Page 92 of 470

“Niklenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy... the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the little countess!”

Anna Mikhylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her own eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God’s help, would inform her.

At dinner Anna Mikhylovna talked the whole time about the war news and about Niklenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received from him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might very likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these hints began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at the count and at Anna Mikhylovna, the latter very adroitly turned the conversation to insignificant matters. Natsha, who, of the whole family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her father and Anna Mikhylovna, that it had something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mikhylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as she was, Natsha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything relating to Niklenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner, but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her chair regardless of her governess’ remarks. After dinner, she rushed headlong after Anna Mikhylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.

“Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!”

“Nothing, my dear.”

“No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won’t give up—I know you know something.”

Anna Mikhylovna shook her head.

“You are a little slyboots,” she said.

“A letter from Niklenka! I’m sure of it!” exclaimed Natsha, reading confirmation in Anna Mikhylovna’s face.

“But for God’s sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mamma.”

“I will, I will, only tell me! You won’t? Then I will go and tell at once.”

Anna Mikhylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter, on condition that she should tell no one.

“No, on my true word of honor,” said Natsha, crossing herself, “I won’t tell anyone!” and she ran off at once to Snya.

“Niklenka... wounded... a letter,” she announced in gleeful triumph.

“Nicholas!” was all Snya said, instantly turning white.

Natsha, seeing the impression the news of her brother’s wound produced on Snya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.

She rushed to Snya, hugged her, and began to cry.

“A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he wrote himself,” said she through her tears.

“There now! It’s true that all you women are crybabies,” remarked Ptya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. “Now I’m very glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all blubberers and understand nothing.”

Natsha smiled through her tears.

“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Snya.

“No, but she said that it was all over and that he’s now an officer.”

“Thank God!” said Snya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she deceived you. Let us go to Mamma.”

Ptya paced the room in silence for a time.

“If I’d been in Niklenka’s place I would have killed even more of those Frenchmen,” he said. “What nasty brutes they are! I’d have killed so many that there’d have been a heap of them.”

“Hold your tongue, Ptya, what a goose you are!”

“I’m not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,” said Ptya.

“Do you remember him?” Natsha suddenly asked, after a moment’s silence.

Snya smiled.

“Do I remember Nicholas?”

“No, Snya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly, remember everything?” said Natsha, with an expressive gesture, evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. “I remember Niklenka too, I remember him well,” she said. “But I don’t remember Bors. I don’t remember him a bit.”

“What! You don’t remember Bors?” asked Snya in surprise.

“It’s not that I don’t remember—I know what he is like, but not as I remember Niklenka. Him—I just shut my eyes and remember, but Bors... No!” (She shut her eyes.) “No! there’s nothing at all.”

“Oh, Natsha!” said Snya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was out of the question, “I am in love with your brother once for all and, whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as long as I live.”

Natsha looked at Snya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said nothing. She felt that Snya was speaking the truth, that there was such love as Snya was speaking of. But Natsha had not yet felt anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.

“Shall you write to him?” she asked.

Snya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on himself?

“I don’t know. I think if he writes, I will write too,” she said, blushing.

“And you won’t feel ashamed to write to him?”

Snya smiled.

“No.”

“And I should be ashamed to write to Bors. I’m not going to.”

“Why should you be ashamed?”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s awkward and would make me ashamed.”

“And I know why she’d be ashamed,” said Ptya, offended by Natsha’s previous remark. “It’s because she was in love with that fat one in spectacles” (that was how Ptya described his namesake, the new Count Bezkhov) “and now she’s in love with that singer” (he meant Natsha’s Italian singing master), “that’s why she’s ashamed!”