War and Peace: Original Version. Лев Толстой

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СКАЧАТЬ to an emperor. Well, then, if it pleases God …” he added, not noticing the guest’s mocking smile.

      “Well, off you go, off you go, Nikolai, I can see you’re keen to be off,” said the countess.

      “Not at all,” her son replied, but nonetheless a moment later he got up, bowed and left the room.

      Sonya carried on sitting a little longer, smiling more and more falsely all the while, then got up, still with the same smile, and went out.

      “How very transparent all these young people’s secrets are!” said Countess Anna Mikhailovna, pointing to Sonya and laughing. The guest laughed.

      “Yes,” said the countess, after the ray of sunshine that this young generation had brought into the drawing room had disappeared, and as if she were answering a question that no one had asked her, but which was constantly on her mind. “So much suffering, so much worry,” she continued, “all borne so that we can rejoice in them now. But even now, truly, there is more fear than joy. You’re always afraid, always afraid! It’s the very age that holds so much danger for girls and for boys.”

      “Everything depends on upbringing,” said the guest.

      “Yes, you are right,” the countess continued. “So far, thank God, I have been my children’s friend and I have their complete trust,” she said, repeating the error of many parents who believe their children keep no secrets from them. “I know I shall always be my daughters’ first confidante and if Nikolenka, with his fiery character, should get up to mischief (boys will be boys), then it would be nothing like those Petersburg gentlemen.”

      “Yes, they are splendid, splendid children,” agreed the count, who always resolved matters that he found complicated by finding everything splendid. “Just imagine! Decided to join the hussars! What about that, ma chère!”

      “What a sweet creature your youngest is,” said the guest, glancing round reproachfully at her own daughter, as though impressing on her with this glance that that was how she ought to be in order to be liked, not the stiff doll that she was. “Full of fun!”

      “Yes, full of fun,” said the count. “She takes after me! And what a voice, real talent! She may be my own daughter, but it’s no more than the truth when I say she’ll be a singer, another Salomini. We’ve engaged an Italian to teach her.”

      “Is it not rather early? They do say it’s bad for the voice to train it at this age.”

      “Oh no, not at all too early!” said the count.

      “And what about our mothers getting married at twelve and thirteen?” added Countess Anna Mikhailovna.

      “She’s already in love with Boris, how do you like that?” said the countess, smiling gently, glancing at Boris’s mother and, clearly replying to the thought that was always on her mind, she went on: “Well now, you see, if I were strict with her, if I forbade her … God knows what they would do in secret” (the countess meant that they would have kissed), “but as it is I know every word she says. She’ll come running to me this evening and tell me everything herself. Perhaps I do spoil her, but I really think that is best. I was strict with my elder daughter.”

      “Yes, I was raised quite differently,” said the elder daughter, the beautiful Countess Vera, with a smile. But a smile did not adorn Vera’s face in the way it usually does: on the contrary, her face became unnatural and therefore unpleasant. The elder daughter Vera was good-looking, she was clever, she was well brought up. She had a pleasant voice. What she had said was just and apt but, strange to say, everyone, even the guest and the countess, glanced round at her as though they wondered why she had said it and felt uneasy.

      “People always try to be clever with their oldest children, they want to make something exceptional of them,” said the guest.

      “No point in pretending, ma chère! The little countess tried to be clever with Vera,” said the count. “But what of it? She still turned out splendid.”

      And then, noticing with the intuition that is more perceptive than the intellect that Vera was feeling embarrassed, he went over to her and stroked her shoulder with his hand.

      “Excuse me, I have a few things to see to. Do stay a bit longer,” he added, bowing and preparing to go out.

      The guests stood up and left, promising to come to dinner.

      “What a way to behave! Ugh, I thought they would never leave!” said the countess after she had seen the guests out.

      XVI

      When Natasha came out of the drawing room and started running, she only got as far as the conservatory. There she stopped, listening to the talk in the drawing room and waiting for Boris to come out. She was already beginning to feel impatient and stamped her foot, preparing to burst into tears because he was not coming immediately. When she heard the young man’s footsteps, not quiet, but rapid and discreet, the thirteen-year-old girl quickly dashed in among the tubs of plants and hid.

      “Boris Nikolaevich!” she said in a deep bass, trying to frighten him, and then immediately started laughing. Catching sight of her, Boris shook his head and smiled.

      “Boris, come here please,” she said with a look of significant cunning. He went over to her, making his way between the tubs.

      “Boris! Kiss Mimi,” she said, smiling mischievously and holding out her doll.

      “Why shouldn’t I kiss her?” he said, moving closer and keeping his eyes on Natasha.

      “No, say: ‘I don’t want to.’”

      She moved away from him.

      “Well, I can say I don’t want to as well, if you like. Where’s the fun in kissing a doll?”

      “You don’t want to? Right, then come here,” she said and moved away deeper into the plants and threw the doll onto a tub of flowers. “Closer, closer!” she whispered. She caught hold of the officer by his cuffs and her blushing face was filled with fearful solemnity.

      “But do you want to kiss me?” she whispered barely audibly, peering at him warily, smiling and almost crying in her excitement.

      Boris blushed.

      “You’re so funny!” he said, leaning down towards her and blushing even more, but not trying to do anything and biding his time. The faint hint of mockery was still playing on his lips, on the point of disappearing.

      She suddenly jumped up onto a tub so that she was taller than him, put both arms round him so that her slim, bare hands bent around his neck and, flinging her hair back with a toss of her head, kissed him full on the lips.

      “Ah, what have I done!” she cried, then slipped, laughing, between the tubs to the other side of the plants, and her frisky little footsteps squeaked rapidly in the direction of the nursery. Boris ran after and stopped her.

      “Natasha,” he said, “can I tell you something really special?”

      She nodded.

      “I love you,” СКАЧАТЬ