‘That’s right! ’ cried the count, opening his wet eyes, and several times interrupted by a sniff, as though he had put a bottle of strong smelling- salts to his nose. He went on, ‘Only let our sovereign say the word, we will sacrifice everything without grudging.’
Before Shinshin had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on che count’s patriotism, Natasha had jumped up from her seat and run to her father.
‘What a darling this papa is!’ she cried, kissing him, and she glanced again at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had come back with her fresh interest in life.
‘Oh, what a patriot she is!’ said Shinshin.
‘Not a patriot at all, but simply . . .’ Natasha began, nettled. ‘You think everything funny, but this isn’t at all a joke . . .’
‘A joke,’ repeated the count. ‘Only let him say the word, we will all go . . . We’re not a set of Germans!’
‘Did you notice,’ said Pierre, ‘the words, “for deliberation . . ’
‘Yes, to be sure, for whatever might come . . .’ •
Meanwhile Petya, to whom no one was paying attention, went up to his father, and very red, said in a voice that passed abruptly from gruff- ness to shrillness, ‘Well, now, papa, I tell you positively—and mamma too, say what you will—I tell you you must let me go into the army, because I cannot . . . and that’s all about it.’
The countess in dismay turned her eyes up to heaven, clasped her hands, and said angrily to her husband:
‘See, what your talk has brought us to!’
But the count recovered the same instant from the excitement.
‘Come, come,’ he said. ‘A fine warrior you’d make! Don’t talk nonsense; you have your studies to attend to.’
‘It’s not nonsense, papa. Fedya Obolensky’s younger than I am, and he’s going too; and what’s more, I can’t anyhow study now, when . . .’ Petya stopped, flushed till his face was perspiring, yet stoutly went on . . . ‘when the country’s in danger.’
‘Hush, hush, nonsense! . . .’
‘Why, but you said yourself you would sacrifice everything.’
‘Petya! I tell you be quiet,’ cried the count, looking at his wife, who was gazing with a white face and fixed eyes at her younger son.
‘Let me say . . . Pyotr Kirillovitch here will tell you . . .’
‘I tell you, it’s nonsense; the milk’s hardly dry on his lips, and he wants to go into the army! Come, come, I tell you,’ and the count, taking the papers with him, was going out of the room, probably to read them once more in his study before his nap.
‘Pyotr Kirillovitch, let us have a smoke. . . .’
Pierre felt embarrassed and hesitating. Natasha’s unusually brilliant and eager eyes, continually turned upon him with more than cordiality in them, had reduced him to this condition.
‘No; I think I’ll go home. . .
‘Go home? But you meant to spend the evening with us. . . . You
come rarely enough, as it is. And this girl of mine/ said the count good- humouredly, looking towards Natasha, ‘is never in spirits but when you are here. . .
‘But I have forgotten something. I really must go home. . . . Business. . . .’ Pierre said hurriedly.
‘Well, good-bye then,’ said the count as he went out of the room.
‘Why are you going away? Why are you so upset? What for?’ Natasha asked Pierre, looking with challenging eyes into his face.
‘Because I love you!’ he wanted to say, but he did not say it. He crimsoned till the tears came, and dropped his eyes.
‘Because it is better for me not to be so often with you. . . . Because . . . no, simply I have business. . . .’
‘What for? No, do tell me,’ Natasha was beginning resolutely, and she suddenly stopped. Both in dismay and embarrassment looked at one another. He tried to laugh, but could not; his smile expressed suffering, and he kissed her hand and went out without a word.
Pierre made up his mind not to visit the Rostovs again.
XXI
After the uncompromising refusal he had received, Petya went to his own room, and there locking himself in, he wept bitterly. All his family behaved as though they noticed nothing when he came in to tea, silent and depressed with tear-stained eyes.
Next day, the Tsar arrived in Moscow. Several of the Rostovs’ servants asked permission to go out to see the Tsar. That morning Petya spent a long time dressing. He combed his hair and arranged his collar like a grown-up man. He screwed up his eyes before the looking-glass, gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying anything to any one, he put on his cap and went out of the house by the back way, trying to escape observation. Petya had resolved to go straight to where the Tsar was, and to explain frankly to some gentleman-inwaiting (Petya fancied that the Tsar was always surrounded by gentle- men-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostov, wished, in spite of his youth, to serve his country, that youth could be no hindrance to devotion, and that he was ready . . . Petya had, while he was dressing, prepared a great many fine speeches to make to the gentleman-in-waiting.
