War And Peace полностью

The butler, Foka, was the grumpiest person in the house, and Natasha liked to test her authority over him. Only too ready to distrust her, he went off to find out whether he had heard aright.

‘Young ladies nowadays!’ said Foka, pretending to scowl in Natasha’s direction.

There was no one in the house who sent more people scurrying around and gave the servants more work to do than Natasha. She couldn’t set eyes on anyone without sending him or her on an errand. She seemed to be challenging any one of them to get angry or sulky, but no one’s orders were more lovingly obeyed by the servants than Natasha’s. ‘What can I possibly do now? Where can I possibly go?’ Natasha wondered as she ambled down the corridor.

‘Nastasya Ivanovna, what sort of children am I going to have?’ she asked the buffoon, who came towards her dressed in his woman’s jacket.

‘You’ll have fleas, and dragonflies, and grasshoppers,’ answered the buffoon.

‘Oh, Lord! Same old story! Oh, where can I go? What can I do with myself?’ And she clattered rapidly upstairs to see Iogel and his wife, who lived on the top floor. The two governesses were sitting with the Iogels and on the table were plates of raisins, walnuts and almonds. The governesses were discussing whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natasha sat down, listened to their discussion with a solemn, pensive air, and then got up again. ‘The Island of Madagascar,’ she said. ‘Ma-da-gas-car,’ she repeated, lingering long on all four syllables, and then, ignoring Madame Schoss, who wanted to know what she was talking about, she walked out of the room.

Petya, her brother, was upstairs too. He and his tutor were busy making fireworks to let off that night.

‘Petya! Petya!’ she yelled at him. ‘Give me a piggy-back downstairs.’ Petya ran over and presented his back, she jumped up on it and grabbed him round the neck with both arms, and he skipped off, prancing along the landing. ‘No, don’t . . . The Island of Madagascar,’ she enunciated as she jumped down from his back and went downstairs.

Having inspected her kingdom, so to speak, and tested her authority, ensuring total obedience on all sides, but still bored out of her mind, Natasha went back to the great hall, took up her guitar and sat down with it in a dark corner behind a bookcase. She began to play on the bass string, picking out a melody remembered from an opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrey. For any passer-by who might have chanced to listen, the noise given off by her guitar would have been quite meaningless, but for her these sounds evoked a host of memories in her imagination. She sat there behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a shaft of light falling from the crack in the pantry door, listening to herself and remembering days gone by. She was in a reminiscing mood.

Sonya crossed the hall and went into the pantry carrying a small glass. Natasha glanced at her through the crack in the door, and suddenly she seemed to be remembering this scene from some time in the past, with the light falling through the crack in the pantry door, and Sonya walking across with the glass. ‘Yes, yes, that’s exactly how it was,’ thought Natasha.

‘What does this sound like, Sonya?’ Natasha called out, plucking the thick string.

‘Oh, there you are!’ said Sonya, startled, and she came over to listen. ‘I don’t know . . . Is it a storm?’ she said diffidently, afraid of getting it wrong.

‘Yes, that’s just how she jumped, just how she came over to me with that shy smile when it all happened before,’ thought Natasha, ‘and just like then . . . I thought there was something disappointing about her.’

‘No, it’s the chorus from The Water-Carrier.³ Listen.’ And Natasha hummed through the tune of the chorus for Sonya to recognize. ‘Where were you off to?’ asked Natasha.

‘I’m changing this glass of water. I’ve nearly finished that pattern.’

‘You can always find something to do, and I can’t, you know,’ said Natasha. ‘Where’s Nikolay gone?’

‘I think he’s asleep.’

‘Sonya, go and wake him up,’ said Natasha. ‘Tell him I want him to sing and I need him.’

She sat there a little while longer, wondering what it meant – this had all happened before – but she couldn’t work it out, and didn’t mind in the slightest, so she let herself glide back in imagination to the time when they had been alone together, and he had gazed at her with eyes full of love.

‘Oh, I do wish he’d come! I’m afraid he never will!’

‘And the worst thing is: I’m getting older. I really am. What’s in me now won’t be there soon. Perhaps he’s coming today – now! Perhaps he’s here already, sitting there in the drawing-room. Perhaps he did come yesterday, and I’ve forgotten about it.’ She got up, put down her guitar, and went into the drawing-room. They were all there – tutors, governesses and guests, sitting at the tea table, and the servants standing behind them. But not Prince Andrey – he wasn’t there, and life went on as before.