War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [31]
“Yes, ma chère,” said the old count, addressing the guest and pointing to his Nikolai. “Here his friend Boris has just been made an officer, and out of friendship he doesn’t want to lag behind; he’s leaving both the university and his old father: he’s going into the army, ma chère. And a post had already been prepared for him in the archives and all.27 Isn’t that friendship?” the count said questioningly.
“Yes, they say war has been declared,” said the guest.
“They’ve been saying it for a long time,” said the count. “Again they’ll talk and talk and leave it at that. Ma chère, that’s friendship!” he repeated. “He’s joining the hussars.”
The guest, not knowing what to say, shook her head.
“Not at all out of friendship,” replied Nikolai, blushing and protesting, as if it was a shameful calumny. “It’s not friendship, I simply feel a calling for military service.”
He shot a glance at his cousin and the young lady guest: they both looked at him with a smile of approval.
“Tonight Schubert will be dining with us, a colonel in the Pavlogradsky hussar regiment. He’s been on leave here and is taking him along. What to do?” said the count, shrugging his shoulders and speaking jokingly about a matter that obviously cost him much grief.
“I’ve already told you, papa,” said his son, “that if you don’t want to let me go, I’ll stay. But I know I’m not good for anything but military service; I’m not a diplomat, not a functionary, I’m unable to hide my feelings,” he said, glancing all the while with the coquetry of a handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady guest.
The little cat fixed her eyes on him and seemed ready at any instant to begin playing and show all her cat nature.
“Well, well, all right!” said the old count. “He keeps getting heated up. It’s this Bonaparte who’s turned all their heads; they all wonder how it is that from the lieutenants he landed among the emperors. Well, God grant it,” he added, not noticing the guest’s mocking smile.
The adults began talking about Bonaparte. Julie, Mme Karagin’s daughter, turned to the young Rostov:
“What a pity you weren’t at the Arkharovs’ on Thursday. I was bored without you,” she said, smiling tenderly at him.
The flattered young man, with the coquettish smile of youth, sat closer to her and got into a separate conversation with the smiling Julie, completely unaware that his involuntary smile cut the heart of the blushing and falsely smiling Sonya with the knife of jealousy. In the middle of the conversation, he turned to look at her. Sonya gave him a passionately angry look and, barely holding back the tears in her eyes, with a false smile on her lips, got up and left the room. All of Nikolai’s animation vanished. He waited for the first lull in the conversaton and with an upset face left the room to look for Sonya.
“How crystal clear all these young ones’ secrets are!” said Anna Mikhailovna, pointing to Nikolai as he left. “Cousinage dangereux voisinage,”*88 she added.
“Yes,” said the countess, when the ray of sunlight that had penetrated the room with the young generation vanished, and as if answering a question no one had asked her, but which constantly preoccupied her. “So much suffering, so much anxiety endured so as to rejoice in them now! And now, too, there’s really more fear than joy. One is afraid, always afraid! It’s precisely the age when there are so many dangers both for girls and for boys.”
“Everything depends on upbringing,” said the guest.
“Yes, true for you,” the countess went on. “Up to now, thank God, I’ve been a friend to my children and have