War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [194]
Old Mikhailo was sleeping on a trunk. The footman Prokofy, the one who was so strong he could lift a carriage by the back rail, was sitting and plaiting slippers out of cloth trimmings. He glanced at the opening door, and his indifferent, sleepy expression suddenly transformed into a rapturously alarmed one.
“Saints alive! The young count!” he cried, recognizing his young master. “What is this? My dear heart!” And Prokofy, trembling with excitement, rushed for the door to the living room, probably to announce him, but clearly thought again, came back, and pressed himself to the young master’s shoulder.
“Everyone well?” asked Rostov, pulling his arm away.
“Thank God! All of them, thank God! They’ve just finished eating! Let me look at you, Your Excellency!”
“Everything’s quite all right?”
“Thank God! Thank God!”
Rostov, forgetting all about Denisov, not wishing anyone to announce him beforehand, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe to the big, dark reception room. Everything was the same—the same card tables, the same chandelier in its cover; but someone had already seen the young master, and before he reached the drawing room, something flew out of a side door precipitously, like a storm, and embraced and began kissing him. A second, then a third such being sprang from a second, a third door; more embraces, more kisses, more shouts, tears of joy. He could not make out where and who was his papa, who was Natasha, who was Petya. Everybody wept, talked, and kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not among them—he noticed that.
“And I didn’t know…Nikolushka…Kolya, my friend.”
“Here he is…our boy. So changed! No! Candles! Tea!”
“Give me a kiss!”
“Darling…and me, too.”
Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhailovna, Vera, the old count embraced him; servants and maids filled the room, talking and ah-ing.
Petya clung to his legs.
“And me, too!” he cried.
Natasha pulled him down to her and kissed his face all over, then jumped back and, holding the skirt of his Hungarian jacket, hopped up and down in one place like a little goat and shrieked piercingly.
On all sides there were loving eyes, glistening with tears of joy, there were lips that wanted to kiss him.
Sonya, bright red, also held him by the hand, all beaming in the blissful gaze she directed at his eyes, which she had been waiting for. Sonya had already turned sixteen, and she was very beautiful, especially in this moment of happy, rapturous animation. She looked at him, not taking her eyes away, smiling and holding her breath. He glanced at her gratefully, but was still waiting and looking for someone. The old countess had not come out yet. And then footsteps were heard at the door. The footsteps were so quick that they could not have been his mother’s.
But it was she, in a new dress, unfamiliar to him, which must have been made in his absence. Everyone let him go, and he ran to her. When they came together, she fell on his breast, weeping. She could not lift her face, and only pressed it to the cold cords of his Hungarian jacket. Denisov, unnoticed by anyone, came into the room, stood there, and rubbed his eyes looking at them.
“Vassily Denisov, friend of your son,” he said, introducing himself to the old count, who was looking at him questioningly.
“I bid you welcome. I know, I know,” said the count, kissing and embracing Denisov. “Nikolushka wrote to us…Natasha, Vera, here’s Denisov.”
The same happy, rapturous faces turned to Denisov’s shaggy little figure with its black mustaches and surrounded him.
“Darling Denisov!” shrieked Natasha, beside herself with rapture, and she ran to him, embraced and kissed him. Everyone was embarrassed by Natasha’s behavior. Denisov also blushed, but smiled, and, taking Natasha’s hand, kissed it.
Denisov was taken to the room prepared for him, and all the Rostovs gathered in the sitting room