فصل 7

7

TOWARDS evening Ilagin took leave of Nikolai, 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 Mikhailovna.

‘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 Otradnoe for a trap, while Nikolai rode with Natasha and Petya 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 Natasha—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.

‘Arinka! Look at that, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt hangs down … See, she’s got a little hunting-horn, too!’ ‘Heavens above! What a knife! …’

‘What a Tartar!’

‘How is it you didn’t go head over heels?’ asked the boldest of all, addressing Natasha 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 Natasha 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 over-clean—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 his visitors through the ante-room into a small hall with a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing-room with a round birch-wood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room, where there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvorov, 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. Rugay, 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. Natasha, Nikolai, and Petya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Petya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natasha and Nikolai 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, Nikolai no longer considered it necessary to show his masculine superiority over his sister), Natasha 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 Natasha felt that this costume, the very one she had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, 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 their spontaneous merriment.

‘That’s right, young Countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw anyone like her!’ said he, offering Nikolai a pipe with a long stem and with a practised motion of three fingers taking down another that had been cut short. ‘All day she rode around, even a man would be tired, but she is as fresh as ever!’ Soon after Uncle’s reappearance the door was opened, evidently from the sound by a bare-footed 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’oeuvre 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 Rostov. How could one help understanding? Not only Nikolai but even Natasha understood the meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fyodorovna 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 Anisya Fyodorovna’s housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya Fyodorovna herself; a savour of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles.

‘Have a little taste of this, little Lady-Countess!’ she kept saying, as she offered Natasha first one thing and then another.

Natasha ate 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. Anisya Fyodorovna left the room.

After supper over their cherry brandy Rostov and Uncle talked of past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin’s dogs, while Natasha sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several times to wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natasha felt so light-hearted 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 Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about him from his father and the neighbours. Throughout the whole province Uncle had the reputation of being the most honourable and disinterested of eccentrics. 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 balalaika, on which someone who was evidently a master of the art was playing. Natasha had been listening to those strains for some time and now went out into the passage to hear better.

‘That’s Mitka, my coachman … I have got him a good balalaika. I’m fond of it,’ said Uncle.

It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalaika in the huntsmen’s room when Uncle returned from the chase. Uncle was fond of such music.

‘How good! Really excellent!’ said Nikolai with some unintentional superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him very much.

‘What do you mean, excellent?’ said Natasha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s tone. ‘Not “excellent”—it’s simply enchanting!’ 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 Natasha at the door as soon as the balalaika ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalaika 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 balalaika 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. Anisya Fyodorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the door-post.

‘You like listening?’ she said to Natasha, 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 Natasha.

Uncle did not answer, but smiled.

‘Anisyushka, 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.’ Anisya Fyodorovna with her light step willingly went to fulfil 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 Anisya Fyodorovna 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 Nikolai and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of sober mirth as radiated from Anisya Fyodorovna’s whole being. Anisya Fyodorovna 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 Anisya Fyodorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a little on one side of his face under his grey moustaches, 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 Natasha as soon as he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. ‘Nikolenka, Nikolenka!’ she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: ‘What is it moves me so?’ Nikolai too was greatly pleased by Uncle’s playing, and Uncle played the piece over again. Anisya Fyodorovna’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 skilfully over the strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.

‘Now, now, Uncle darling,’ Natasha 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 naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk-dance.

‘Now then, niece!’ he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that had just struck a chord.

Natasha 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 shawl dance 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 Nikolai and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her.

She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision, that Anisya Fyodorovna, 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 Anisya and in Anisya’s father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian man and woman.

‘Well done, 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 Nikolai smiling.

‘Oh?’ said Uncle in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natasha, 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 Nikolai’s smile mean when he said “chosen already”? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he thought my Bolkonsky 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 favourite hunting song: As ‘twas growing dark last night

Fell the snow so soft and light …

Uncle sang as peasants sing, with full and naive 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. Natasha 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 Natasha and Petya. The count and countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of the men.

Petya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two traps. Natasha and Nikolai got into the other. Uncle wrapped Natasha up warmly, and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He accompanied them on foot as far as a 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.

‘Goodbye, dear niece,’ his voice called out of the darkness—not the voice Natasha 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 Natasha, when they had come out onto the high road.

‘Yes,’ returned Nikolai. ‘You’re not cold?’

‘No. I’m quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!’ answered Natasha, 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 Nikolai.

‘What were you thinking about just now, Nikolushka?’ inquired Natasha.

They were fond of asking one another that question.

‘I?’ said Nikolai, trying to remember. ‘Well, you see, first I thought that Rugay, 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 Otradnoe but in Fairyland. And then I thought … No, nothing else.’ ‘I know, I expect you thought of him,’ said Nikolai, smiling as Natasha knew by the sound of his voice.

‘No,’ said Natasha, though she had in reality been thinking about Prince Andrei 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 Anisyushka carried herself, how well!” ‘And Nikolai heard her spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. ‘And 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 Nikolai, and he thought: ‘How charming this Natasha 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 Nikolai of mine is!’ thought Natasha.

‘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.