No longer interested in overtaking, Nikolay drove smoothly all the way home, constantly gazing at Sonya through the flickering glow of the weird moonlight, searching beyond those eyebrows and moustaches for a glimpse of two different Sonyas, the old one and the new one from whom he had now resolved never to be parted. His eyes were constantly on her, and as both visions of Sonya impressed themselves upon him, recreating in his memory the smell of burnt cork that had blurred with the thrill of their kiss, he began to drink in great lungfuls of frosty air, he glanced down at the speeding earth and up at the glittering heavens, and he knew he was back in fairyland.
‘Sonya, do you feel good?’ he asked once or twice, with a meaningful shift to the intimate
‘Oh yes. You too?’ answered Sonya, also calling him
Half-way home, Nikolay handed the reins to a coachman, ran over to Natasha’s sledge for a moment and stood on the running-board.
‘Natasha,’ he whispered in French, ‘listen, I’ve made up my mind about Sonya.’
‘Have you told her?’ asked Natasha, suddenly aglow with delight.
‘Oh, Natasha, you do look funny with that moustache and those eyebrows! Are you pleased?’
‘Of course I’m pleased. I really am! I was beginning to lose patience with you. I never told you, but you’ve been treating her very badly. A girl with a heart like that, Nikolay. Of course I’m pleased! I know I can be horrible, but I did feel awkward about being so happy on my own, and Sonya not being happy,’ Natasha went on. ‘Now, I really am pleased. Go on, get back to her.’
‘I will in a minute. Oh, you don’t know how funny you look!’ said Nikolay, staring closely and discovering in her as well, his own sister, something strangely warm and enchanting that he had never seen before. ‘Natasha, it’s magic, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘and you’ve done the right thing.’
‘If only I’d seen her before as she is now,’ Nikolay was thinking, ‘I’d have asked her long ago what to do, and I’d have done anything she said, and everything would have been all right.’
‘So, you are pleased, and I have done the right thing?’ he asked.
‘Of course you have! Mamma and I had a few words about it only the other day. Mamma said she was setting a trap for you. How could she say that? I almost lost my temper with her. I won’t have a bad word said or thought about Sonya. There’s nothing but good in her.’
‘So it is the right thing to do?’ said Nikolay, closely examining the look on her face to see whether she was telling the truth. Then he hopped off the sledge, crunched down into the snow and dashed back to his own troika. She was still sitting there, the same Circassian complete with moustache, happy smile and sparkling eyes, peeping out from under the sable hood, and this was Sonya, the Sonya who was now certain to become his happy and loving future wife.
When they got home the two young ladies described to the countess how much they had enjoyed their visit to the Melyukovs’ and then went off to their room. They undressed for bed without washing off their moustaches, and then sat there for quite some time just talking about how happy they were. They told each other how they would live after they were married, and what good friends their husbands would be, and, again, how happy they would be. There were two mirrors on Natasha’s table, set up earlier in the evening by Dunyasha.
‘But when will it happen? I’m scared it won’t ever happen . . . It’s too much to hope for!’ said Natasha, getting to her feet and going over to the mirrors.
‘Sit down with the mirrors, Natasha. You might just see him,’ said Sonya.
Natasha lit two candles and sat down. ‘I can see somebody with a moustache,’ said Natasha, catching sight of her own face.
‘You mustn’t laugh, miss,’ said Dunyasha.
With the assistance of Sonya and the maid Natasha adjusted one of the mirrors, then she stopped talking and went all serious. For some time she sat there, staring down the row of disappearing candles reflected in the mirrors. Guided by the tales she had heard, she was expecting to see either a coffin, or perhaps
‘Why do other people see things and I don’t?’ she said. ‘You try, Sonya. Today you really must. Do it for me. I feel absolutely terrified today!’
Sonya sat down in front of the mirror, adjusted the angle and peered into it.
‘Miss Sonya’s bound to see something,’ whispered Dunyasha. ‘You laugh too much.’
Sonya heard these words, and also heard Natasha’s whispered response: ‘Yes, I know she’ll see something. She did last year.’ For two or three minutes nobody spoke.
‘She’s bound to . . .’ Natasha began to whisper, but she never finished her sentence . . . Suddenly Sonya pushed the mirror away and put a hand over her eyes. ‘Oh, Natasha!’ she said.
