英文名著《战争与和平》节选阅读

英文名著《战争与和平》节选阅读

PTER XVII

THE CARD-TABLES were opened, parties were made up for

boston, and the count's guests settled themselves in the two

drawing-rooms, the divan-room, and the library.

The count, holding his cards in a fan, with some

difficulty kept himself from dropping into his customary

after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The young people,

at the countess's suggestion, gathered about the clavichord

and the harp. Julie was first pressed by every one to perform,

and played a piece with variations on the harp. Then she

joined the other young ladies in begging Natasha and Nikolay,

who were noted for their musical talents, to sing something.

Natasha, who was treated by every one as though she were

grown-up, was visibly very proud of it, and at the same time

made shy by it.

“What are we to sing?” she asked.

“The ‘Spring,' ” answered Nikolay.

“Well, then, let's make haste. Boris, come here,” said

Natasha. “But where's Sonya?”

She looked round, and seeing

that her friend was not in the room, she ran off to find her.

After running to Sonya's room, and not finding her there,

Natasha ran to the nursery

：

Sonya was not there either.

Natasha knew that she must be on the chest in the corridor.

The chest in the corridor was the scene of the woes of the

younger feminine generation of the house of Rostov. Yes,

Sonya was on the chest, lying face downwards, crushing her

gossamer pink frock on their old nurse's dirty striped

feather-bed. Her face hidden in her fingers, she was sobbing,

and her little bare shoulders were heaving. Natasha's

birthday face that had been festive and excited all day,

changed at once; her eyes wore a fixed look, then her broad

neck quivered, and the corners of her lips drooped.

“Sonya! what is it? … what's the matter with you? Oo

-

oo-

oo! …” and Natasha, letting her big mouth drop open and

becoming quite ugly, wailed like a baby, not knowing why,

simply because Sonya was crying. Sonya tried to lift up her

head, tried to answer, but could not, and buried her face

more than ever. Natasha cried, sitting on the edge of the

blue feather-bed and hugging her friend.

Making an effort, Sonya got up, began to dry her tears

and to talk.

“Nikolinka's going away in a week, his … paper … has

come … he told me himself. … But still I shouldn't cry …”

(she showed a sheet of paper she was holding in her hand; on

it were verses written by Nikolay). “I shouldn't have cried;

but you can't … no one can understand … what a soul he has.”

And again she fell to weeping at the thought of how noble

his soul was.

“It's all right for you … I'm not envious … I love you

and Boris too,” she said, controlling herself a little;

“he's so nice … there are no difficulties in your way. But

Nikolay's

my cousin … the metropolitan chief priest

himself … has to … or else it's impossible. And so, if

mamma's told” (Sonya looked on the countess and addressed

her as a mother), “she'll say that I'm spoiling Nikolay's

career, that I have no heart, that I'm ungrateful, though

really … in God's name” (she made the sign of the cross)

“I love her so, and all of you, only Vera … Why is it? What

have I done to her? I am so grateful to you that I would be

glad to sacrifice everything for you, but I have nothing. …”

Sonya could say no more, and again she buried her head in

her hands and the feather-bed. Natasha tried to comfort her,

but her face showed that she grasped all the gravity of her

friend's trouble.

“Sonya!” she said all at once, as though she had

guessed

the real cause of her cousin's misery, “of course

Vera's been talking to you since dinner? Yes?”

“Yes, these verses Nikolay wrote himself, and I copied

some others; and she found them on my table, and said she

should show them to mamma, and she said too that I was

ungrateful, and that mamma would never allow him to marry me,

but that he would marry Julie. You see how he has been with

her all day … Natasha! why is it?”

And again she sobbed more bitterly than ever. Natasha

lifted her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears,

began comforting her.

“Sonya, don't you believe her, darling; don't believe

her. Do you remember how we talked with Nikolay, all three of

us together, in the divan-room, do you remember, after supper?

Why, we settled how it should all be. I don't quite remember

now, but do you remember, it was all right and all possible.

Why, uncle Shinshin's brother is married to his first cousin,

and we're only second cousins, you know. And Boris said that

it's quite easily arranged. You know I told him all about it.

He's so clever and so good,” said Natasha. … “Don't cry,

Sonya, darling, sweet one, precious, Sonya,” and she kissed

her, laughing. “Vera is spiteful; never mind her! and it

will all come right and she won't tell mamma. Nikolinka will

tell her himself, and he's never thought of Julie.”

And she kissed her on the head. Sonya got up, and the

kitten revived; its eyes sparkled, and it was ready, it

seemed, to wag its tail, spring on its soft paws and begin to

play with a ball, in its own natural, kittenish way.

“Do you think so? Really? Truly?” she said rapidly,

smoothing her frock and her hair.

“Really, truly,” answered Natasha, putting back a stray

coil of rough hair on her friend's head; and they both

laughed. “Well, come along and sing the ‘Spring.' ”

“Let's go, then.”

“And do you know that fat Pierre, who was sitting

opposite me, he's so funny!” Natasha said suddenly, stopping.

“I am enjoying myself so,” and Natasha ran along the

corridor.

Brushing off the feather fluff from her frock, and

thrusting the verses into her bodice next her little throat

and prominent breast-bones, Sonya ran with flushed face and

light, happy steps, following Natasha along the corridor to

the divan-room. At the request of their guests the young

p

eople sang the quartette the “Spring,” with which every

one was delighted; then Nikolay sang a song he had lately

learnt.

“How sweet in the moon's kindly ray,In fancy to thyself

to say,That earth holds still one dear to thee!Whose thoughts,

whose dreams are all of thee!That her fair fingers as of

oldStray still upon the harp of gold,Making sweet, passionate

harmony,That to her side doth summon thee!To-morrow and thy

bliss is near!Alas! all's past! she is not here!”

And he had hardly sung the last words when the young

people were getting ready to dance in the big hall, and the

musicians began stamping with their feet and coughing in the

orchestra.

Pierre was sitting in the drawing-room, where Shinshin

had started a conversation with him on the political

situation, as a subject likely to be of interest to any one

who had just come home from abroad, though it did not in fact

interest Pierre. Several other persons joined in the

conversation. When the orchestra struck up, Natasha walked

into the drawing-room, and going straight up to Pierre,

laughing and blushing, she said, “Mamma told me to ask you

to dance.”

“I'm afraid of muddling the figures,” said Pierre,

“but if you will be my teacher …” and he gave his fat hand

to the slim little girl, putting his arm low down to reach

her level.

While the couples were placing themselves and the

musicians were tuning up, Pierre sat down with his little

partner. Natasha was perfectly happy; she was dancing with a

grown-up person, with a man who had just come from abroad.

She was sitting in view of every one and talking to him like

a grown-up person. She had in her hand a fan, which some lady

had given her to hold, and taking the most modish pose (God

knows where and when she had learnt it), fanning herself and

smiling all over her face, she talked to her partner.

“What a girl! Just look at her, look at her!” said the

old countess, crossing the big hall and pointing to Natasha.

Natasha coloured and laughed.

“Why, what do you mean, mamma? Why should you laugh? Is

there anything strange about it?”

In the middle of the third écossaise there was a clatter

of chairs in the drawing-room, where the count and Marya

Dmitryevna were playing, and the greater number of the more

honoured guests and elderly people stretching themselves

after sitting so long, put their pocket-books and purses in

their pockets and came out to the door of the big hall. In

front of all came Marya Dmitryevna and the count, both with

radiant faces. The count gave his arm, curved into a hoop, to

Marya Dmitryevna with playfully exaggerated ceremony, like a

ballet- dancer.

He drew himself up, and his face beamed with a peculiar,

jauntily-knowing smile, and as soon as they had finished

dancing the last figure of the écossaise, he clapped his

hands to the orchestra, and shouted to the first violin

：

“Semyon! do you know ‘Daniel Cooper'?”

That was the count's favourite dance that he had danced

in his youth. (Daniel Cooper was the name of a figure of the

anglaise.) “Look at papa!” Natasha shouted to all the room

(entirely forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up

partner), and ducking down till her curly head almost touched

her knees, she went off into her ringing laugh that filled

the hall. Every one in the hall was, in fact, looking with a

smile of delight at the gleeful old gentleman. Standing

beside his majestic partner, Marya Dmitryevna, who was taller

than he was, he curved his arms, swaying them in time to the

music, moved his shoulders, twirled with his legs, lightly

tapping with his heels, and with a broadening grin on his

round face, prepared the spectators for what was to come. As

soon as the orchestra played the gay, irresistible air of

Daniel Cooper, somewhat like a livelier Russian trepak, all

the doorways of the big hall were suddenly filled with the

smiling faces of the house-serfs

—

men on one side, and women

on the other

—

come to look at their master making merry.

“Our little father! An eagle he is!” the old nurse said

out loud at one door.

The count danced well and knew that he did, but his

partner could not dance at all, and did not care about

dancing well. Her portly figure stood erect, with her mighty

arms hanging by her side (she had handed her reticule to the

countess). It was only her stern, but comely face that danced.

What was expressed by the whole round person of the count,

was expressed by Marya Dmitryevna in her more and more

beaming countenance and puckered nose. While the count, with

greater and greater expenditure of energy, enchanted the

spectators by the unexpectedness of the nimble pirouettes and

capers of his supple legs, Marya Dmitryevna with the

slightest effort in the movement of her shoulders or curving