Book Seven: 1810-11 - Chapter XI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic womanwearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress,surrounded by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feelingdull. They were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking atthe shadows the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heardthe steps and voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.

　　Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing theirthroats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule,came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. Theclown- Dimmler- and the lady- Nicholas- started a dance. Surrounded bythe screaming children the mummers, covering their faces anddisguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arrangedthemselves about the room.

　　"Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natasha! See whom shelooks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler- isn'the good! I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's aCircassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonya. And who is that?Well, you have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya- clear away the tables!And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar!Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him..." differentvoices were saying.

　　Natasha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them intothe back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and malegarments were called for and received from the footman by bare girlisharms from behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the youngMelyukovs joined the mummers.

　　Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for thevisitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles,peering into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing torecognize any of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs shefailed to recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters,or her late husband's, dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had puton.

　　"And who is is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the faceof her own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. "I suppose it is oneof the Rostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you servein?" she asked Natasha. "Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!" sheordered the butler who was handing things round. "That's not forbiddenby his law."

　　Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut bythe dancers, who- having decided once for all that being disguised, noone would recognize them- were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovnahid her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shookwith irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.

　　"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!" she said.

　　After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovnamade the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, astring, and a silver ruble were fetched and they all played gamestogether.

　　In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. Thecorked eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring,flushed, and merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize themummers, admired their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularlyhow they suited the young ladies, and she thanked them all forhaving entertained her so well. The visitors were invited to supper inthe drawing room, and the serfs had something served to them in theballroom.

　　"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!"said an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.

　　"Why?" said the eldest Melyukov girl.

　　"You wouldn't go, it takes courage..."

　　"I'll go," said Sonya.

　　"Tell what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukovgirl.

　　"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took acock, laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. Aftersitting a while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleighdrives up with harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in,just in the shape of a man, like an officer- comes in and sits down totable with her."

　　"Ah! ah!" screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror.

　　"Yes? And how... did he speak?"

　　"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he beganpersuading her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow,but she got frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in herhands. Then he caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in justthen..."

　　"Now, why frighten them?" said Pelageya Danilovna.

　　"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." said her daughter.

　　"And how does one do it in a barn?" inquired Sonya.

　　"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends onwhat you hear; hammering and knocking- that's bad; but a sound ofshifting grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too."

　　"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn."

　　Pelageya Danilovna smiled.

　　"Oh, I've forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?"

　　"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go," said Sonya.

　　"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?"

　　"Louisa Ivanovna, may I?" asked Sonya.

　　Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble gameor talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sonya's side, and gazed ather with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today,thanks to that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned toknow her. And really, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated,and prettier than Nicholas had ever seen her before.

　　"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!" he thoughtgazing at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturoussmile dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.

　　"I'm not afraid of anything," said Sonya. "May I go at once?" Shegot up.

　　They told her where the barn was and how she should stand andlisten, and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over herhead and shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.

　　"What a darling that girl is!" thought he. "And what have I beenthinking of till now?"

　　Sonya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas wenthastily to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd ofpeople really had made the house stuffy.

　　Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, buteven brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snowsparkled with so many stars that one did not wish to look up at thesky and the real stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary,while the earth was gay.

　　"I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?" thoughtNicholas. and running out from the porch he went round the corner ofthe house and along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sonyawould pass that way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewoodand across and along them a network of shadows from the bare oldlime trees fell on the snow and on the path. This path led to thebarn. The log walls of the barn and its snow-covered roof, that lookedas if hewn out of some precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. Atree in the garden snapped with the frost, and then all was againperfectly silent. His bosom seemed to inhale not air but thestrength of eternal youth and gladness.

　　From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, thebottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and heheard the voice of an old maidservant saying, "Straight, straight,along the path, Miss. Only, don't look back."

　　"I am not afraid," answered Sonya's voice, and along the path towardNicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sonya's feet in herthin shoes.

　　Sonya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple ofpaces away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholasshe had known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress,with tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sonya. She ran rapidlytoward him.

　　"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at herface all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under thecloak that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, andkissed her on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burntcork. Sonya kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her littlehands pressed them to his cheeks.

　　"Sonya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn andthen back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the backporch.