《War And Peace》Book4 CHAPTER I

《War And Peace》　Book4 　CHAPTER I
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

AT THE BEGINNING of the year 1806, Nikolay Rostov was coming home on leave.
Denisov, too, was going home to Voronezh, and Rostov persuaded him to go with
him to Moscow and to pay him a visit there. Denisov met his comrade at the last
posting station but one, drank three bottles of wine with him, and, in spite of
the jolting of the road on the journey to Moscow, slept soundly lying at the
bottom of the posting sledge beside Rostov, who GREw more and more impatient, as
they got nearer to Moscow.

“Will it come soon? Soon? Oh, these insufferable streets, bunshops, street
lamps, and sledge drivers!” thought Rostov, when they had presented their papers
at the town gates and were driving into Moscow.

“Denisov, we're here! Asleep!” he kept saying, flinging his whole person
forward as though by that position he hoped to hasten the proGREss of the
sledge. Denisov made no response.

“Here's the corner of the cross-roads, where Zahar the sledge-driver used to
stand; and here is Zahar, too, and still the same horse. And here's the little
shop where we used to buy cakes. Make haste! Now!”

“Which house is it?” asked the driver.

“Over there, at the end, the big one; how is it you don't see it? That's our
house,” Rostov kept saying; “that's our house, of course.”

“Denisov! Denisov! we shall be there in a minute.”

Denisov raised his head, cleared his throat, and said nothing.

“Dmitry,” said Rostov to his valet on the box, “surely that light is
home?”

“To be sure it is; it's the light in your papa's study, too.”

“They've not gone to bed yet? Eh? What do you think?”

“Mind now, don't forget to get me out my new tunic,” added Rostov, fingering
his new moustaches.

“Come, get on,” he shouted to the driver. “And do wake up, Vasya,” he said to
Denisov, who had begun nodding again.

“Come, get on, three silver roubles for vodka—get on!” shouted Rostov, when
they were only three houses from the entrance. It seemed to him that the horses
were not moving. At last the sledge turned to the right into the approach,
Rostov saw the familiar cornice with the broken plaster overhead, the steps, the
lamp-post. He jumped out of the sledge while it was moving and ran into the
porch. The house stood so inhospitably, as though it were no concern of its who
had come into it. There was no one in the porch. “My God! is everything all
right?” wondered Rostov, stopping for a moment with a sinking heart, and then
running on again along the porch and up the familiar, crooked steps. Still the
same door handle, the dirtiness of which so often angered the countess, turned
in the same halting fashion. In the hall there was a single tallow candle
burning.

Old Mihailo was asleep on his perch.

Prokofy, the footman, a man so strong that he had lifted up a carriage, was
sitting there in his list shoes. He glanced towards the opening door and his
expression of sleepy indifference was suddenly transformed into one of
frightened ecstasy.

“Merciful Heavens! The young count!” he cried, recognising his young master.
“Can it be? my darling?” And Prokofy, shaking with emotion, made a dash towards
the drawing-room door, probably with the view of announcing him; but apparently
he changed his mind, for he came back and fell on his young master's
shoulder.

“All well?” asked Rostov, pulling his hand away from him.

“Thank God, yes! All, thank God! Only just finished supper! Let me have a
look at you, your excellency!”

“Everything perfectly all right?”

“Thank God, yes, thank God!”

Rostov, completely forgetting Denisov, flung off his fur coat and, anxious
that no one should prepare the way for him, he ran on tip-toe into the big, dark
reception-hall. Everything was the same, the same card-tables, the same
candelabra with a cover over it, but some one had already seen the young master,
and he had not reached the drawing-room when from a side door something swooped
headlong, like a storm upon him, and began hugging and kissing him. A second and
a third figure dashed in at a second door and at a third; more huggings, more
kisses, more outcries and tears of delight. He could not distinguish where and
which was papa, which was Natasha, and which was Petya. All were screaming and
talking and kissing him at the same moment. Only his mother was not among them,
that he remembered.

“And I never knew… Nikolenka … my darling!”

“Here he is … our boy … my darling Kolya.… Isn't he changed! Where are the
candles? Tea!”

“Kiss me too!”

“Dearest … and me too.”

Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mihalovna, Vera, and the old count were all
hugging him; and the servants and the maids flocked into the room with talk and
outcries.

Petya hung on his legs.

“Me too!” he kept shouting.

Natasha, after pulling him down to her and kissing his face all over, skipped
back from him and, keeping her hold of his jacket, pranced like a goat up and
down in the same place uttering shrill shrieks of delight.

All round him were loving eyes shining with tears of joy, all round were lips
seeking kisses.

Sonya too, as red as crimson baize, clung to his arm and beamed all over,
gazing blissfully at his eyes for which she had so long been waiting. Sonya was
just sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at this moment of happy, eager
excitement. She gazed at him, unable to take her eyes off him, smiling and
holding her breath. He glanced gratefully at her; but still he was expectant and
looking for some one, and the old countess had not come in yet. And now steps
were heard at the door. The steps were so rapid that they could hardly be his
mother's footsteps.

But she it was in a new dress that he did not know, made during his absence.
All of them let him go, and he ran to her. When they came together, she sank on
his bosom, sobbing. She could not lift up her face, and only pressed it to the
cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov, who had come into the room
unnoticed by any one, stood still looking at them and rubbing his eyes.

“Vassily Denisov, your son's friend,” he said, introducing himself to the
count, who looked inquiringly at him.

“Very welcome. I know you, I know you,” said the count, kissing and embracing
Denisov. “Nikolenka wrote to us … Natasha, Vera, here he is, Denisov.”

The same happy, ecstatic faces turned to the tousled figure of Denisov and
surrounded him.

“Darling Denisov,” squealed Natasha, and, beside herself with delight she
darted up to him, hugging and kissing him. Every one was disconcerted by
Natasha's behaviour. Denisov too reddened. but he smiled, took Natasha's hand
and kissed it.

Denisov was conducted to the room assigned him, while the Rostovs all
gathered about Nikolenka in the divan-room.

The old countess sat beside him, keeping tight hold of his hand, which she
was every minute kissing. The others thronged round them, gloating over every
movement, every glance, every word he uttered, and never taking their
enthusiastic and loving eyes off him. His brother and sisters quarrelled and
snatched from one another the place nearest him and disputed over which was to
bring him tea, a handkerchief, a pipe.

Rostov was very happy in the love they showed him. But the first minute of
meeting them had been so blissful that his happiness now seemed a little thing,
and he kept expecting something more and more and more.

Next morning after his journey he slept on till ten o'clock.

The adjoining room was littered with swords, bags, sabretaches, open trunks,
and dirty boots. Two pairs of cleaned boots with spurs had just been stood
against the wall. The servants brought in wash-hand basins, hot water for
shaving, and their clothes well brushed. The room was full of a masculine odour
and reeked of tobacco.

“Hi, Grishka, a pipe!” shouted the husky voice of Vaska Denisov. “Rostov, get
up!”

Rostov, rubbing his eyelids that seemed glued together, lifted his tousled
head from the warm pillow.

“Why, is it late?”

“It is late, nearly ten,” answered Natasha's voice, and in the next room they
heard the rustle of starched skirts and girlish laughter. The door was opened a
crack, and there was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair and
merry faces. Natasha with Sonya and Petya had come to see if he were not getting
up.

“Nikolenka, get up!” Natasha's voice was heard again at the door.

“At once!” Meanwhile in the outer room Petya had caught sight of the swords
and seized upon them with the rapture small boys feel at the sight of a soldier
brother, and regardless of its not being the proper thing for his sisters to see
the young men undressed, he opened the bedroom door.

“Is this your sword?” he shouted.

The girls skipped away. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the bed-clothes,
looking with a scared face to his comrade for assistance. The door admitted
Petya and closed after him. A giggle was heard from outside.

“Nikolenka, come out in your dressing-gown,” cried Natasha's voice.

“Is this your sword?” asked Petya, “or is it yours?” he turned with
deferential respect to the swarthy, whiskered Denisov.

Rostov made haste to get on his shoes and stockings, put on his dressing-gown
and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting into the
other. Sonya was “making cheeses,” and had just whirled her skirt into a balloon
and was ducking down, when he came in. They were dressed alike in new blue
frocks, both fresh, rosy, and good-humoured. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, taking
her brother's arm, led him into the divan-room, and a conversation began between
them. They had not time to ask and answer all the questions about the thousand
trifling matters which could only be of interest to them. Natasha laughed at
every word he said and at every word she said, not because what they said was
amusing, but because she was in high spirits and unable to contain her joy,
which brimmed over in laughter.

“Ah, isn't it nice, isn't it splendid!” she kept saying every moment. Under
the influence of the warm sunshine of love, Rostov felt that for the first time
for a year and a half his soul and his face were expanding in that childish
smile, he had not once smiled since he left home.

“No, I say,” she said, “you're quite a man now, eh? I'm awfully glad you're
my brother.” She touched his moustache. “I do want to know what sort of
creatures you men are. Just like us? No.”

“Why did Sonya run away?” asked Rostov.

“Oh, there's a lot to say about that! How are you going to speak to Sonya?
Shall you call her ‘thou' or ‘you'?”

“As it happens,” said Rostov.

“Call her ‘you,' please; I'll tell you why afterwards.”

“But why?”

“Well, I'll tell you now. You know that Sonya's my friend, such a friend that
I burnt my arm for her sake. Here, look.” She pulled up her muslin sleeve and
showed him on her long, thin, soft arm above the elbow near the shoulder (on the
part which is covered even in a ball-dress) a red mark.

“I burnt that to show her my love. I simply heated a ruler in the fire and
pressed it on it.”

Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms,
and looking into Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that
world of home and childhood which had no meaning for any one else but gave him
some of the GREatest pleasures in his life. And burning one's arm with a ruler
as a proof of love did not strike him as pointless; he understood it, and was
not surprised at it.

“Well, is that all?” he asked.

“Well, we are such friends, such GREat friends! That's nonsense—the ruler;
but we are friends for ever. If she once loves any one, it's for ever; I don't
understand that, I forget so quickly.”

“Well, what then?”

“Yes, so she loves me and you.” Natasha suddenly flushed. “Well, you remember
before you went away … She says you are to forget it all… She said, I shall
always love him, but let him be free. That really is splendid, noble! Yes, yes;
very noble? Yes?” Natasha asked with such seriousness and emotion that it was
clear that what she was saying now she had talked of before with tears. Rostov
thought a little.

“I never take back my word,” he said. “And besides, Sonya's so charming that
who would be such a fool as to renounce his own happiness?”

“No, no,” cried Natasha. “She and I have talked about that already. We knew
that you'd say that. But that won't do, because, don't you see, if you say
that—if you consider yourself bound by your word, then it makes it as though she
had said that on purpose. It makes it as though you were, after all, obliged to
marry her, and it makes it all wrong.”

Rostov saw that it had all been well thought over by them. On the previous
day, Sonya had struck him by her beauty; in the glimpse he had caught of her
to-day, she seemed even prettier. She was a charming girl of sixteen, obviously
passionately in love with him (of that he could not doubt for an instant). “Why
should he not love her now, even if he did not marry her,” mused Rostov, “but …
just now he had so many other joys and interests!”

“Yes, that's a very good conclusion on their part,” he thought; “I must
remain free.”

“Well, that's all right, then,” he said; “we'll talk about it later on. Ah,
how glad I am to be back with you!” he added. “Come, tell me, you've not been
false to Boris?”

“That's nonsense!” cried Natasha, laughing. “I never think of him nor of any
one else, and don't want to.”

“Oh, you don't, don't you! Then what do you want?”

“I?” Natasha queried, and her face beamed with a happy smile. “Have you seen
Duport?”

“No.”

“Not seen Duport, the celebrated dancer? Oh, well then, you won't understand.
I—that's what I am.” Curving her arms, Natasha held out her skirt, as dancers
do, ran back a few steps, whirled round, executed a pirouette, bringing her
little feet together and standing on the very tips of her toes, moved a few
steps forward.

“You see how I stand? there, like this,” she kept saying; but she could not
keep on her toes. “So that's what I'm going to be! I'm never going to be married
to any one; I'm going to be a dancer. Only, don't tell anybody.”

Rostov laughed so loudly and merrily that Denisov in his room felt envious,
and Natasha could not help laughing with him.

“No, isn't it all right?” she kept saying.

“Oh, quite. So you don't want to marry Boris now?”

Natasha got hot.

“I don't want to marry any one. I'll tell him so myself when I see
him.”

“Oh, will you?” said Rostov.

“But that's all nonsense,” Natasha prattled on. “And, I say, is Denisov
nice?” she asked.

“Yes, he's nice.”

“Well, good-bye, go and dress. Is he a dreadful person — Denisov?”

“How, dreadful?” asked Nikolay. “No, Vaska's jolly.”

“You call him Vaska? … that's funny. Well, is he very nice?”

“Very nice.”

“Make haste and come to tea, then. We are all going to have it
together.”

And Natasha rose on to her toes and stepped out of the room, as dancers do,
but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. Rostov reddened on meeting
Sonya in the drawing-room. He did not know how to behave with her. Yesterday
they had kissed in the first moment of joy at meeting, but to-day they felt that
out of the question. He felt that every one, his mother and his sisters, were
looking inquiringly at him, and wondering how he would behave with her. He
kissed her hand, and called her you and Sonya. But their eyes when
they met spoke more fondly and kissed tenderly. Her eyes asked his forgiveness
for having dared, by Natasha's mediation, to remind him of his promise, and
thanked him for his love. His eyes thanked her for offering him his freedom, and
told her that whether so, or otherwise, he should never cease to love her,
because it was impossible not to love her.

“How queer it is, though,” said Vera, selecting a moment of general silence,
“that Sonya and Nikolenka meet now and speak like strangers.”

Vera's observation was true, as were all her observations; but like most of
her observations it made every one uncomfortable—not Sonya, Nikolay, and Natasha
only crimsoned; the countess, too, who was afraid of her son's love for Sonya as
a possible obstacle to his making a brilliant marriage, blushed like a
girl.

To Rostov's surprise, Denisov in his new uniform, pomaded and perfumed, was
quite as dashing a figure in a drawing-room as on the field of battle, and was
polite to the ladies and gentlemen as Rostov had never expected to see him.