War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [224]
“Eh, it’s inevitable!” Nikolai thought for the first and last time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him seem vile to himself, as if he was asking for a carriage in order to go to town, he said to his father:
“Papa, I’ve come on business. I nearly forgot. I need money.”
“Well, now,” said his father, who was in an especially cheerful mood. “I told you it wouldn’t be enough. How much?”
“Very much,” said Nikolai, blushing and with a stupid, casual smile for which he could not forgive himself for a long time afterwards. “I’ve lost a bit at cards, that is, a good deal, even a very great deal, forty-three thousand.”
“What? To whom?…You’re joking!” the count cried, his neck and nape suddenly turning an apoplectic red, as happens with old people.
“I promised to pay tomorrow,” said Nikolai.
“Well!…” said the old count, spreading his arms and sinking strengthlessly onto the sofa.
“No help for it! It happens to everybody,” his son said in a careless, brazen tone, while in his soul he considered himself a villain, a scoundrel, whose whole life would not be enough to redeem his crime. He would have liked to kiss his father’s hands, to go to his knees and ask forgiveness, yet he said in a careless and even rude tone that it happened to everybody.
Hearing his son’s words, Count Ilya Andreich lowered his eyes and began fussing about, as if looking for something.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “it’s hard, I’m afraid it’s hard to find…it happens! Yes, it happens to everybody…” And, giving his son a fleeting look, the count started out of the room…Nikolai had been prepared for a rebuff, but he had never expected this…
“Papa! Pa…pa!” he cried out after him, sobbing, “forgive me!” And, seizing his father’s hand, he pressed his lips to it and wept.
While father and son were having a talk, a no less important talk was going on between mother and daughter. Natasha, excited, had come running to her mother.
“Mama!…Mama!…He…”
“He what?”
“He, he proposed to me. Mama! Mama!” she cried.
The countess could not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To whom? To this tiny little girl, Natasha, who still recently was playing with dolls and was having lessons even now.
“Natasha, enough of this silliness!” she said, still hoping it was a joke.
“Well, there—silliness! I’m telling you a real thing,” Natasha said crossly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you say ‘silliness’…”
The countess shrugged her shoulders.
“If it’s true that Monsieur Denisov has proposed to you, ridiculous as it is, tell him he’s a fool, that’s all.”
“No, he’s not a fool,” Natasha said in an offended and serious tone.
“Well, what do you want, then? You’re all in love these days. Well, if you’re in love, marry him,” the countess said, laughing crossly. “God help you!”
“No, mama, I’m not in love with him, it must be I’m not in love with him.”
“Well, then tell him so.”
“Mama, are you cross? Don’t be cross, dearest, is it my fault?”
“No, but what then, my dear? Would you like me to go and tell him?” the countess said, smiling.
“No, I’ll do it, only teach me how. Everything’s so easy for you,” she added, responding to her smile. “If you’d seen how he said it to me! Oh, I know he didn’t want to say it, but just said it by accident.”
“Well, even so you must refuse him.”
“No, I mustn’t. I’m so sorry for him! He’s so nice.”
“Well, then accept his proposal. It’s really time you were married,” her mother said crossly and mockingly.
“No, mama, I’m so sorry for him. I don’t know how to tell him.”
“There’s no need for you to tell him, I’ll tell him myself,” said the countess, indignant that someone had dared to consider her little Natasha a grownup.
“No, not for anything, I’ll do it, and you go and listen at the door.” And Natasha ran across the drawing room to the reception room, where Denisov was sitting on the same chair at the clavichord, covering his face with his hands. At the sound of her light footsteps, he jumped up.
“Natalie,” he said, going to her with quick steps, “decide my fate. It is in your hands!”
“Vassily Dmitrich,