War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [333]
“She’s ridden all day, enough for a man, and it seems like nothing to her!”
Soon after the uncle, the door was opened by a girl—evidently barefoot, by the sound of her feet—and through it came a fat, red-cheeked, beautiful woman of about forty, with a double chin and full, red lips, carrying a big, heavily laden tray. She looked around at the guests with hospitable dignity and affability in her eyes and in her every movement, and with an amiable smile bowed respectfully to them. Despite her more than usual stoutness, which made her thrust her chest and stomach forward and hold her head back, this woman (the uncle’s housekeeper) had an extremely light step. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her plump, white hands deftly took the bottles, snacks, and treats, and arranged them on the table. Having finished that, she stepped away and, with a smile on her face, stood by the door. “Here I am! Now do you understand your uncle?” her appearance said to Rostov. How could he not understand? Not only Rostov, but Natasha as well understood the uncle and the meaning of the frowning brows and happy, self-contented smile that puckered his lips slightly the moment Anisya Fyodorovna came in. On the tray were an herb cordial, liqueurs, mushrooms, flat cakes made from dark flour and buttermilk, honey in the comb, still and foaming mead, apples, fresh and roasted nuts, and nuts in honey. Then Anisya Fyodorovna brought preserves made with honey and with sugar, and a ham, and a just-roasted chicken.
All this was tended, gathered, and cooked by Anisya Fyodorovna. All this smelled, and spoke, and had the taste of Anisya Fyodorovna. It all spoke of juiciness, cleanness, whiteness, and a pleasant smile.
“Have some, little miss countess,” she repeated, serving Natasha one thing, then another. Natasha ate everything, and it seemed to her that she had never seen or tasted anywhere such buttermilk flat cakes, preserves so fragrant, such nuts in honey, or such a chicken. Anisya Fyodorovna left. Rostov and the uncle, washing their dinner down with cherry liqueur, spoke of past and future hunts, of Rugai, and of Ilagin’s dogs. Natasha, her eyes shining, sat straight-backed on the sofa, listening to them. She tried several times to wake up Petya and give him something to eat, but he mumbled incomprehensibly, evidently without waking up. Natasha was in such merry spirits, she felt so good in these new surroundings, that she only feared the droshky would come for her too soon. After a chance moment of silence, as almost always happens with people who receive acquaintances in their house for the first time, the uncle said, answering a thought that was in his guests’ minds:
“So this is how I’ll live out my life…I’ll die—right you are!—there’ll be nothing left. No use sinning!”
The uncle’s face was very significant and even handsome as he said it. Rostov involuntarily remembered all the good things he had heard from his father and the neighbors about his uncle. In this whole part of the province, his uncle had the reputation of a most noble and disinterested eccentric. He was called in to judge family matters, he was asked to be an executor, secrets were entrusted to him, he was elected to a judgeship and to other posts, but he always stubbornly refused social service, spending the fall and spring in the fields riding his chestnut gelding, sitting at home in the winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in the summer.
“How is it you don’t serve, uncle?”
“I did, but I quit. Unfit for it—right you are!—I don’t understand a thing. It’s your sort of business, I don’t have brains enough. As for hunting, that’s another matter—it’s right you are! Open the door there,” he shouted. “Why did you close it?” The door at the end of the corridor (which the uncle called a collidor) led to the bachelor hunters’ room, as the hunters’ common room was known. Bare feet quickly pattered off, and an invisible hand opened the door to the hunters’ room. From the corridor the sounds of a balalaika became clearly audible, played by someone who was obviously a master