War and Peace (111 page)

“Good-day to you, brother. Well, here he comes!”

“Good-morning, your excellency!” he said to Anatole as he came in and to him, too, he held out his hand.

“I say, Balaga,” said Anatole, laying his hands on his shoulders, “do you care for me or not? Eh? Now’s the time to do me good service.… What sort of horses have you come with? Eh?”

“As the messenger bade me; your favourite beasts,” said Balaga.

“Come, Balaga, do you hear? You may kill all three of them; only get there in three hours. Eh?”

“If I kill them, how are we to get there?” said Balaga, winking.

“None of your jokes now. I’ll smash your face in!” cried Anatole suddenly, rolling his eyes.

“Jokes!” said the driver, laughing. “Do I grudge anything for my gentlemen? As fast as ever the horses can gallop we shall get there.”

“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”

“Come, sit down,” said Dolohov.

“Oh, I’ll stand, Fyodor Ivanovitch.”

“Sit down; nonsense! have a drink,” said Anatole, and he poured him out a big glass of madeira. The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. Refusing it at first for manners’ sake, he tossed it off, and wiped his mouth with a red silk handkerchief that lay in his cap.

“Well, and when are we to start, your excellency?”

“Oh …” Anatole looked at his watch. “We must set off at once. Now mind, Balaga. Eh? You’ll get there in time?”

“To be sure, if we’ve luck in getting off. Why shouldn’t we do it in the time?” said Balaga. “We got you to Tver, and got there in seven hours. You remember, I bet, your excellency!”

“Do you know, I once drove from Tver at Christmas time,” said Anatole, with a smile at the recollection, addressing Makarin, who was gazing
admiringly at him. “Would you believe it, Makarka, one could hardly breathe we flew so fast. We drove into a train of wagons and rode right over two of them! Eh?”

“They were horses, too,” Balaga went on. “I’d put two young horses in the traces with the bay in the shafts”—he turned to Dolohov—“and, would you believe me, Fyodor Ivanovitch, sixty versts those beasts galloped. There was no holding them, for my hands were numb; it was a frost. I flung down the reins. “You hold them yourself, your excellency,” said I, and I rolled up inside the sledge. No need of driving them. Why, we couldn’t hold them in when we got there. In three hours the devils brought us. Only the left one died of it.”

Anatole went out of the room, and a few minutes later he came back wearing a fur pelisse, girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap, jauntily stuck on one side, and very becoming to his handsome face. Looking at himself in the looking-glass, and then standing before Dolohov in the same attitude he had taken before the looking-glass, he took a glass of wine.

“Well, Fedya, farewell; thanks for everything, and farewell,” said Anatole. “Come, comrades, friends …”—he grew pensive—“of my youth … farewell,” he turned to Makarin and the others.

Although they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wanted to make a touching and solemn ceremony of this address to his comrades. He spoke in a loud, deliberate voice, squaring his chest and swinging one leg.

“All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, lads, friends of my youth, we have had jolly sprees together. Eh? Now, when shall we meet again? I’m going abroad! We’ve had a good time, and farewell, lads. Here’s to our health! Hurrah!…” he said, tossing off his glass, and flinging it on the floor.

“To your health!” said Balaga. He, too, emptied his glass and wiped his lips with his handkerchief.

Makarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.

“Ah, prince, how it grieves my heart to part from you,” he said.

“Start! start!” shouted Anatole.

Balaga was going out of the room.

“No; stay,” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we must sit down. Like this.” They shut the door and all sat down.

“Well, now, quick, march, lads!” said Anatole, getting up.

The valet, Joseph, gave Anatole his knapsack and sword, and they all went out into the vestibule.

“But where’s a fur cloak?” said Dolohov. “Hey, Ignatka! Run in to Matryona Matveyevna, and ask her for the sable cloak. I’ve heard what elopements are like,” said Dolohov, winking. “She’ll come skipping out more dead than alive just in the things she had on indoors; the slightest delay and then there are tears, and dear papa and dear mamma, and she’s frozen in a minute and for going back again—you wrap her up in a cloak at once and carry her to the sledge.”

The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined pelisse.

“Fool, I told you the sable. Hey, Matryoshka, the sable,” he shouted, so that his voice rang out through the rooms.

A handsome, thin, and pale gypsy woman, with shining black eyes and curly black hair, with a bluish shade in it, ran out, wearing a red shawl and holding a sable cloak on her arm.

“Here, I don’t grudge it; take it,” she said, in visible fear of her lord and regretful at losing the cloak.

Dolohov, making her no answer, took the cloak, flung it about Matryosha, and wrapped her up in it.

“That’s the way,” said Dolohov. “And then this is the way,” he said and he turned the collar up round her head, leaving it only a little open before the face. “And then this is the way, do you see?” and he moved Anatole’s head forward to meet the open space left by the collar, from which Matryosha’s flashing smile peeped out.

“Well, good-bye, Matryosha,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, all my fun here is over! Give my love to Styoshka. There, good-bye! Good-bye, Matryosha; wish me happiness.”

“God grant you great happiness, prince,” said Matryosha, with her gypsy accent.

At the steps stood two three-horse sledges; two stalwart young drivers were holding them. Balaga took his seat in the foremost, and holding his elbows high, began deliberately arranging the reins in his hands. Anatole and Dolohov got in with him. Makarin, Hvostikov, and the valet got into the other sledge.

“Ready, eh?” queried Balaga. “Off!” he shouted, twisting the reins round his hands, and the sledge flew at break-neck pace along the Nikit-sky Boulevard.

“Tprroo! Hi!… Tproo!!” Balaga and the young driver on the box were continually shouting.

In Arbatsky Square the sledge came into collision with a carriage; there was a crash and shouts, and the sledge flew off along Arbaty. Turning twice along Podnovinsky, Balaga began to pull up, and turning back, stopped the horses at the Old Equerrys’ crossing.

A smart young driver jumped down to hold the horses by the bridle; Anatole and Dolohov walked along the pavement. On reaching the gates, Dolohov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maid-servant ran out.

“Come into the courtyard, or you’ll be seen; she is coming in a minute,” she said.

Dolohov stayed at the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the courtyard, turned a corner, and ran up the steps.

He was met by Gavrilo, Marya Dmitryevna’s huge groom.

“Walk this way to the mistress,” said the groom in his bass, blocking up the doorway.

“What mistress? And who are you?” Anatole asked in a breathless whisper.

“Walk in; my orders are to show you in.”

“Kuragin! back!” shouted Dolohov. “Treachery, back!”

Dolohov, at the little back gate where he had stopped, was struggling with the porter, who was trying to shut the gate after Anatole as he ran in. With a desperate effort Dolohov shoved away the porter, and clutching at Anatole, pulled him through the gate, and ran back with him to the sledge.

Marya Dmitryevna coming upon Sonya weeping in the corridor had forced her to confess everything. Snatching up Natasha’s letter and reading it, Marya Dmitryevna went in to Natasha, with the letter in her hand.

“Vile girl, shameless hussy!” she said to her. “I won’t hear a word!” Pushing aside Natasha, who gazed at her with amazed but tearless eyes, she locked her into the room, and giving orders to her gate porter to
admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to allow them to pass out again, and giving her grooms orders to show those persons up to her, she seated herself in the drawing-room awaiting the abductors.

When Gavrilo came to announce to Marya Dmitryevna that the persons who had come had run away, she got up frowning, and clasping her hands behind her, walked a long while up and down through her rooms, pondering what she was to do. At midnight she walked towards Natasha’s room, feeling the key in her pocket. Sonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor, “Marya Dmitryevna, do, for God’s sake, let me go in to her!” she said.

Marya Dmitryevna, making her no reply, opened the door and went in. “Hateful, disgusting, in my house, the nasty hussy, only I’m sorry for her father!” Marya Dmitryevna was thinking, trying to allay her wrath. “Hard as it may be, I will forbid any one to speak of it, and will conceal it from the count.” Marya Dmitryevna walked with resolute steps into the room.

Natasha was lying on the sofa; she had her head hidden in her hands and did not stir. She was lying in exactly the same position in which Marya Dmitryevna had left her.

“You’re a nice girl, a very nice girl!” said Marya Dmitryevna. “Encouraging meetings with lovers in my house! There’s no use in humbugging. You listen when I speak to you.” Marya Dmitryevna touched her on the arm. “You listen when I speak. You’ve disgraced yourself like the lowest wench. I don’t know what I couldn’t do to you, but I feel for your father. I will hide it from him.”

Natasha did not change her position, only her whole body began to writhe with noiseless, convulsive sobs, which choked her. Marya Dmitryevna looked round at Sonya, and sat down on the edge of the sofa beside Natasha.

“It’s lucky for him that he escaped me; but I’ll get hold of him,” she said in her coarse voice. “Do you hear what I say, eh?” She put her big hand under Natasha’s face, and turned it towards her. Both Marya Dmitryevna and Sonya were surprised when they saw Natasha’s face. Her eyes were glittering and dry; her lips tightly compressed; her cheeks looked sunken.

“Let me be … what do I … I shall die.…” she articulated, with angry effort, tore herself away from Marya Dmitryevna, and fell back into the same attitude again.

“Natalya!…” said Marya Dmitryevna. “I wish for your good. Lie still; come, lie still like that then, I won’t touch you, and listen.… I’m not going to tell you how wrongly you have acted. You know that yourself. But now your father’s coming back to-morrow. What am I to tell him? Eh?”

Again Natasha’s body heaved with sobs.

“Well, he will hear of it, your brother, your betrothed!”

“I have no betrothed; I have refused him,” cried Natasha.

“That makes no difference,” pursued Marya Dmitryevna. “Well, they hear of it. Do you suppose they will let the matter rest? Suppose he—your father, I know him—if he challenges him to a duel, will that be all right? Eh?”

“Oh, let me be; why did you hinder everything! Why? why? who asked you to?” cried Natasha, getting up from the sofa, and looking vindictively at Marya Dmitryevna.

“But what was it you wanted?” screamed Marya Dmitryevna, getting hot again. “Why, you weren’t shut up, were you? Who hindered his coming to the house? Why carry you off, like some gypsy wench?… If he had carried you off, do you suppose they wouldn’t have caught him? Your father, or brother, or betrothed? He’s a wretch, a scoundrel, that’s what he is!”

“He’s better than any of you,” cried Natasha, getting up. “If you hadn’t meddled … O my God, what does it mean? Sonya, why did you? Go away!…” And she sobbed with a despair with which people only bewail a trouble they feel they have brought on themselves.

Marya Dmitryevna was beginning to speak again; but Natasha cried, “Go away, go away, you all hate me and despise me!” And she flung herself again on the sofa.

Marya Dmitryevna went on for some time longer lecturing Natasha, and urging on her that it must all be kept from the count, that no one would know anything of it if Natasha would only undertake to forget it all, and not to show a sign to any one of anything having happened. Natasha made no answer. She did not sob any more, but she was taken with shivering fits and trembling. Marya Dmitryevna put a pillow under her head, laid two quilts over her, and brought her some lime-flower water with her own hands; but Natasha made no response when she spoke to her.

“Well, let her sleep,” said Marya Dmitryevna, as she went out of the room, supposing her to be asleep. But Natasha was not asleep, her wideopen
eyes gazed straight before her out of her pale face. All that night Natasha did not sleep, and did not weep, and said not a word to Sonya, who got up several times and went in to her.

Next day, at lunch time, as he had promised, Count Ilya Andreitch arrived from his estate in the environs. He was in very good spirits: he had come to terms with the purchaser, and there was nothing now to detain him in Moscow away from his countess, for whom he was pining. Marya Dmitryevna met him, and told him that Natasha had been very unwell on the previous day, that they had sent for a doctor, and that now she was better. Natasha did not leave her room that morning. With tightly shut, parched lips, and dry, staring eyes, she sat at the window uneasily watching the passers-by along the street, and hurriedly looking round at any one who entered her room. She was obviously expecting news of him, expecting that he would come himself or would write to her.

When the count went in to her, she turned uneasily at the sound of his manly tread, and her face resumed its previous cold and even vindictive expression. She did not even get up to meet him.

“What is it, my angel; are you ill?” asked the count.

Natasha was silent a moment.

“Yes, I am ill,” she answered.

In answer to the count’s inquiries why she was depressed and whether anything had happened with her betrothed, she assured him that nothing had, and begged him not to be uneasy. Marya Dmitryevna confirmed Natasha’s assurances that nothing had happened. From the pretence of illness, from his daughter’s agitated state, and the troubled faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitryevna, the count saw clearly that something had happened in his absence. But it was so terrible to him to believe that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful serenity, that he avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that it was nothing very out of the way, and only grieved that her indisposition would delay their return to the country.