War and Peace (178 page)

Katerina Petrovna did in fact proceed to play waltzes and écossaises, and dancing began, in which Nikolay fascinated the company more than ever by his elegance. He surprised every one indeed by his peculiarly free and easy style in dancing. Nikolay was a little surprised himself at his own style of dancing at that
soirée
. He had never danced in that manner at Moscow, and would indeed have regarded such an extremely free and easy manner of dancing as not correct, as bad style; but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by something extraordinary, something that they would be sure to take for the usual thing in the capital, though new to them in the provinces.

All the evening Nikolay paid the most marked attention to a blue-eyed, plump, and pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials. With the naïve conviction of young men who are enjoying themselves, that other men’s wives are created for their special benefit, Rostov never left this lady’s side, and treated her husband in a friendly way, almost as though there were a private understanding between them, as though they knew without speaking of it how capitally they, that is, how Nikolay and the wife, would get on. The husband did not, however, appear to share this conviction, and tried to take a gloomy tone with Rostov. But Nikolay’s good-humoured naïveté was so limitless that at times the husband could not help being drawn into his gay humour. Towards the end of the evening, however, as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the husband’s grew steadily more melancholy and stolid, as though they had a given allowance of liveliness between them, and as the wife’s increased, the husband’s dwindled.

With a smile that never left his lips, Nikolay sat bent a little forward on a low chair, and stooping close over his blonde beauty, he paid her mythological compliments.

Jauntily shifting the posture of his legs in his tight riding-breeches, diffusing a scent of perfume, and admiring his fair companion and himself and the fine lines of his legs in the tight breeches, Nikolay told the blonde lady that he wanted to elope with a lady here, in Voronezh.

“What is she like?”

“Charming, divine. Her eyes” (Nikolay gazed at his companion) “are blue, her lips are coral, her whiteness …” he gazed at her shoulders, “the shape of Diana …”

The husband came up to them and asked his wife gloomily what she was talking of.

“Ah! Nikita Ivanitch,” said Nikolay, rising courteously. And as though anxious for Nikita Ivanitch to take a share in his jests, he began to tell him too of his intention of running away with a blonde lady.

The husband smiled grimly, the wife gaily.

The good-natured governor’s wife came up to them with a disapproving air.

“Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nikolay,” she said, pronouncing
the name in such a way that Rostov was at once aware that Anna Ignatyevna was a very great lady. “Come, Nikolay. You let me call you so, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,
ma tante
. Who is she?”

“Anna Ignatyevna Malvintsev. She has heard about you from her niece, how you rescued her … Do you guess?…”

“Oh, I rescued so many!” cried Nikolay.

“Her niece, Princess Bolkonsky. She is here in Voronezh with her aunt. Oho! how he blushes! Eh?”

“Not a bit of it, nonsense,
ma tante
.”

“Oh, very well, very well. Oh! oh! what a boy it is!”

The governor’s wife led him up to a tall and very stout lady in a blue toque, who had just finished a game of cards with the personages of greatest consequence in the town. This was Madame Malvintsev, Princess Marya’s aunt on her mother’s side, a wealthy, childless widow, who always lived in Voronezh. She was standing up, reckoning her losses, when Rostov came up to her.

She dropped her eyelids with a severe and dignified air, glanced at him, and went on upbraiding the general who had been winning from her.

“Delighted, my dear boy,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “Pray come and see me.”

After saying a few words about Princess Marya and her late father, whom Madame Malvintsev had evidently disliked, and inquiring what Nikolay knew about Prince Andrey, who was apparently also not in her good graces, the dignified old lady dismissed him, repeating her invitation to come and see her.

Nikolay promised to do so and blushed again as he took leave of Madame Malvintsev. At the mention of Princess Marya’s name, Rostov experienced a sensation of shyness, even of terror, which he could not have explained to himself.

On leaving Madame Malvintsev, Rostov would have gone back to the dance, but the little governor’s wife laid her plump little hand on his sleeve, and saying that she wanted to have a few words with him, led him into the divan-room; the persons in that room promptly withdrew that they might not be in her way.

“Do you know,
mon cher
,” said the governor’s wife with a serious expression on her good-natured, little face, “this is really the match for you; if you like, I will try and arrange it.”

“Whom do you mean,
ma tante?
” asked Nikolay.

“I will make a match for you with the princess. Katerina Petrovna talks of Lili, but I say, no—the princess. Do you wish it? I am sure your mamma will be grateful. Really, she is such a splendid girl, charming! And she is by no means so very plain.”

“Not at all so,” said Nikolay, as though offended at the idea. “As for me,
ma tante
, as a soldier should, I don’t force myself on any one, nor refuse anything that turns up,” said Rostov, before he had time to consider what he was saying.

“So remember then; this is no jesting matter.”

“How could it be!”

“Yes, yes,” said the governor’s wife, as though talking to herself. “And
entre autres, mon cher
, you are too assiduous with the other—the blonde. One feels sorry for the husband, really …”

“Oh no, we are quite friendly,” said Nikolay in the simplicity of his heart: it had never occurred to him that such an agreeable pastime for him could be other than agreeable to any one else.

“What a stupid thing I said to the governor’s wife though!” suddenly came into Nikolay’s mind at supper. “She really will begin to arrange a match, and Sonya?…”

And on taking leave of the governor’s wife, as she said to him once more with a smile, “Well, remember then,” he drew her aside.

“But there is something … To tell you the truth,
ma tante
 …”

“What is it, what is it, my dear? Come, let us sit down here.”

Nikolay had a sudden desire, an irresistible impulse to talk of all his most secret feelings (such as he would never have spoken of to his mother, to his sister, to an intimate friend) to this woman, who was almost a stranger. Whenever Nikolay thought afterwards of this uncalled-for outburst of inexplicable frankness—though it had most important consequences for him—it seemed to him (as it always seems to people in such cases) that it had happened by chance, through a sudden fit of folly. But at the same time this outburst of frankness, together with other insignificant events, had consequences of immense importance to him and to all his family.

“It’s like this,
ma tante
. It has long been
maman
’s wish to marry me to an heiress; but the mere idea of it—marrying for money—is revolting to me.”

“Oh yes, I can understand that,” said the governor’s wife.

“But Princess Bolkonsky, that’s a different matter. In the first place,
I’ll tell you the truth, I like her very much, I feel drawn to her, and then, ever since I came across her in such a position, so strangely, it has often struck me, that it was fate. Only think: mamma has long been dreaming of it, but I had never happened to meet her before—it always so happened that we didn’t meet. And then when my sister, Natasha, was engaged to her brother, of course it was impossible to think of a match between us then. It seems it was to happen that I met her first just when Natasha’s engagement had been broken off; and well, everything afterwards … So you see how it is. I have never said all this to any one, and I never shall. I only say it to you.”

The governor’s wife pressed his elbow gratefully.

“Do you know Sophie, my cousin? I love her; I have promised to marry her, and I am going to marry her … So you see it’s no use talking of such a thing,” Nikolay concluded lamely, flushing crimson.

“My dearest boy, how can you talk so? Why, Sophie hasn’t a farthing, and you told me yourself that your papa’s affairs are terribly straitened. And your
maman
? It would kill her—for one thing. Then Sophie, if she is a girl of any heart, what a life it would be for her! Your mother in despair, your position ruined … No, my dear, Sophie and you ought to realise that.”

Nikolay did not speak. It was comforting to him to hear these arguments.

“All the same,
ma tante
, it cannot be,” he said, with a sigh, after a brief silence. “And besides would the princess accept me? And again she is in mourning; can such a thing be thought of?”

“Why, do you suppose I am going to marry you out of hand on the spot? There are ways of doing everything,” said the governor’s wife.

“What a match-maker you are,
ma tante
 …” said Nikolay, kissing her plump little hand.

On reaching Moscow, after her meeting with Rostov at Bogutcharovo, Princess Marya had found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrey, directing her what route to take to her aunt, Madame Malvintsev’s at Voronezh. The arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her brother, the organisation of her life in a new house, new people, the education of her nephew—all of this smothered in
Princess Marya’s heart that feeling as it were of temptation, which had tormented her during her father’s illness and after his death, especially since her meeting with Rostov.

She was melancholy. Now after a month had passed in quiet, undisturbed conditions, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father, which was connected in her heart with the downfall of Russia. She was anxious: the thought of the dangers to which her brother—the one creature near to her now left—was being exposed was a continual torture to her. She was worried too by the education of her nephew, which she was constantly feeling herself unfitted to control. But at the bottom of her heart there was an inward harmony, that arose from the sense that she had conquered in herself those dreams and hopes of personal happiness, that had sprung up in connection with Rostov.

When the governor’s wife called on Madame Malvintsev the day after her
soirée
, and, talking over her plans with her, explaining that though under present circumstances a formal betrothal was of course not to be thought of, yet they might bring the young people together, and let them get to know one another, and having received the aunt’s approval, began to speak of Rostov in Princess Marya’s presence, singing his praises, and describing how he had blushed on hearing the princess’s name, her emotion was not one of joy, but of pain. Her inner harmony was destroyed, and desires, doubts, self-reproach, and hope sprang up again.

In the course of the two days that followed before Rostov called, Princess Marya was continually considering what her behaviour ought to be in regard to Rostov. At one time, she made up her mind that she would not come down into the drawing-room when he came to see her aunt, that it was not suitable for her in her deep mourning to receive visitors. Then she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her. Then the idea struck her that her aunt and the governor’s wife had views of some sort upon her and Rostov; their words and glances had seemed at times to confirm this suspicion. Then she told herself that it was only her own depravity that could make her think this of them: could they possibly fail to realise that in her position, still wearing the heaviest mourning, such match-making would be an insult both to her and to her father’s memory? On the supposition that she would go down to see him, Princess Marya imagined the words he would say to her, and she would say to him; and at one moment, those words seemed to her undeservedly frigid, at the next, they struck her as carrying too much
meaning. Above all she dreaded the embarrassment, which she felt would be sure to overcome her, and betray her, as soon as she saw him.

But when, on Sunday after matins, the footman came into the drawing-room to announce that Count Rostov had called, the princess showed no sign of embarrassment, only a faint flush came into her cheeks, and her eyes shone with a new, radiant light.

“You have seen him, aunt?” said Princess Marya, in a composed voice, not knowing herself how she could be externally so calm and natural.

When Rostov came into the room, the princess dropped her head for an instant, as though to give time for their visitor to greet her aunt; and then at the very moment when Nikolay turned to her, she raised her head and met his gaze with shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace, she rose with a joyous smile, held out her delicate, soft hand to him, and spoke in a voice in which for the first time there was the thrill of deep, womanly chest notes. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing-room, gazed at Princess Marya with bewildered surprise. The most accomplished coquette herself, she could not have manœuvred better on meeting a man whom she wanted to attract.

“Either black suits her wonderfully, or she really has grown better looking without my noticing it. And above all, such tact and grace!” thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.

Had Princess Marya been capable of reflection at that moment, she would have been even more astonished than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that had taken place in her. From the moment she set eyes on that sweet, loved face, some new force of life seemed to take possession of her, and to drive her to speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostov entered the room, her face was transformed. Just as when a light is kindled within a carved and painted lantern, the delicate, intricate, artistic tracery comes out in unexpected and impressive beauty, where all seemed coarse, dark, and meaningless before; so was Princess Marya’s face transformed. For the first time all the pure, spiritual, inner travail in which she had lived till then came out in her face. All her inner searchings of spirit, her self-reproach, her sufferings, her striving for goodness, her resignation, her love, her self-sacrifice—all this was radiant now in those luminous eyes, in the delicate smile, in every feature of her tender face.