Book Four: 1806 - Chapter XV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　To 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 wordof honor, was terrible.

　　At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, afterreturning from the theater, had had supper and were grouped roundthe clavichord. As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in thatpoetic atmosphere of love which pervaded the Rostov household thatwinter and, now after Dolokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, seemedto have grown thicker round Sonya and Natasha as the air does before athunderstorm. Sonya and Natasha, in the light-blue dresses they hadworn at the theater, looking pretty and conscious of it, were standingby the clavichord, happy and smiling. Vera was playing chess withShinshin in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for the returnof her husband and son, sat playing patience with the oldgentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov, with sparkling eyes andruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking chords with his shortfingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling as he sang, withhis 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 gazing with hissparkling black-agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natasha.

　　"Splendid! Excellent!" exclaimed Natasha. "Another verse, shesaid, without noticing Nicholas.

　　"Everything's still the same with them," thought Nicholas,glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his motherwith the old lady.

　　"Ah, and here's Nicholas!" cried Natasha, running up to him.

　　"Is Papa at home?" he asked.

　　"I am so glad you've come!" said Natasha, without answering him. "Weare enjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for mysake! Did you know?"

　　"No, Papa is not back yet," said Sonya.

　　"Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!" called the oldcountess from the drawing room.

　　Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silentlyat her table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From thedancing room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying topersuade Natasha to sing.

　　"All wight! All wight!" shouted Denisov. "It's no good makingexcuses 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 thesame 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 dancingroom where the clavichord stood.

　　Sonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude toDenisov's favorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing.Denisov 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'snothing to be happy about!" thought he.

　　Sonya struck the first chord of the prelude.

　　"My God, I'm a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through mybrain 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 Denisov and thegirls and avoiding their eyes.

　　"Nikolenka, what is the matter?" Sonya's eyes fixed on him seemed toask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.

　　Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha too, with her quick instinct,had instantly noticed her brother's condition. But, though she noticedit, she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far fromsorrow, sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herselfas young people often do. "No, I am too happy now to spoil myenjoyment by sympathy with anyone's sorrow," she felt, and she said toherself: "No, I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just asI am."

　　"Now, Sonya!" 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, asballet dancers do, Natasha, rising energetically from her heels to hertoes, stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.

　　"Yes, that's me!" she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze withwhich Denisov followed her.

　　"And what is she so pleased about?" thought Nicholas, looking at hissister. "Why isn't she dull and ashamed?"

　　Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, hereyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of hersurroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone mayproduce at the same intervals hold for the same time, but whichleave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrillyou and make you weep.

　　Natasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to singseriously, mainly because Denisov so delighted in her singing. Sheno longer sang as a child, there was no longer in her singing thatcomical, childish, painstaking effect that had been in it before;but she did not yet sing well, as all the connoisseurs who heard hersaid: "It is not trained, but it is a beautiful voice that must betrained." Only they generally said this some time after she hadfinished singing. While that untrained voice, with its incorrectbreathing and labored transitions, was sounding, even the connoisseurssaid nothing, but only delighted in it and wished to hear it again. Inher voice there was a virginal freshness, an unconsciousness of herown powers, and an as yet untrained velvety softness, which so mingledwith her lack of art in singing that it seemed as if nothing in thatvoice could be altered without spoiling it.

　　"What is this?" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widelyopened eyes. "What has happened to her? How she is singing today!" Andsuddenly the whole world centered for him on anticipation of thenext note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was dividedinto 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 thismisery, and money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor- it's allnonsense... but this is real.... Now then, Natasha, now then, dearest!Now then, darling! How will she take that si? She's taken it! ThankGod!" And without noticing that he was singing, to strengthen the sihe sung a second, a third below the high note. "Ah, God! How fine! DidI really take it? How fortunate!" he thought.

　　Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that wasfinest in Rostov's soul! And this something was apart fromeverything else in the world and above everything in the world."What were losses, and Dolokhov, and words of honor?... Allnonsense! One might kill and rob and yet be happy..."