

and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the

moonlight—the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and

increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking

into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from

side to side, moving his ears as if asking: “Isn’t it time to begin

now?” In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing

farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhár could be

clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the

shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.

“Gee up, my darlings!” shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one

side and flourishing the whip.

It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the

side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that

one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With

screams, squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses

to gallop—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily

beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and

ready to put on speed when required.

Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and

coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.

“Where are we?” thought he. “It’s the Kosóy meadow, I suppose.

But no—this is something new I’ve never seen before. This isn’t

the Kosóy meadow nor the Dëmkin hill, and heaven only knows what it

is! It is something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be...”

And shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.

Zakhár held back his horses and turned his face, which was already

covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.

Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhár, stretching out his arms,

clucked his tongue and let his horses go.

“Now, look out, master!” he cried.

Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved

the feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead.

Zakhár, while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the

reins.

“No you won’t, master!” he shouted.

Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhár. The horses

showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh—beside

them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of

swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing.

The whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls

shrieking were heard from different sides.

Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still

surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with

stars.

“Zakhár is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the

left?” thought Nicholas. “Are we getting to the Melyukóvs’? Is

this Melyukóvka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows

what is happening to us—but it is very strange and pleasant whatever

it is.” And he looked round in the sleigh.

“Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!” said one of the

strange, pretty, unfamiliar people—the one with fine eyebrows and

mustache.

“I think this used to be Natásha,” thought Nicholas, “and that

was Madame Schoss, but perhaps it’s not, and this Circassian with the

mustache I don’t know, but I love her.”

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind

shouted something—probably something funny—but they could not make

out what he said.

“Yes, yes!” some voices answered, laughing.

“But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter

of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy

buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really

Melyukóvka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and

have come to Melyukóvka,” thought Nicholas.

It really was Melyukóvka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came

running, out to the porch carrying candles.

“Who is it?” asked someone in the porch.

“The mummers from the count’s. I know by the horses,” replied some

voices.