|
Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending
closely over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments
with a smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position
of his legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor
of perfume, and admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines
of his legs in their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told
the blonde lady that he wished to run away with a certain lady
here in Voronezh.
"Which lady?"
"A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes" (Nicholas
looked at his partner) "are blue, her mouth coral and ivory;
her figure" (he glanced at her shoulders) "like Diana's...."
The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was
talking about.
"Ah, Nikita Ivanych!" cried Nicholas, rising politely,
and as if wishing Nikita Ivanych to share his joke, he began to
tell him of his intention to elope with a blonde lady.
The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor's
good-natured wife came up with a look of disapproval.
"Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicholas," said
she, pronouncing the name so that Nicholas at once understood
that Anna Ignatyevna was a very important person. "Come,
Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?"
"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?"
"Anna Ignatyevna Malvintseva. She has heard from her
niece how you rescued her... Can you guess?"
"I rescued such a lot of them!" said Nicholas.
"Her niece, Princess Bolkonskaya. She is here in Voronezh
with her aunt. Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?"
"Not a bit! Please don't, Aunt!"
"Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!"
The governor's wife led him up to a tall and very stout old
lady with a blue headdress, who had just finished her game of
cards with the most important personages of the town. This was
Malvintseva, Princess Mary's aunt on her mother's side, a rich,
childless widow who always lived in Voronezh. When Rostov approached
her she was standing settling up for the game. She looked at him
and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued to upbraid the general
who had won from her.
"Very pleased, mon cher," she then said, holding
out her hand to Nicholas. "Pray come and see me."
After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father,
whom Malvintseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what
Nicholas knew of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite
of hers, the important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating
her invitation to come to see her.
Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At
the mention of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness
and even of fear, which he himself did not understand.
When he had parted from Malvintseva Nicholas wished to return
to the dancing, but the governor's little wife placed her plump
hand on his sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk
with him, led him to her sitting room, from which those who were
there immediately withdrew so as not to be in her way.
"Do you know, dear boy," began the governor's wife
with a serious expression on her kind little face, "that
really would be the match for you: would you like me to arrange
it?"
"Whom do you mean, Aunt?" asked Nicholas.
"I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine
Petrovna speaks of Lily, but I say, no- the princess! Do you want
me to do it? I am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What
a charming girl she is, really! And she is not at all so plain,
either."
"Not at all," replied Nicholas as if offended at
the idea. "As befits a soldier, Aunt, I don't force myself
on anyone or refuse anything," he said before he had time
to consider what he was saying.
"Well then, remember, this is not a joke!"
"Of course not!"
"Yes, yes," the governor's wife said as if talking
to herself. "But, my dear boy, among other things you are
too attentive to the other, the blonde. One is sorry for the husband,
really...."
"Oh no, we are good friends with him," said Nicholas
in the simplicity of his heart; it did not enter his head that
a pastime so pleasant to himself might not be pleasant to someone
else.
"But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor's
wife!" thought Nicholas suddenly at supper. "She will
really begin to arrange a match... and Soyna...?" And on
taking leave of the governor's wife, when she again smilingly
said to him, "Well then, remember!" he drew her aside.
"But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt..."
"What is it, my dear? Come, let's sit down here,"
said she.
Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most
intimate thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother,
his sister, or his friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger.
When he afterwards recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable
frankness which had very important results for him, it seemed
to him- as it seems to everyone in such cases- that it was merely
some silly whim that seized him: yet that burst of frankness,
together with other trifling events, had immense consequences
for him and for all his family.
"You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an
heiress, but the very idea of marrying for money is repugnant
to me."
"Oh yes, I understand," said the governor's wife.
"But Princess Bolkonskaya- that's another matter. I will
tell you the truth. In the first place I like her very much, I
feel drawn to her; and then, after I met her under such circumstances-
so strangely, the idea often occurred to me: 'This is fate.' Especially
if you remember that Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I
had never happened to meet her before, somehow it had always happened
that we did not meet. And as long as my sister Natasha was engaged
to her brother it was of course out of the question for me to
think of marrying her. And it must needs happen that I should
meet her just when Natasha's engagement had been broken off...
and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone
and never will, only to you."
The governor's wife pressed his elbow gratefully.
"You know Sonya, my cousin? I love her, and promised
to marry her, and will do so.... So you see there can be no question
about-" said Nicholas incoherently and blushing.
"My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sonya
has nothing and you yourself say your Papa's affairs are in a
very bad way. And what about your mother? It would kill her, that's
one thing. And what sort of life would it be for Sonya- if she's
a girl with a heart? Your mother in despair, and you all ruined....
No, my dear, you and Sonya ought to understand that."
Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.
"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible," he rejoined
with a sigh, after a short pause. "Besides, would the princess
have me? And besides, she is now in mourning. How can one think
of it!"
"But you don't suppose I'm going to get you married at
once? There is always a right way of doing things," replied
the governor's wife.
"What a matchmaker you are, Aunt..." said Nicholas,
kissing her plump little hand.
|
