‘Come on Nikolay, it’s time to get up!’ Natasha’s voice rang out through the door.
‘I’m coming!’
Meanwhile in the outer room Petya had spotted the swords and seized them with the rapture small boys feel at the sight of an elder brother who is in the army. Forgetting that it was not proper for his sisters to see young men in a state of undress, he opened the bedroom door.
‘Is this your sabre?’ he shouted.
The girls skipped away. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the bedclothes, grimacing and appealing to his friend for help. The door admitted Petya and closed again after him. Giggling could be heard from outside.
‘Nikolay, put on your dressing-gown,’ cried Natasha’s voice.
‘Is this your sabre?’ asked Petya. ‘Or is it yours?’ He turned with enormous respect to the black-moustached Denisov.
Rostov pulled on his shoes and stockings at great speed, put on his dressing-gown and went out. Natasha had put on one of his spurred boots and was getting into the other. Sonya had been twirling round and as he came in her skirt ballooned out and she sank down. The girls were dressed alike in new frocks of cornflower blue; they looked fresh, rosy and high-spirited. Sonya ran away, but Natasha took her brother by the arm, led him away into the sitting-room and began to talk to him. There wasn’t enough time in the world for them to ask and answer questions about the thousand little details that only they would have wanted to know about. Natasha laughed at every word he said and at every word she said, not because what they said was funny but because she was so exuberant she couldn’t contain her joy and it kept overflowing into laughter.
‘Oh, it’s wonderful! Isn’t it marvellous?’ she said to everything. For the first time in a year and a half, basking in the warmth of all this love radiating from Natasha, Rostov could feel his spirit and his features expanding into a childish smile, the like of which he had not smiled since he left home.
‘Oh, listen,’ she said, ‘you’re a real man now, aren’t you? I’m awfully glad you’re my brother.’ She touched his moustache. ‘I do want to know what you’re like, you men. Are you like us?’
‘No. Why did Sonya run away?’ asked Rostov.
‘Oh, that’s a long story! How are you going to speak to Sonya? Will you call her “
‘I’ll see what happens,’ said Rostov.
‘Call her “
‘No, but why?’
‘Oh, all right, I’ll tell you now. You know Sonya’s my friend. She’s such a close friend that I’d burn my arm for her. Look.’ She rolled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long, thin, soft little arm well above the elbow near the shoulder (on a part which is always covered even in a ballgown).
‘I did that to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the fire and pressed it there.’
Sitting in his old school-room on the sofa with little cushions on both arms, and looking into Natasha’s desperately eager eyes, Rostov was transported back into that world of family life and childhood which meant nothing to anyone else but gave him some of the sweetest pleasures in his life, where burning your arm with a ruler as a token of love didn’t seem a silly thing to do – he understood it and it came as no surprise.
‘Well, what about it?’ he asked.
‘Well, that’s us, really close friends! I know the ruler and all that is stupid, but we are friends for ever. If she loves anybody, it’ll be for ever. I can’t understand that. I forget things so easily.’
‘Well, what about it?’
‘Well, you see, she loves me and you.’ Natasha suddenly blushed. ‘Well, you remember what happened before you went away . . . She wants you to forget all about it . . . She said I’ll always love him, but let him be free. Isn’t that wonderful? I think it’s a noble thing to do. She’s being really noble. Isn’t she?’ Natasha was being serious and emotional – it was clear that what she was saying now she had gone through before in tears. Rostov considered.
‘I never go back on my word,’ he said. ‘Anyway, Sonya’s so lovely – who’d be stupid enough to throw away his own happiness?’ ‘No, no, no,’ cried Natasha. ‘We’ve talked about that already. We knew you’d say that. But it won’t do. Oh, look, if you say that – if you think you can’t go back on your word – it makes it seem as if she said it all on purpose. It makes it seem as if you’re being forced into marrying her, and it’s all gone wrong.’
Rostov could see that it had all been well thought through by the pair of them. Sonya had struck him as really beautiful yesterday; today, even though he had only caught a glimpse of her, she had looked even prettier. She was a charming sixteen-year-old, obviously passionately in love with him – he didn’t doubt this for a minute. ‘Why shouldn’t he love her and even get married to her one day? But not now,’ mused Rostov. ‘Just now there is so much else to do and enjoy!’
‘Yes, they have thought it through,’ he thought; ‘I must keep my freedom.’
