Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 36

Meanwhile Natasha, running first into Sonya’s room and not finding her there, ran through into the nursery, but she was not there either. Natasha realised Sonya was on the chest in the corridor. The chest in the corridor was the “vale of sorrows” for the younger female generation in the Rostov house. And there indeed was Sonya lying on the trunk, face down on nanny’s grubby striped eiderdown, with her gossamer-fine pink frock all crumpled beneath her, sobbing into her hands so violently that her bare, brown little shoulders were shuddering. Natasha’s face, festive and animated all day long and now even more brightly radiant in preparation for singing, which always made her excited, suddenly darkened. Her eyes grew still, then her sturdy neck, well formed for singing, began to quiver, the corners of her lips turned down and in an instant her eyes were wet with tears.

“Sonya! What is it? What’s wrong? Oh-oh-oh!” And Natasha, opening her large mouth and making herself utterly ugly, began bawling like a child without knowing the reason why, just because Sonya was crying. Sonya wanted to lift her head up, she wanted to answer, but she could not and only hid herself away all the more. Still crying, Natasha sat down on the blue eiderdown and hugged her friend. Gathering all her strength, Sonya sat up and began wiping away the tears and telling her what was wrong.

“Nikolai is leaving in a week, his … papers … have been issued … he told me himself … But I still wouldn’t have cried …” (she showed Natasha the piece of paper that she was holding in her hand: it was the poem written by Nikolai), “I still wouldn’t have cried, but you can’t … nobody can understand … what a fine soul he has …”

And she began crying again because his soul was so fine. Sonya felt that no one apart from her could understand the sublime loveliness, nobility and tenderness – all the finest virtues of this soul. And she really did see all these peerless virtues, firstly because Nikolai, without knowing it himself, showed her only his very best side, and secondly because she wished with all the strength of her heart to see only the beautiful things in him.

“You are lucky … I don’t envy you … I love you, and Boris too,” she said, recovering a little strength, “he is kind. For you there are no obstacles. But Nikolai is my cousin … we need to … the Metropolitan himself … even then it’s impossible … And then, if mama” (Sonya thought of the countess as her mother and called her mama) “… she’ll say that I’m ruining Nikolai’s career, that I’m heartless and I’m ungrateful, but truly … so God help me” (she crossed herself) “… I love her so much, and all of you, only Vera … But why? What have I done to her? I’m so grateful to you all that I would sacrifice everything, but I don’t have a thing …”

Sonya could not carry on and again she hid her face in her hands and the eiderdown. Natasha began trying to comfort her, but it was clear from her face that she understood the full significance of her friend’s grief.

“Sonya!” she said suddenly, as if she had guessed the genuine cause of her cousin’s distress. “Tell me, Vera said something to you after dinner, didn’t she?”

“Yes, Nikolai wrote out this poem himself, and I copied out some others: she found them on my table and said she would show them to mama, and she said that I was ungrateful, that mama would never allow him to marry me. And he’s going to marry Julie. You see the way she looks at him. Natasha? What did I do?”

And she started crying again, more bitterly than before. Natasha raised her up, embraced her and, smiling through her own tears, began reassuring her.

“Sonya, don’t believe her, my darling, don’t believe her. Remember how the two of us and Nikolai spoke about things in the divan room, remember, after supper? We decided how everything would be. I don’t remember exactly, but remember how everything was so good and everything was possible. Uncle Shinshin’s brother is married to his cousin, and we’re only second cousins. And Boris says it’s perfectly possible. You know, I told him everything. And he’s so clever and so good,” said Natasha, feeling, just as Sonya did about Nikolai, and for the same reasons, that no one in the world apart from her could know all the treasures that were contained in Boris … “Sonya, don’t you cry, my darling, my sweet Sonya.” And she kissed her, laughing. “Vera’s mean. Forget her. Everything is going to be all right, and she won’t tell mama, Nikolai will tell her himself.”

She kissed the top of Sonya’s head. Sonya sat up, and the little kitten became lively again, her eyes began to sparkle and it seemed as if any moment she would wave her tail, jump down on her soft paws and start playing with a ball of wool just as she ought to.

“Do you think so? Really? Honest to God?” she said, rapidly straightening her dress and putting her hair in order.

“Really, honest to God!” replied Natasha, tidying a vigorous lock of stray hair back into her friend’s plait, and they both laughed.

“Now, let’s go and sing ‘The Spring’.”

“Yes, let’s.”

Sonya, having brushed off the fluff and tucked the poem into her bosom up by her neck and prominent collar bones, her face flushed, ran with Natasha on light, happy feet along the corridor to the drawing room. Nikolai was finishing the final couplet of his song. He saw Sonya, his eyes lit up, a smile appeared on his mouth that was open to sing, his voice became stronger and more expressive, and he sang the final couplet even better than the ones before.

How sweet, bath’d in the moon’s bright ray,

– he sang, looking at Sonya, and they understood how much all this meant – the words and the smile and the song although, strictly speaking, it all meant nothing.

In fancy’s happy mood, to say:

This world still holds one, dear to see,

Whose thought and dreams are all of thee!

And her fair fingers still do stray

Across that gentle harp and play,

Sighing sweet passion’s harmony,

With urgent pleas that summon thee.

One day – when bliss will be on hand …

Oh woe! Lest first my life should end.

He sang only for Sonya, but everyone felt a happy, warm feeling in their hearts when he finished and stood up from the keyboard with his eyes moist.

“Charming! Enchanting!” said voices on every side.

“This romance,” said Julie with a sigh as she went up to him, “is bliss. I understand everything now.”

During the singing Marya Dmitrievna had got up from the table and stood in the doorway to listen.

“Bravo, Nikolai,” she said. “You move the heart. Come here, give me a kiss.”