فصل 12

12

WHEN they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna’s, Natasha, who always saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss should go back in the sledge with Dimmler, and Sonya with Nikolai and the maids.

On the way back Nikolai drove at a steady pace instead of racing, and kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonya’s face and searching beneath the eyebrows and moustache for his former and his present Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again. He looked, and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sonya, and being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss, inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in fairyland.

‘Sonya, is it well with thee?’ he asked from time to time.

‘Yes!’ she replied. ‘And with thee?’

When halfway home, Nikolai handed the reins to the coachman and ran for a moment to Natasha’s sledge and stood on its wing.

‘Natasha!’ he whispered in French, ‘do you know I have made up my mind about Sonya?’ ‘Have you told her?’ asked Natasha, suddenly beaming all over with joy.

‘Oh, how strange you are with that moustache and those eyebrows! … Natasha—are you glad?’ ‘I am so glad, so glad! I was starting to get annoyed with you. I didn’t tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has, Nicolas! I am horrid sometimes but I was ashamed to be happy while Sonya was not,’ continued Natasha. ‘Now I am so glad! Well, run back to her.’ ‘No, wait a bit … Oh, how funny you look!’ cried Nikolai peering into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and bewitchingly tender, that he had not seen in her before. ‘Natasha, it’s magical, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘You have done splendidly.’

‘Had I seen her before as she is now,’ thought Nikolai, ‘I should long ago have asked her what to do, and have done whatever she told me, and all would have been well.’ ‘So you are glad, and I have done right?’

‘Oh, definitely right! I had a quarrel with Mama some time ago about it. Mama said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I nearly stormed at Mama. I will never let anyone say anything bad of Sonya, for there is nothing but good in her.’ ‘Then it’s all right?’ said Nikolai again scrutinizing the expression of his sister’s face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sledge. The same happy smiling Circassian with moustache and beaming eyes looking up from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian was Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly his future happy and loving wife.

When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the evening at the Melyukovs’, the girls went to their bedroom. When they had undressed, but without washing off the cork moustaches, they sat a long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how happy they would be. On Natasha’s table stood two looking-glasses which Dunyasha had prepared beforehand.

‘Only when will all that be? I am afraid never … It would be too good!’ said Natasha, rising and going to the looking-glasses.

‘Sit down, Natasha; perhaps you’ll see him,’ said Sonya.

Natasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking-glasses, and sat down.

‘I see someone with a moustache,’ said Natasha, seeing her own face.

‘You mustn’t laugh, Miss,’ said Dunyasha.

With Sonya’s help and the maid’s, Natasha got the glass she held into the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious expression, and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrei, in that last dim, indistinctly outlined, square. But ready as she was to take the smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing. She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking-glasses.

‘Why is it everyone else sees things and I don’t?’ she said. ‘You sit down now, Sonya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me … Today I feel so frightened!’ Sonya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began looking.

‘Now, Miss Sonya is sure to see something,’ whispered Dunyasha; ‘while you do nothing but laugh.’ Sonya heard this and Natasha’s whisper:

‘I know she will. She saw something last year.’

For about three minutes all were silent.

‘Of course she will!’ whispered Natasha, but did not finish … suddenly Sonya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her eyes with her hand.

‘Oh, Natasha!’ she cried.

‘Did you see? Did you? What was it?’ exclaimed Natasha, holding up the looking-glass.

Sonya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get up when she heard Natasha say, ‘Of course she will!’ She did not wish to disappoint either Dunyasha or Natasha, but it was hard to sit still. She did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her when she covered her eyes.

‘You saw him?’ urged Natasha, seizing her hand.

‘Yes. Wait a bit … I … saw him,’ Sonya could not help saying, not yet knowing whom Natasha meant by him, Nikolai or Prince Andrei.

‘But why shouldn’t I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides, who can tell whether I saw anything or not?’ flashed through Sonya’s mind.

‘Yes, I saw him,’ she said.

‘How? Standing or lying?’

‘No, I saw … At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down.’ ‘Andrei lying down? Is he ill?’ asked Natasha, her frightened eyes fixed on her friend.

‘No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he turned to me.’ And when saying this she herself fancied she had really seen what she described.

‘Well and then, Sonya? …’

‘After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and red …’ ‘Sonya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how afraid I am for him and for myself and about everything! …’ Natasha began, and without replying to Sonya’s words of comfort she got into bed, and long after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless, gazing at the moonlight through the frosty window-panes.