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But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice for him.
“No, you have not understood me, don’t let us talk about it,” she replied, wiping away her tears.
“Maybe I do love a poor girl,” said Nicholas to himself. “Am I to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could speak so to me. Because Snya is poor I must not love her,” he thought, “must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always sacrifice my feelings for my family’s welfare,” he said to himself, “but I can’t coerce my feelings. If I love Snya, that feeling is for me stronger and higher than all else.”
Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and the portionless Snya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not refrain from grumbling at and worrying Snya, often pulling her up without reason, addressing her stiffly as “my dear,” and using the formal “you” instead of the intimate “thou” in speaking to her. The kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Snya because that poor, dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for finding fault with her.
Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till the beginning of the new year. Natsha was still as much in love with her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.
Things were not cheerful in the Rostvs’ home.
Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though the calm frost of twenty degrees Raumur, the dazzling sunshine by day, and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special celebration of the season.
On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning, was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his study. Snya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastsya Ivnovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old ladies. Natsha came into the room, went up to Snya, glanced at what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without speaking.
“Why are you wandering about like an outcast?” asked her mother. “What do you want?”
“Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!” said Natsha, with glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.
The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.
“Don’t look at me, Mamma! Don’t look; I shall cry directly.”
“Sit down with me a little,” said the countess.
“Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?”
Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to hide them and left the room.
She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then went into the maids’ room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from the serfs’ quarters.
“Stop playing—there’s a time for everything,” said the old woman.
“Let her alone, Kondrtevna,” said Natsha. “Go, Mavrshka, go.”
Having released Mavrshka, Natsha crossed the dancing hall and went to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.
“What can I do with them?” thought Natsha.
“Oh, Nikta, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats.”
“Just a few oats?” said Misha, cheerfully and readily.
“Go, go quickly,” the old man urged him.
“And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk.”
On her way past the butler’s pantry she told them to set a samovar, though it was not at all the time for tea.
Fka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natsha liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked whether the samovar was really wanted.
“Oh dear, what a young lady!” said Fka, pretending to frown at Natsha.
No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as Natsha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one’s orders so readily as they did hers. “What can I do, where can I go?” thought she, as she went slowly along the passage.
“Nastsya Ivnovna, what sort of children shall I have?” she asked the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman’s jacket.
“Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers,” answered the buffoon.
“O Lord, O Lord, it’s always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am I to do with myself?” And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.
Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natsha sat down, listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got up again.
“The island of Madagascar,” she said, “Ma-da-gas-car,” she repeated, articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room.
