It took Nikolay no time to agree terms: six thousand roubles bought him seventeen prime stallions, ideal, as he put it, for presentation as remount samples. Rostov stayed for dinner, drank rather too much Hungarian wine and exchanged kisses with the country gentleman, having struck up a warm relationship with him, before driving back down the vilest of roads in the happiest of moods, constantly badgering the coachman to get a move on so they wouldn’t be late for the governor’s evening reception.
Nikolay changed his clothes, washed his head in cold water, splashed himself with scent and turned up at the governor’s, only slightly late, ready with the phrase ‘Better late than never’.
It wasn’t a ball as such, and not a word had been said about dancing, but they all knew Katerina Petrovna would play waltzes and schottisches on the clavier, so there would be some dancing, and everyone, counting on this, had come dressed for a ball.
Provincial life in the year 1812 went on exactly as before, except that the provincial towns were enlivened by the sudden appearance of wealthy families from Moscow, and also, as in everything else that was going on in Russia at that time, there was a noticeable attitude of devil-may-care resignation – we’re in it up to our knees, and nothing makes any difference now – and the inevitable small talk, instead of limiting itself to the weather or mutual acquaintances, was now extended to include Moscow, the army and Napoleon.
The gathering at the governor’s consisted of the cream of Voronezh society.
There were lots of ladies there, and quite a few people known to Nikolay from Moscow, but among the men there was no one to compete with a chevalier of St George, a dashing hussar and a young man as good-natured and well-bred as Count Rostov. Among the men there was an Italian prisoner, an officer in the French army; and Nikolay felt that the presence of this prisoner added to his stature as a Russian hero. He was a kind of trophy. Nikolay could sense this, and as far as he could tell everybody looked on the Italian in the same way. He went out of his way to treat the foreign officer with dignity while keeping him at arm’s length.
As soon as Nikolay entered the room in his hussar’s uniform, exuding a fragrance of scent mingled with wine, and pronounced the words, ‘Better late than never,’ which then echoed round the room, people clustered around him. All eyes were on him, and he felt immediately at home in this provincial town, taking his rightful place as a universal favourite, which was always an agreeable position to be in, but now amounted to a heady pleasure after long days of abstinence. At every posting-station, in all the taverns, in the horse-breeder’s smoking-room, he had encountered servant-girls flattered by his attention, but here at the governor’s evening party it was even better: Nikolay seemed to see before him an inexhaustible supply of young married ladies and pretty girls just waiting to be noticed by him. They all flirted with him, the ladies and the girls, and the elderly among them took it upon themselves from this first evening to try and get this gallant young rake of a hussar married off and settled down. The latter group included no less a person than the governor’s wife, who treated Rostov like a close relative, using affectionate language and calling him ‘Nicolas’.
Katerina Petrovna did what was expected of her, striking up with waltzes and schottisches, and the dancing began, an opportunity for Nikolay to charm the company even further by his nimble-footedness. He took them all by surprise by his free-and-easy dancing style. He even surprised himself by the way he danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow – he would have considered it improper, sheer bad taste, to career about with such abandon – but here he felt it necessary to amaze them all by producing something out of the ordinary, something they would assume to be the way they did things in the capital, though it hadn’t yet got out to the provinces.
