War and Peace

o say “tomorrow” and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult,
but to go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father,
confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of
honor, was terrible.

At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning
from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord.
As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere
of love which pervaded the Rostóv household that winter and, now after
Dólokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to have grown thicker
round Sónya and Natásha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sónya
and Natásha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater,
looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord,
happy and smiling. Véra was playing chess with Shinshín in the drawing
room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son,
sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house.
Denísov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord
striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his
eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some
verses called “Enchantress,” which he had composed, and to which he
was trying to fit music:

Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre
What magic power is this recalls me still?
What spark has set my inmost soul on fire,
What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?

He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling
black-agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natásha.

“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natásha. “Another verse,” she
said, without noticing Nicholas.

“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas,
glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Véra and his mother with
the old lady.

“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natásha, running up to him.

“Is Papa at home?” he asked.

“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natásha, without answering him.
“We are enjoying ourselves! Vasíli Dmítrich is staying a day longer
for my sake! Did you know?”

“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Sónya.

“Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!” called the old countess
from the drawing room.

Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her
table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing
room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade
Natásha to sing.

“All wight! All wight!” shouted Denísov. “It’s no good making
excuses now! It’s your turn to sing the ba’cawolla—I entweat
you!”

The countess glanced at her silent son.

“What is the matter?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said he, as if weary of being continually asked the
same question. “Will Papa be back soon?”

“I expect so.”

“Everything’s the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where
am I to go?” thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room
where the clavichord stood.

Sónya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to
Denísov’s favorite barcarolle. Natásha was preparing to sing.
Denísov was looking at her with enraptured eyes.

Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.

“Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There’s
nothing to be happy about!” thought he.

Sónya struck the first chord of the prelude.

“My God, I’m a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain
is the only thing left me—not singing!” his thoughts ran on. “Go
away? But where to? It’s one—let them sing!”

He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denísov and the
girls and avoiding their eyes.

“Nikólenka, what is the matter?” Sónya’s eyes fixed on him
seemed to ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.

Nicholas turned away from her. Natásha too, with her quick instinct,
had instantly noticed her brother’s condition. But, though she noticed
it, she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from
sorrow, sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself
as young people often do. “No, I am too happy now to spoil my
enjoyment by sympathy with anyone’s sorrow,” she felt, and she said
to herself: “No, I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as
I am.”

“Now, Sónya!” she said, going to the very middle of the room, where
she considered the resonance was best.

Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet
dancers do, Natásha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,
stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.

“Yes, that’s me!” she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with
which Denísov followed her.

“And what is she so pleased about?” thought Nicholas, looking at his
sister. “Why isn’t she dull and ashamed?”

Natásha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose,
her eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her
surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may
produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which
leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill
you and make you weep.

Natásha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,
mainly because Denísov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang
as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,
painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing
well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: “It is not trained,
but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained.” Only they generally
said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained
voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was
sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in
it and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal
freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained
velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that
it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling
it.

“What is this?” thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely
opened eyes. “What has happened to her? How she is singing today!”
And suddenly the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the
next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into
three beats: “Oh mio crudele affetto.”... One, two, three... one,
two, three... One... “Oh mio crudele affetto.”... One, two, three...
One. “Oh, this senseless life of ours!” thought Nicholas. “All
this misery, and money, and Dólokhov, and anger, and honor—it’s all
nonsense... but this is real.... Now then, Natásha, now then, dearest!
Now then, darling! How will she take that si? She’s taken it! Thank
God!” And without noticing that he was singing, to strengthen the si
he sung a second, a third below the high note. “Ah, God! How fine! Did
I really take it? How fortunate!” he thought.

Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest
in Rostóv’s soul! And this something was apart from everything else
in the world and above everything in the world. “What were losses, and
Dólokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob
and yet be happy....”