War and Peace

t was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natásha had
been staying at her brother’s with her husband and children since early
autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three
weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was
expected back every minute.

Besides the Bezúkhov family, Nicholas’ old friend the retired General
Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov was staying with the Rostóvs this fifth of
December.

On the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full of
visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic for
a tail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to
the new church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come to
congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections
of the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the eve
of that day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff’s accounts of
the village in Ryazán which belonged to his wife’s nephew, wrote two
business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and
stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general
drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saint’s
day, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private talk
with his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at
which the whole household had assembled. At that table were his mother,
his mother’s old lady companion Belóva, his wife, their three children
with their governess and tutor, his wife’s nephew with his tutor, Sónya,
Denísov, Natásha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael
Ivánovich, the late prince’s architect, who was living on in retirement
at Bald Hills.

Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband took
his place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after taking
up his table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing
before him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when
he came in to dinner straight from the farm—especially before the soup.
Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in
a good frame of mind quietly waited till he had had his soup and then
began to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his
ill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was hurt that he should
be angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. She asked
him where he had been. He replied. She again inquired whether
everything was going well on the farm. Her unnatural tone made him wince
unpleasantly and he replied hastily.

“Then I’m not mistaken,” thought Countess Mary. “Why is he cross with
me?” She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished
to end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded unnatural, but
could not refrain from asking some more questions.

Thanks to Denísov the conversation at table soon became general and
lively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table
and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her
hand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry with her.

“You always have such strange fancies! I didn’t even think of being
angry,” he replied.

But the word always seemed to her to imply: “Yes, I am angry but I won’t
tell you why.”

Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sónya and the
old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree,
could find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had their
moments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after they
had been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of estrangement
and hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary’s
pregnancies, and this was such a time.

“Well, messieurs et mesdames,” said Nicholas loudly and with apparent
cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to
vex her), “I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I
shall have to suffer, so today I’ll go and rest.”

And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and
lay down on the sofa.

“That’s always the way,” thought Countess Mary. “He talks to everyone
except me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I
am in this condition.” She looked down at her expanded figure and in the
glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked
larger than ever.

And everything annoyed her—Denísov’s shouting and laughter, Natásha’s
talk, and especially a quick glance Sónya gave her.

Sónya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling
irritated.

Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of
what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery.

The children were playing at “going to Moscow” in a carriage made of
chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with
them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable
crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with
difficulty, went to the small sitting room.

“Perhaps he is not asleep; I’ll have an explanation with him,” she
said to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother,
followed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.

“Mary, dear, I think he is asleep—he was so tired,” said Sónya, meeting
her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that she
crossed her path everywhere). “Andrew may wake him.”

Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that
Sónya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident
difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but
to avoid obeying Sónya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went
to the door. Sónya went away by another door. From the room in which
Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every
slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it
she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his
whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night
when he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at
that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door: “Papa! Mamma’s
standing here!” Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs
to the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to
Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked. Then through
the door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and
his voice said crossly:

“I can’t get a moment’s peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you bring
him here?”

“I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me....”

Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the
door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little
black-eyed three-year-old Natásha, her father’s pet, having learned from
her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran
to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly
opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of
her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father,
who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand
which lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his
face.

“Natásha, Natásha!” came Countess Mary’s frightened whisper from the
door. “Papa wants to sleep.”

“No, Mamma, he doesn’t want to sleep,” said little Natásha with
conviction. “He’s laughing.”

Nicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.

“Come in, Mary,” he said to his wife.

She went in and sat down by her husband.

“I did not notice him following me,” she said timidly. “I just looked
in.”

Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and,
seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed
her hair.

“May I kiss Mamma?” he asked Natásha.

Natásha smiled bashfully.

“Again!” she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot
where Nicholas had placed the kiss.

“I don’t know why you think I am cross,” said Nicholas, replying to the
question he knew was in his wife’s mind.

“You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like
that. It always seems to me...”

“Mary, don’t talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” he
said gaily.

“It seems to be that you can’t love me, that I am so plain... always...
and now... in this cond...”

“Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that
makes us see beauty. It is only Malvínas and women of that kind who are
loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don’t love her, but...
I don’t know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between
us like this, I seem lost and can’t do anything. Now do I love my
finger? I don’t love it, but just try to cut it off!”

“I’m not like that myself, but I understand. So you’re not angry with
me?”

“Awfully angry!” he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair
he began to pace the room.

“Do you know, Mary, what I’ve been thinking?” he began, immediately
thinking aloud in his wife’s presence now that they had made it up.

He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A
thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told
her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.

Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in
her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.

“You can see the woman in her already,” she said in French, pointing to
little Natásha. “You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our
logic. I say: ‘Papa wants to sleep!’ but she says, ‘No, he’s laughing.’
And she was right,” said Countess Mary with a happy smile.

“Yes, yes.” And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand,
lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and
paced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree happiness
on the faces of both father and daughter.

“But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one,” his wife
whispered in French.

“Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show...”

At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in
the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.

“Somebody has come.”

“I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see,” said Countess Mary and left
the room.

In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a
gallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child quickly
from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers reminded
him of dancing, and looking at the child’s round happy little face he
thought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her
into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had
danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter.

“It is he, it is he, Nicholas!” said Countess Mary, re-entering the room
a few minutes later. “Now our Natásha has come to life. You should have
seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long.
Well, come along now, quick, quick! It’s time you two were parted,” she
added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father.

Nicholas went out holding the child by the hand.

Countess Mary remained in the sitting room.

“I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy,” she
whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time she
sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she
felt, through her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness
unattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that
instant.