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After a while “Uncle” came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and small top boots. And Natsha felt that this costume, the very one she had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otrdnoe, was just the right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat. “Uncle” too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother’s and sister’s laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment.

“That’s right, young countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw anyone like her!” said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been cut short. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!”

Soon after “Uncle’s” reappearance the door was opened, evidently from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head, this woman (who was “Uncle’s” housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors d’oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her face. “Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her expression said to Rostv. How could one help understanding? Not only Nicholas, but even Natsha understood the meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when Ansya Fdorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves made with sugar.

All this was the fruit of Ansya Fdorovna’s housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Ansya Fdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles.

“Take this, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, as she offered Natsha first one thing and then another.

Natsha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such a chicken anywhere. Ansya Fdorovna left the room.

After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostv and “Uncle” talked of past and future hunts, of Rugy and Ilgin’s dogs, while Natsha sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several times to wake Ptya that he might eat something, but he only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natsha felt so lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one’s own house, “Uncle,” answering a thought that was in his visitors’ minds, said:

“This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come. That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?”

“Uncle’s” face was very significant and even handsome as he said this. Involuntarily Rostv recalled all the good he had heard about him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province “Uncle” had the reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer.

“Why don’t you enter the service, Uncle?”

“I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That’s it, come on! I can’t make head or tail of it. That’s for you—I haven’t brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter—that’s it, come on! Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why have you shut it?”

The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen’s room, as they called the room for the hunt servants.

There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sounds of a balalyka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was playing. Natsha had been listening to those strains for some time and now went out into the passage to hear better.

“That’s Mtka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalyka. I’m fond of it,” said “Uncle.”

It was the custom for Mtka to play the balalyka in the huntsmen’s room when “Uncle” returned from the chase. “Uncle” was fond of such music.

“How good! Really very good!” said Nicholas with some unintentional superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him very much.

“Very good?” said Natsha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s tone. “Not ‘very good’ it’s simply delicious!”

Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment, seemed to her the acme of musical delight.

“More, please, more!” cried Natsha at the door as soon as the balalyka ceased. Mtka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalyka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. “Uncle” sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was repeated a hundred times. The balalyka was retuned several times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Ansya Fdorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.

“You like listening?” she said to Natsha, with a smile extremely like “Uncle’s.” “That’s a good player of ours,” she added.

“He doesn’t play that part right!” said “Uncle” suddenly, with an energetic gesture. “Here he ought to burst out—that’s it, come on!—ought to burst out.”

“Do you play then?” asked Natsha.

“Uncle” did not answer, but smiled.