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Volume I, Part One, Chapter XVI

They pushed apart the boston tables, formed parties, and the count's guests settled down in the two drawing-rooms, the divan-room, and the library.

The count, holding his cards fanned out, restrained himself with difficulty from his habit of taking an after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The young people, urged on by the countess, gathered around the clavichord and harp. Julie first, at the request of all, played a little piece with variations on the harp, and joined the other young ladies in begging Natasha and Nikolai, known for their musicality, to sing something. Natasha, addressed as a grown-up, was evidently very proud of this, but at the same time felt shy.

— What shall we sing? — she asked.

— "The Spring," — answered Nikolai.

— Well, come on quickly. Boris, come here, — said Natasha. — And where is Sonya?

She looked around, and seeing that her friend was not in the room, ran after her.

Running into Sonya's room and not finding her friend there, Natasha ran to the nursery — but Sonya was not there either. Natasha realized that Sonya was on the chest in the corridor. The chest in the corridor was the place of sorrows for the younger female generation of the Rostov house. Indeed, Sonya, crushing her airy pink dress, lay face down on the dirty striped featherbed of the nurse on the chest, and, hiding her face in her fingers, was sobbing, her bare little shoulders trembling. Natasha's face, animated and festive all day, suddenly changed: her eyes fixed, then her broad neck quivered, and the corners of her lips dropped.

— Sonya! What's wrong?.. What, what is the matter with you? Ooo-ooo-ooo!...

And Natasha, opening her large mouth and becoming completely ugly, roared like a child, not knowing the reason, but solely because Sonya was crying. Sonya wanted to lift her head, wanted to answer, but could not, and hid herself even more. Natasha cried, sitting down on the blue featherbed and embracing her friend. Gathering her strength, Sonya sat up, began to wipe her tears, and explain.

— Nikolenka is leaving in a week, his... paper... came out... he told me himself... I wouldn't have cried so much... (she showed a piece of paper she held in her hand: it contained verses written by Nikolai) I wouldn't have cried so much, but you can't... no one can understand... what a soul he has.

And she began to cry again about how good his soul was.

— It's easy for you... I don't envy you... I love you, and Boris too, — she said, gathering a little strength, — he is sweet... for you there are no obstacles. But Nikolai is my cousin... it would require... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it's impossible. And then, if mamenka... (Sonya considered and called the countess her mother)... she will say that I am ruining Nikolai's career, that I have no heart, that I am ungrateful, but truly... by God... (she crossed herself) I love her so much, and all of you, except Vera... What for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you that I would gladly sacrifice everything, but I have nothing to...

Sonya could not speak any longer and hid her head again in her hands and the featherbed. Natasha was beginning to calm down, but it was evident from her face that she understood the full gravity of her friend's sorrow.

— Sonya! — she said suddenly, as if guessing the true reason for her cousin's grief, — surely, Vera spoke to you after dinner? Yes?

— Yes, Nikolai wrote these verses himself, and I copied down some others; and she found them on my table and said she would show them to mamenka, and also said that I was ungrateful, that mamenka would never allow him to marry me, and that he would marry Julie. You see how he's been with her all day... Natasha! What for?...

And she began to cry even more bitterly than before. Natasha lifted her up, embraced her, and, smiling through her tears, began to comfort her.

— Sonya, don't believe her, darling, don't believe her. Do you remember how all three of us talked with Nikolenka in the divan-room; remember, after supper? We decided exactly how it would be. I don't remember how, but remember how good everything was and how everything was possible. Why, Uncle Shinshin's brother is married to his first cousin, and we are only second cousins. And Boris said that it is quite possible. You know, I told him everything. And he is so smart and so good, — said Natasha... — Don't cry, Sonya, my dear, darling Sonya. — And she kissed her, laughing. — Vera is wicked, let God be with her! Everything will be fine, and she won't tell mamenka; Nikolenka will tell her himself, and he wasn't even thinking about Julie.

And she kissed her on the head. Sonya sat up, and the little kitten revived, her eyes sparkled, and it seemed as though she was ready to swish her tail at any moment, jump onto her soft paws, and play with the ball again, as was proper for her.

— Do you think so? Truly? By God? — she said, quickly straightening her dress and her hair.

— Truly, by God! — answered Natasha, fixing a stray lock of coarse hair under her friend's braid.

And they both laughed.

— Well, let's go sing "The Spring."

— Let's go.

— And you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny! — said Natasha suddenly, stopping. — I am so happy!

And Natasha ran down the corridor.

Sonya, shaking off the down and tucking the verses into her bodice, near the neck where her collarbones protruded, ran with light, cheerful steps and a flushed face after Natasha down the corridor into the divan-room. At the guests' request, the young people sang the quartet "The Spring," which everyone liked very much; then Nikolai sang a song he had newly learned:

In the pleasant night, by the moonlight,

To imagine happily to oneself,

That someone still exists in the world

Who thinks also of you!

That she, too, with her beautiful hand,

Strumming upon the golden harp,

With her passionate harmony

Calls to herself, calls to you!

Another day or two, and paradise will come...

But ah! your friend will not live to see it!

And he had not yet finished singing the final words, when in the hall the young people prepared to dance, and on the gallery the musicians began stamping their feet and coughing. ————

Pierre sat in the drawing-room, where Shinshin, as if with a visitor from abroad, had engaged him in a political conversation that Pierre found boring, which others had joined. When the music started, Natasha walked into the drawing-room and, going straight up to Pierre, laughing and blushing, said:

— Maman ordered me to ask you to dance.

— I am afraid of confusing the figures, — said Pierre, — but if you will be my teacher...

And he offered his thick arm, lowering it deeply, to the slender little girl.

While the couples took their places and the musicians tuned up, Pierre sat with his little partner. Natasha was completely happy; she was dancing with a grown-up, with someone who had come from abroad. She sat in full view of everyone and talked with him like an adult. In her hand she held a fan, which another young lady had given her to hold. And, striking the most worldly pose (God knows where and when she had learned it), fanning herself and smiling over the fan, she conversed with her gentleman.

— How about her? How about her? Look, look, — said the old countess, passing through the hall and pointing at Natasha.

Natasha blushed and laughed.

— Oh, what are you doing, maman? Why must you? What is so surprising about it?

In the middle of the third écossaise, chairs scraped in the drawing-room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna had been playing, and most of the honored guests and the old gentlemen, stretching after sitting so long and tucking their pocketbooks and purses into their pockets, came out through the doors of the hall. Marya Dmitrievna and the count walked in front—both with cheerful faces. The count, with playful politeness, somewhat like a ballet dancer, offered a rounded arm to Marya Dmitrievna. He straightened up, his face illuminated by a peculiarly dashing and sly smile, and the moment the last figure of the écossaise was danced, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted to the gallery, addressing the first violin:

— Semyon! Do you know 'Danila Kupor'?

This was the count's favorite dance, one he had danced in his youth. (Danila Kupor was actually just one figure of the anglaise.)

— Look at papa, — Natasha shouted to the whole hall (completely forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up), bending her curly head down to her knees and bursting into her ringing laughter throughout the hall.

Indeed, everyone present in the hall looked with joyous smiles at the merry old gentleman, who, standing next to his stately partner Marya Dmitrievna, who was taller than him, rounded his arms, shaking them in time, squared his shoulders, turned out his toes, tapping them slightly, and with an ever-broadening smile on his round face prepared the spectators for what was to come. As soon as the cheerful, challenging sounds of 'Danila Kupor' struck up, resembling a lively trepak, all the doors to the hall were suddenly blocked on one side by the smiling male faces of the house serfs, and on the other by the female ones, who had come out to watch their master making merry.

— Ah, our father! An eagle!— said the nurse loudly from one of the doors.

The count danced well and knew it, but his partner neither knew how nor wished to dance well. Her enormous body stood straight, with her powerful arms hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess); only her stern but handsome face danced. What was expressed in the entire round figure of the count, in Marya Dmitrievna was expressed only in an ever-widening smile and an upturned nose. But in return, if the count, getting more and more carried away, captivated the spectators with the unexpectedness of his agile twists and the light jumps of his soft feet, Marya Dmitrievna, with the slightest effort in the movement of her shoulders or the rounding of her arms in turns and taps, produced no lesser impression by the merit, which everyone appreciated given her corpulence and habitual sternness. The dance grew more and more animated. The vis-à-vis couples could not attract any attention for a single moment, nor did they even try. Everyone's attention was absorbed by the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha pulled at the sleeves and dresses of all those present, who were already unable to take their eyes off the dancers, and demanded that they look at her papa. The count, in the intervals of the dance, breathed heavily, waved, and shouted to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster, more brightly, more brightly, and more brightly the count unwound himself, now on tiptoes, now on his heels, flying around Marya Dmitrievna and, finally, turning his partner back to her place, he made the final *pas*, kicking up his soft leg behind him, bowing his sweating head with a smiling face, and swinging his right arm around in a wide arc amidst a roar of applause and laughter, particularly from Natasha. Both dancers stopped, breathing heavily and wiping themselves with their cambric handkerchiefs.

— Вот как в наше время танцовали, ma chère, — said the count.

— Ah, what a 'Danila Kupor'! — said Marya Dmitrievna, releasing a heavy, drawn-out breath and rolling up her sleeves.