War and Peace

he floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was
some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth
stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red
bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat
apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard
was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song
the girl in white went up to the prompter’s box and a man with tight
silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger,
went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.

First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they
both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand
of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with
her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping
and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage—who represented
lovers—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.

After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this
seemed grotesque and amazing to Natásha. She could not follow the opera
nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the
queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in
that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but
it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed
for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the
audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she
herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening
on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natásha seemed feigned.
“I suppose it has to be like this!” she thought. She kept looking
round in turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at
the seminude women in the boxes, especially at Hélène in the next box,
who—apparently quite unclothed—sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not
taking her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded
the whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natásha little
by little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not
experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she
was, nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the
strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her
mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and
singing the aria the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with
her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to
Hélène and tickle her.

At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door
leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostóvs’ box creaked,
and the steps of a belated arrival were heard. “There’s Kurágin!”
whispered Shinshín. Countess Bezúkhova turned smiling to the newcomer,
and Natásha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally
handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet
courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kurágin whom she had seen
and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an
adjutant’s uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with
a restrained swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been
so good-looking and had his handsome face not worn such an expression
of good-humored complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was
proceeding, he walked deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword
and spurs slightly jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high.
Having looked at Natásha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved
hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a
question, with a motion toward Natásha.

“Mais charmante!” said he, evidently referring to Natásha, who did
not exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his
lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down
beside Dólokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way
that Dólokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily,
smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.

“How like the brother is to the sister,” remarked the count. “And
how handsome they both are!”

Shinshín, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue
of Kurágin’s in Moscow, and Natásha tried to overhear it just
because he had said she was “charmante.”

The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going
out and coming in.

Borís came to the Rostóvs’ box, received their congratulations very
simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to
Natásha and Sónya his fiancée’s invitation to her wedding, and
went away. Natásha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and
congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Borís with whom
she had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,
everything seemed simple and natural.

The scantily clad Hélène smiled at everyone in the same way, and
Natásha gave Borís a similar smile.

Hélène’s box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most
distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another
in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.

During the whole of that entr’acte Kurágin stood with Dólokhov
in front of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostóvs’ box.
Natásha knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure.
She even turned so that he should see her profile in what she thought
was its most becoming aspect. Before the beginning of the second act
Pierre appeared in the stalls. The Rostóvs had not seen him since
their arrival. His face looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since
Natásha last saw him. He passed up to the front rows, not noticing
anyone. Anatole went up to him and began speaking to him, looking at and
indicating the Rostóvs’ box. On seeing Natásha Pierre grew animated
and, hastily passing between the rows, came toward their box. When he
got there he leaned on his elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long
time. While conversing with Pierre, Natásha heard a man’s voice in
Countess Bezúkhova’s box and something told her it was Kurágin. She
turned and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed straight into her
eyes with such an enraptured caressing look that it seemed strange to be
so near him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her, and
not to be acquainted with him.

In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a
round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over
the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many
people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding
things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then
some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been
in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once,
but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and
behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and
everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly
interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.

During this act every time Natásha looked toward the stalls she saw
Anatole Kurágin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair,
staring at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and
it did not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.

When the second act was over Countess Bezúkhova rose, turned to the
Rostóvs’ box—her whole bosom completely exposed—beckoned the old
count with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had
entered her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.

“Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters,” said she.
“The whole town is singing their praises and I don’t even know
them!”

Natásha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased
by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.

“I want to become a Moscovite too, now,” said Hélène. “How is it
you’re not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?”

Countess Bezúkhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating
woman. She could say what she did not think—especially what was
flattering—quite simply and naturally.

“Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am
not staying here long this time—nor are you—I will try to amuse
them. I have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get
to know you,” said she to Natásha with her stereotyped and lovely
smile. “I had heard about you from my page, Drubetskóy. Have you
heard he is getting married? And also from my husband’s friend
Bolkónski, Prince Andrew Bolkónski,” she went on with special
emphasis, implying that she knew of his relation to Natásha. To get
better acquainted she asked that one of the young ladies should come
into her box for the rest of the performance, and Natásha moved over to
it.

The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles
were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the
walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The
king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly
and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white
and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the
throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the
queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare
legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the
violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick
bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the
wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and
began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the
stalls everyone clapped and shouted “bravo!” Then one of the men
went into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra
struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and
waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty
thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes,
and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the
man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men
and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the
sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm
came on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the
orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away,
and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and
clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began
shouting: “Duport! Duport! Duport!” Natásha no longer thought this
strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.

“Isn’t Duport delightful?” Hélène asked her.

“Oh, yes,” replied Natásha.