Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 37

Natasha whispered to Nikolai that Vera had just upset Sonya by stealing the poems and saying all sorts of nasty things to her. Nikolai blushed and immediately strode determinedly across to Vera and began whispering to her that if she dared to do anything unpleasant to Sonya, then he would be her enemy for life. Vera tried to make excuses and apologised and observed, also in a whisper, that it was not proper to talk about it now, indicating the guests who, noticing some sort of unpleasantness between brother and sister, had moved away.

“I don’t care, I’ll say it in front of everyone,” Nikolai said almost loudly, “that you have a wicked heart and you take pleasure in hurting people.”

Having said his piece and still trembling in agitation, Nikolai walked over to the far corner of the room, to Boris and Pierre. He sat down beside them with the resolute and gloomy air of a man who is now capable of anything and whom it is best not to bother with questions. Pierre, however, as distracted as ever, failed to notice Nikolai’s state of mind and, feeling in a state of great contentment, intensified still further by the pleasurable sensations of the music, which always affected him deeply despite his being incapable of singing a single note in tune, he said to Nikolai:

“How splendidly you sang!”

Nikolai did not answer.

“What rank will you have in your regiment?” Pierre asked, simply in order to ask him something else.

Nikolai, forgetting that Pierre was in no way to blame for the unpleasantness Vera had caused him or for Julie’s irritating attentions, glared at him angrily.

“They suggested I petition for an appointment as a gentleman of the bedchamber, but I refused, because I wish my position in the army to be due to nothing but my own merits … and not to perching on the heads of people more worthy than myself. I am joining as a cadet,” he added, very pleased that he had so soon been able to demonstrate his nobility to his new acquaintance and to use the military expression, “perch on someone’s head”, that he had only just overheard from the colonel.

“Yes, I am always arguing with him,” said Boris. “I don’t see anything unfair in joining straightaway as a major. If you don’t merit that rank, they will reject you, and if you do merit it, you can be useful all the sooner.”

“Yes, well, you are a diplomat,” said Nikolai. “I believe it’s an abuse of one’s position and I do not wish to start with abuse.”

“You are absolutely right, absolutely,” said Pierre. “What’s that, the musicians? Will there be dancing?” he asked timidly, hearing the sounds of instruments tuning up. “I have never been able to learn a single dance properly.”

“Yes, I think mama ordered it,” replied Nikolai, glancing cheerfully round the room and mentally seeking his own lady among the others. But just then he spotted a group that had gathered around Berg and the good mood that he had recovered was once again replaced by morose bitterness.

“Ah, do read it, Mr. Berg, you read so well, I’m sure it must be very poetic,” Julie was saying to Berg, who was holding a piece of paper. Nikolai saw that it was one of his own poems which Vera, out of sheer spite, had shown to the whole company. The poem was as follows:

The Hussar’s Farewell

Oh, do not grieve me as we part,

Do not torment your dear hussar,

But be his sword-arm’s joyful heart,

Bright inspiration for his war.

I need my courage for the battle,

So stay these tears, so bitter-sweet,

I long to earn a victor’s laurels,

So I may cast them at thy feet.

When he had written the poem and given it to the object of his passion, Nikolai had thought it was beautiful, but now he suddenly felt it was exceptionally bad and, even worse, laughable. Seeing Berg with his poem in his hand, Nikolai halted and then, with his nostrils flared, his face scarlet, his lips pursed, he strode rapidly and resolutely towards the group, waving his arms. Boris, spotting his intentions in time, blocked his way and grabbed him by the arm.

“Listen, that would be stupid.”

“Let go, I’ll teach him a lesson,” said Nikolai, forcing his way forwards.

“He’s not to blame, let me go over there.”

Boris went up to Berg.

“That poem was not written for the whole world,” he said, holding out his hand. “If you please!”

“Ah, so it is not for everybody! Vera Pavlovna gave it to me.”

“It’s so lovely, there is something very melodic about it,” said Julie Akhrosimova.

“‘The Hussar’s Farewell’,” said Berg, and had the misfortune to smile. By now Nikolai was standing in front of him, holding his face close and glaring at the unfortunate Berg with wild eyes that seemed to pierce right through him.

“You find something funny? What do you find funny?”

“No, I didn’t know it was you who …”

“What’s it to you whether it was me or not? Reading other people’s letters is a base act.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Berg, blushing in alarm.

“Nikolai,” said Boris. “Monsieur Berg was not reading other people’s letters … You’re about to do something stupid. Listen,” he said, putting the poem in his pocket, “come over here, I want to have a word with you.”

Berg immediately moved away to join the ladies and Boris and Nikolai went out to the sitting room. Sonya ran out after them.

Half an hour later all the young people were dancing the écossaise and Nikolai, having talked with Sonya in the sitting room, was once again the same merry and agile dancer as always, and now felt astonished at his own irascibility and annoyed at his indecent outburst.

Everybody was feeling very jolly, even Pierre, who confused the figures as he danced the écossaise under Boris’s supervision, and Natasha, who for some reason split her sides with laughter every time she glanced at him, which pleased him greatly.

“How funny he is, and how splendid,” she said first to Boris, and then to Pierre himself, straight to his face, looking naïvely up into his eyes.

In the middle of the third écossaise, chairs began moving in the sitting room, where the count and Marya Dmitrievna were playing cards, and most of the honoured guests and the old folks, stretching themselves after sitting so long and putting their wallets and purses back into their pockets, came out through the doors into the hall. At the front came Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with cheerful faces. The count offered his curved arm to Marya Dmitrievna in a gesture of facetious politeness, almost balletically. He drew himself erect and his face was illuminated by an extraordinary smile of rakish cunning, and as soon as they had finished dancing the final figure of the écossaise, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up into the gallery, to the first violin.

“Semyon! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?”

This was the count’s favourite dance, danced by him in his youth (strictly speaking, the Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise).

“Look at papa,” cried Natasha so loudly that everyone could hear, bending her curly head down to her knees and setting the entire hall ringing with her peals of laughter. And indeed, everyone who was there in the hall gazed with a smile of joy at the jolly little old man beside his stately lady, Marya Dmitrievna, who was taller than he, as he curved his arms and shook them in time, straightened his shoulders, turned out his feet, tapping them lightly and, with the smile spreading further and further across his round face, prepared his audience for what was to come. As soon as the jolly, challenging strains of the Daniel Cooper began to ring out like a merry vagabond song, all the doors of the hall were suddenly crammed full, by male faces on one side and, on the other, by the smiling female faces of all the servants who had come out to look at their master making merry.

“Our old father! What an eagle he is!” said a nanny from one door. The count danced well and he knew it, but his lady did not know how to dance at all and had no wish to dance well. Her massive body was held rigidly upright with her powerful arms lowered (she had handed her reticule to the countess) and only her severe but beautiful face danced. Everything that was expressed in the whole of the count’s rotund figure Mariya Dmitrievna expressed only in the ever brighter and wider smile on her face and her twitching nose. But while the count, working himself up more and more, captivated his audience with the sudden surprise of his nimble arabesques and the light capering of his soft legs, Marya Dmitrievna, by taking the very slightest pains in moving her shoulders or curving her arms, in turning and stamping her feet, produced no less an impression for her efforts, which were appreciated by everyone in view of her corpulence and customary severity. The dance grew more and more lively. The other dancers were unable to attract the slightest attention to themselves, and gave up trying. All eyes were riveted on the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha tugged at the sleeves and dresses of everyone around her, who in any case already had their eyes fixed on the dancers, and demanded that they watch her dear papa. In the pauses in the dance the count struggled to catch his breath, waving his hand to the musicians and shouting for them to play faster. Quicker and quicker, ever more jauntily, the count twirled this way and that, hurtling around Marya Dmitrievna, now on his tiptoes, now on his heels and finally, having swung his lady back to her place, he took the final bow, drawing his supple leg back behind him, lowering his perspiring head with its smiling face and stretching out his curved right arm in a broad sweep amid thunderous applause and laughter, especially from Natasha. Both dancers stopped, struggling to catch their breath and wiping their faces with fine lawn handkerchiefs.

DANCING THE DANIEL COOPER Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1866

“That’s how they used to dance in our time, ma chère,” said the count.

“Hurrah for Daniel Cooper!” puffed Marya Dmitrievna, breathing out long and hard.