Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 25

Of the young people, aside from the countess’s elder daughter, who was four years older than her sister and already behaved like a grown-up, and the young lady visitor, the only ones left in the drawing room were Nikolai and Sonya the niece, who sat there, with that rather artificial, festive smile that many adults believe they should wear when present at other people’s conversations, repeatedly casting tender glances at her cousin. Sonya was a slim, petite brunette with a gentle gaze shaded by long eyelashes, a thick black plait wound twice around her head and sallow skin on her face and especially on her bare, lean but graceful and sinewy arms and neck. With the smoothness of her movements, the gentle flexibility of her little limbs and her rather cunning and reticent manner she involuntarily reminded people of a beautiful but still immature kitten that would become a delightful cat. She evidently thought it proper to indicate her interest in the general conversation with her festive smile but, against her will, her eyes gazed out from under their long lashes at her cousin, who was leaving for the army, with such passionate girlish adoration, that her smile could not possibly have deceived anyone for even a moment, and it was clear that the little cat had only sat down in order to spring up even more energetically and start playing with her cousin just as soon as they got out of this drawing room.

“Yes, ma chère,” said the old count, addressing the guest and pointing to his Nikolai. “His friend Boris there has been appointed an officer, and out of friendship he does not want to be left behind, so he’s abandoning university and this old man and he’s going to join the army. And there was a place all ready for him in the archive and everything. How’s that for friendship!” the count queried.

SONYA Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1866

“But after all, they do say that war has been declared,” said the guest.

“They’ve been saying that for a long time,” the count said, still speaking vaguely. “They’ll say it again a few times, and then again, and leave it at that. How’s that for friendship, then!” he repeated. “He’s joining the hussars.”

Not knowing what to say, the guest shook her head.

“It’s not out of friendship at all,” responded Nikolai, flaring up and speaking as if he were defending himself against a shameful slander. “It’s not at all out of friendship, it’s just that I feel a calling for military service.”

He glanced round at the young lady guest: the young lady was looking at him with a smile, approving the young man’s action.

“We have Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars Regiment, dining with us today. He’s been on leave here and is going to take him back with him. What can one do?” said the count, shrugging and speaking jocularly about a matter that evidently pained him a great deal.

For some reason Nikolai suddenly became angry.

“But I told you, papa, that if you don’t wish to let me go, I shall stay. I know I’m no good for anything but military service. I’m not a diplomat, I don’t know how to conceal what I feel,” he said, gesticulating too enthusiastically for his words and glancing all the time with the coquettishness of handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady guest.

The little cat, devouring him with her eyes, seemed ready at any second to launch into her game and demonstrate her full feline nature. The young lady continued to approve him with her smile.

“Perhaps something might just come of me,” he added, “but I am no good for anything here …”

“Well, well, all right!” said the old count. “He’s always getting worked up. Bonaparte has turned everyone’s heads: everyone thinks about how he rose from a corporal to an emperor. Well, then, if it pleases God …” he added, not noticing the guest’s mocking smile.

“Well, off you go, off you go, Nikolai, I can see you’re keen to be off,” said the countess.

“Not at all,” her son replied, but nonetheless a moment later he got up, bowed and left the room.

Sonya carried on sitting a little longer, smiling more and more falsely all the while, then got up, still with the same smile, and went out.

“How very transparent all these young people’s secrets are!” said Countess Anna Mikhailovna, pointing to Sonya and laughing. The guest laughed.

“Yes,” said the countess, after the ray of sunshine that this young generation had brought into the drawing room had disappeared, and as if she were answering a question that no one had asked her, but which was constantly on her mind. “So much suffering, so much worry,” she continued, “all borne so that we can rejoice in them now. But even now, truly, there is more fear than joy. You’re always afraid, always afraid! It’s the very age that holds so much danger for girls and for boys.”

“Everything depends on upbringing,” said the guest.

“Yes, you are right,” the countess continued. “So far, thank God, I have been my children’s friend and I have their complete trust,” she said, repeating the error of many parents who believe their children keep no secrets from them. “I know I shall always be my daughters’ first confidante and if Nikolenka, with his fiery character, should get up to mischief (boys will be boys), then it would be nothing like those Petersburg gentlemen.”

“Yes, they are splendid, splendid children,” agreed the count, who always resolved matters that he found complicated by finding everything splendid. “Just imagine! Decided to join the hussars! What about that, ma chère!”

“What a sweet creature your youngest is,” said the guest, glancing round reproachfully at her own daughter, as though impressing on her with this glance that that was how she ought to be in order to be liked, not the stiff doll that she was. “Full of fun!”

“Yes, full of fun,” said the count. “She takes after me! And what a voice, real talent! She may be my own daughter, but it’s no more than the truth when I say she’ll be a singer, another Salomini. We’ve engaged an Italian to teach her.”

“Is it not rather early? They do say it’s bad for the voice to train it at this age.”

“Oh no, not at all too early!” said the count.

“And what about our mothers getting married at twelve and thirteen?” added Countess Anna Mikhailovna.

“She’s already in love with Boris, how do you like that?” said the countess, smiling gently, glancing at Boris’s mother and, clearly replying to the thought that was always on her mind, she went on: “Well now, you see, if I were strict with her, if I forbade her … God knows what they would do in secret” (the countess meant that they would have kissed), “but as it is I know every word she says. She’ll come running to me this evening and tell me everything herself. Perhaps I do spoil her, but I really think that is best. I was strict with my elder daughter.”

“Yes, I was raised quite differently,” said the elder daughter, the beautiful Countess Vera, with a smile. But a smile did not adorn Vera’s face in the way it usually does: on the contrary, her face became unnatural and therefore unpleasant. The elder daughter Vera was good-looking, she was clever, she was well brought up. She had a pleasant voice. What she had said was just and apt but, strange to say, everyone, even the guest and the countess, glanced round at her as though they wondered why she had said it and felt uneasy.

“People always try to be clever with their oldest children, they want to make something exceptional of them,” said the guest.

“No point in pretending, ma chère! The little countess tried to be clever with Vera,” said the count. “But what of it? She still turned out splendid.”

And then, noticing with the intuition that is more perceptive than the intellect that Vera was feeling embarrassed, he went over to her and stroked her shoulder with his hand.

“Excuse me, I have a few things to see to. Do stay a bit longer,” he added, bowing and preparing to go out.

The guests stood up and left, promising to come to dinner.

“What a way to behave! Ugh, I thought they would never leave!” said the countess after she had seen the guests out.