War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [294]
Natasha listened and reflected.
“Well, so what?” she said.
“You’ve turned his head completely—but why? What do you want from him? You know you can’t marry him.”
“Why not?” said Natasha, without changing her position.
“Because he’s young, because he’s poor, because he’s a relation…because you don’t love him yourself.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. It’s not nice, my dear.”
“But if I want to…” said Natasha.
“Stop this silly talk,” said the countess.
“But if I want to…”
“Natasha, I’m serious…”
Natasha did not allow her to finish, pulled the countess’s big hand towards her and kissed it on the back, then on the palm, then turned it again and began to kiss it on one knuckle, then in between, then on the next knuckle, murmuring in a whisper: “January, February, March, April, May.”
“Speak, mama, why are you silent? Speak,” she said, glancing at her mother, who was looking at her daughter with a tender gaze and, while contemplating her like that, seemed to forget everything she wanted to say.
“It won’t do, dearest. Not everyone will understand your childhood ties, and to see him so close to you may harm you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and, above all, it torments him for nothing. He might have found a rich match for himself; but now he’s going out of his mind.”
“Out of his mind?” Natasha repeated.
“I’ll tell you about myself. I had a cousin…”
“I know—Kirila Matveich; but isn’t he an old man?”
“He wasn’t always an old man. But I tell you what, Natasha, I’ll have a talk with Borya. He oughtn’t to come so often…”
“Why oughtn’t he, if he wants to?”
“Because I know it will end in nothing.”
“How do you know? No, mama, don’t talk with him. Don’t you dare talk with him. How stupid!” Natasha said in the tone of a person whose property is being taken away. “Well, I’m not going to marry him, so let him come if it’s fun for him and fun for me.” Natasha looked at her mother, smiling.
“Not to get married, but just so,” she repeated.
“How’s that, my dear?”
“Just so. Well, it’s very necessary that I not marry him, but…just so.”
“Just so, just so,” the countess repeated and, shaking all over, she laughed a kindly, unexpected, old woman’s laugh.
“Enough laughing, stop it!” cried Natasha. “You’re shaking the whole bed. You’re a terrible laugher, just like me…Wait…” She seized the countess by both hands, kissed the knuckle of her little finger—June—and went on kissing July and August on the other hand. “Mama, is he very much in love? How does it look to you? Was anyone ever so in love with you? And he’s very sweet, very, very sweet! Only not quite to my taste—he’s so narrow, like a dining-room clock…You don’t understand?…Narrow, you know, gray, light gray…”
“What nonsense!” said the countess.
Natasha went on:
“You mean you don’t understand? Nikolenka would understand…Bezukhov—he’s blue, dark blue with red, and he’s rectangular.”
“You flirt with him, too,” the countess said, laughing.
“No, he’s a Freemason, I found out. He’s nice, dark blue with red, how can I explain to you…”
“Little countess,” the count’s voice came from outside the door. “Are you asleep?” Natasha jumped up barefoot and, snatching her slippers, ran to her room.
She could not fall asleep for a long time. She kept thinking that no one could understand all that she understood and all that was in her.
“Sonya?” she thought, looking at the curled-up, sleeping little cat with her enormous braid. “No, it’s beyond her! She’s virtuous. She fell in love with Nikolenka and doesn’t want to know anything else. Even mama doesn’t understand. It’s astonishing how intelligent I am and how…sweet she is,” she went on, speaking of herself in the third person and imagining that it was some very intelligent man saying it about her, the most intelligent and best of men…“There’s everything in her, everything,” this man went on, “she