‘Yes, we’re in a philosophical mood,’ said Natasha, glancing round for a moment before going on with the conversation. They were now on to dreams.
Dimmler began to play. Natasha tiptoed silently across to the table, picked up the candle and took it back to them, sitting down quietly in her place. It was dark in the room, especially where they were sitting on the sofa, but the silver light of the full moon shone in through the big windows and spread across the floor.
‘Do you know what I think?’ said Natasha, in a whisper, moving up closer to Nikolay and Sonya as Dimmler finished the nocturne and sat there faintly rippling the strings as if he didn’t know whether to stop playing or begin a new piece, ‘I think you can go on remembering, remembering and remembering until you can pre-remember things that happened before you were ever in this world . . .’
‘That’s metempsychosis,’ said Sonya, who had been good at lessons and remembered everything. ‘The Egyptians used to believe that our souls have been in animals, and will go back into animals again.’
‘No, listen, I don’t think we’ve ever been in animals,’ said Natasha, still whispering even though the music had finished, ‘but I do know for certain we were once angels somewhere beyond, and we came here, and that’s why we can remember everything . . .’
‘Please may I join you?’ said Dimmler, coming over quietly and sitting down beside them.
‘If we’ve been angels, why did we fall down so low?’ said Nikolay. ‘No, it’s not possible!’
‘It’s not a question of being low . . . who said anything about being low? . . . The reason I know what I used to be is this,’ Natasha replied with great conviction. ‘You know the soul is immortal . . . Well, if I’m going to live for ever, that means I’ve lived before. I’ve been living all through eternity.’
‘Yes, but it’s hard for us to conceive of eternity,’ said Dimmler, who had joined the young people with a slightly scornful smile, but was now talking just as quietly and seriously as they were.
‘Why is it hard to conceive of eternity?’ said Natasha. ‘There’ll be today, there’ll be tomorrow, and there’ll be always, and there was yesterday, and the day before . . .’
‘Natasha! It’s your turn! Sing something for me,’ called the voice of the countess. ‘What are you doing sitting there in a huddle like conspirators?’
‘Oh, Mamma, I really don’t feel like it!’ said Natasha, but she got up as she spoke.
None of them, not even Dimmler, and he was no youngster, wanted to break off the conversation and come out of their corner of the sitting-room, but Natasha got to her feet, and Nikolay seated himself at the clavichord. Standing, as always, in the centre of the room, and choosing the best place for maximum resonance, Natasha began singing her mother’s favourite piece.
She had said she didn’t feel like singing, but she hadn’t sung for a very long time, and it would be a long time in the future before she sang again as she sang that evening. Count Ilya heard her singing from his study, where he was in consultation with Mitenka, and he behaved like a schoolboy rushing through a lesson so he could get out to play, bungling his instructions to the steward until at last he stopped talking, and so did Mitenka, who just stood there before him silent and smiling, both of them listening. Nikolay never took his eyes off his sister, and breathed in and out when she did. Sonya, as she listened, thought of the vast difference between her and her friend, and the impossibility of her ever being anything like as enchanting as her cousin. The old countess sat there with a bitter-sweet smile on her face and tears in her eyes, shaking her head now and then. She was thinking about Natasha and her own youth, and she knew there was something terribly wrong about Natasha’s impending marriage to Prince Andrey.
Dimmler had sidled up and sat down beside the countess, and now he listened with his eyes closed. ‘No, Countess,’ he said, at last, ‘this is talent on a European scale. She’s beyond all coaching . . . Such a gentle tone, such tenderness, and power . . .’
‘Oh, I’m so worried about her, I really am,’ said the countess, forgetting who she was speaking to. Maternal instinct told her there was something excessive about Natasha, something that would stop her ever being happy.
Natasha had not quite finished singing when fourteen-year-old Petya rushed in, wildly excited, to announce the arrival of the mummers. Natasha stopped abruptly.
‘Idiot!’ she yelled at her brother. She ran over to a chair, flopped down on to it and broke into such violent sobbing that it was a long while before she could stop.
‘It’s nothing, Mamma. Honestly, it’s nothing. It’s all right. Petya startled me, that’s all,’ she said, trying hard to smile, but the tears still flowed and she was still racked with sobs.
