War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [197]
“How strange it is, though,” said Vera, finding a moment of general silence, “that Sonya and Nikolenka now treat each other like strangers, on formal terms.” Vera’s observation was correct, as were all her observations; but, like most of her observations, this one made everyone feel awkward, and not only Sonya, Nikolai, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who feared that her son’s love for Sonya might deprive him of a brilliant match, blushed like a girl. To Rostov’s surprise, Denisov, in a new uniform, pomaded and perfumed, appeared in the drawing room looking as dashing as he did in battle, and more of an amiable ladies’ man than Rostov had ever expected to see him.
II
Having returned to Moscow from the army, Nikolai Rostov was received by all the family as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling Nikolushka; by relations as a nice, agreeable, and courteous young man; by acquaintances as a handsome hussar lieutenant, an adroit dancer, and one of the best suitors in Moscow.
All Moscow was acquainted with the Rostovs. The old count had enough money that year, because all the estates had been remortgaged, and therefore Nikolushka, having acquired his own trotter and the most fashionable riding breeches, special ones such as no one in Moscow yet had, and the most fashionable boots, with the most pointed toes and small silver spurs, spent his time very gaily. Rostov, on returning home, experienced a pleasant feeling, after measuring himself for a certain time against the old conditions of life. It seemed to him that he had grown and matured greatly. Despair over a failed examination in catechism, borrowing money from Gavrilo for a cab, secret kisses with Sonya—he remembered it all as childishness, from which he was immeasurably far removed now. Now he was a lieutenant of the hussars, in a silver-trimmed dolman, with his soldier’s St. George, preparing his trotter for a race together with well-known, older, respectable fanciers. He had a lady acquaintance on the boulevard, whom he visited in the evenings. He led the mazurka at the Arkharovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamensky, visited the English Club,1 and was on familiar terms with a forty-year-old colonel whose acquaintance he had made through Denisov.
His passion for the sovereign weakened somewhat in Moscow, since he did not see him during that time. But all the same he often told about the sovereign, about his love for him, letting it be felt that he was not telling all, that there was something else in his feeling for the sovereign that not everyone could understand; and he shared with all his soul the general feeling at that time in Moscow of adoration for the emperor Alexander Pavlovich, who in Moscow at that time was given the nickname of “Angel in the Flesh.”
During Rostov’s short stay in Moscow before leaving for the army, he did not become closer but, on the contrary, drew away from Sonya. She was very pretty, sweet, and obviously passionately in love with him; but he was in that season of youth when one seems to have so much to do that there is no time for that, and a young man is afraid of being tied down—he cherishes his freedom, which he needs for many other things. When he thought about Sonya during his stay in Moscow, he said to himself: “Ah, there will be and there are many, many like her, somewhere, whom I don’t know yet. I’ll still have time, when I want, to occupy myself with love, but right now I’m busy.” Besides, it seemed to him that there was something humiliating to his manliness in women’s society. He went to balls and into women’s society pretending that he was doing so against his will. The races, the English Club, carousing with Denisov, going there—that was another matter: it was suitable to a dashing hussar.