War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [222]
“Your cousin…” Dolokhov tried to begin; but Nikolai interrupted him.
“My cousin has nothing to do with it, and there is no point in talking about her!” he cried in a rage.
“So when will I get it?” asked Dolokhov.
“Tomorrow,” Rostov said and left the room.
XV
To say “tomorrow” and keep up the tone of propriety was not difficult, but to come home alone, to see his sisters, brother, mother, father, to confess and ask for money to which he had no right after giving his word of honor, was terrible.
At home no one was asleep. The young people of the Rostovs’ house, having come back from the theater and had supper, were sitting by the clavichord. As soon as Nikolai came into the reception room, he was enveloped by that amorous, poetic atmosphere which had prevailed in their house that winter and which now, after Dolokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to thicken still more, like the air before a thunderstorm, over Sonya and Natasha. Sonya and Natasha, in the light blue dresses they had worn to the theater, pretty and knowing it, happy, smiling, stood by the clavichord. Vera and Shinshin were playing chess in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for her son and husband, was playing patience with an old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov, eyes shining and hair disheveled, was sitting, his leg thrust back, at the clavichord, banging out chords on it with his stubby fingers and, his eyes rolling, was singing in his small, hoarse, but true voice some verses of his own composition, “The Sorceress,” which he was trying to set to music.
Sorceress, tell me by what art
Thou drawest me to abandoned strings;
What fire has thou instilled in my heart,
What rapture through my fingers sings!
he sang in a passionate voice, his agate-black eyes flashing at the frightened and happy Natasha.
“Splendid! Excellent!” cried Natasha. “Another stanza,” she said, not noticing Nikolai.
“For them everything’s the same,” thought Nikolai, peeking into the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother with the little old lady.
“Ah! here’s Nikolenka!” Natasha ran over to him.
“Is papa at home?” he asked.
“I’m so glad you’ve come!” Natasha said without replying. “We’re having such fun! Vassily Dmitrich is staying one more day for my sake, you know!”
“No, papa hasn’t come yet,” said Sonya.
“Coco, you’re home, come here to me, my dearest,” the countess’s voice came from the drawing room. Nikolai went over to his mother, kissed her hand, silently sat down at her table, and began watching her hands, which were laying out cards. From the reception room came laughter and merry voices persuading Natasha.
“Well, all right, all right,” cried Denisov, “now there’s no getting out of it, you owe us a barcarolle, I beg you.”
The countess glanced at her silent son.
“What’s the matter?” the mother asked Nikolai.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, as if he was already sick of this one and the same question. “Will papa come soon?”
“I think so.”
“For them everything’s the same. They don’t know anything! What am I to do with myself?” thought Nikolai, and he went back to the reception room, where the clavichord stood.
Sonya was sitting at the clavichord and playing the prelude to the barcarolle that Denisov especially liked. Natasha was preparing to sing. Denisov was looking at her with rapturous eyes.
Nikolai began pacing up and down the room.
“Why on earth make her sing! What can she sing? There’s no fun in it at all,” thought Nikolai.
Sonya played the first chord of the prelude.
“My God, I’m a dishonest, lost man. A bullet in the head is all that’s left for me, not singing,” he thought. “Go away? but where? Never mind, let them sing!”
Nikolai, continuing to pace the room, glanced gloomily at Denisov and the girls, avoiding their eyes.
“Nikolenka, what’s the matter with you?” asked Sonya’s eyes, turned to him. She saw at once that something had happened to him.