War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [335]
Natasha threw off the kerchief she had wrapped around her, ran and placed herself in front of her uncle and, arms akimbo, made a movement with her shoulders and stopped.
Where, how, and when had this little countess, brought up by an émigré Frenchwoman, sucked this spirit in from the Russian air she breathed, where had she gotten these ways, which should have been long supplanted by the pas de châle?*357 Yet that spirit and these ways were those very inimitable, unstudied Russian ones which the uncle expected of her. As soon as she stood there, smiling triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear which had first seized Nikolai and all those present—that she would not do it right—went away, and they began to admire her.
She did it exactly right, and so precisely, so perfectly precisely, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who at once handed Natasha the kerchief she needed for it, wept through her laughter, looking at this slender, graceful countess, brought up in silk and velvet, so foreign to her, who was able to understand everything that was in Anisya and in Anisya’s father, and in her aunt, and in her mother, and in every Russian.
“Well, little countess, right you are!” the uncle said, laughing joyfully, finishing the dance. “What a niece! Now all we need is to choose you a fine young fellow for a husband, right you are!”
“He’s already been chosen,” said Nikolai, smiling.
“Oh?” the uncle said with surprise, looking questioningly at Natasha. Natasha, with a happy smile, nodded affirmatively.
“And such a one!” she said. But as soon as she said it, another, new train of thoughts and feelings arose in her. “What did Nikolai’s smile mean, when he said, ‘He’s already been chosen’? Is he glad of it or not? He seems to be thinking that my Bolkonsky wouldn’t approve of, wouldn’t understand this joy of ours. No, he’d understand everything. Where is he now?” thought Natasha, and her face suddenly became serious. But that lasted only a second. “Don’t think, don’t dare think of it,” she said to herself and, smiling, sat down again beside her uncle, asking him to play something else.
The uncle played another song, then a waltz; then, after a pause, he cleared his throat and struck up his favorite hunting song:
Late that evening in the wood
It was snowing well and good…
The uncle sang as the folk sing, with the full and naïve conviction that the whole meaning of a song is contained in the words alone, that the tune comes of itself, and that the tune does not exist on its own, but only just so, for the sake of the rhythm. Which was why this unconscious tune of the uncle’s, as in the songs of birds, was so extraordinarily good. Natasha was delighted with the uncle’s singing. She decided that she would no longer study the harp, but would only play the guitar. She took the uncle’s guitar and at once found the chords for the song.
Sometime past nine a break, a droshky, and three mounted men came looking for Natasha and Petya. The count and countess did not know where they were and were very worried, as the messenger said.
Petya was carried out and laid like a dead body in the break; Natasha and Nikolai got into the droshky. The uncle wrapped Natasha up and said good-bye to her with a completely new tenderness. He went with them on foot to the bridge, which they had to wade around, and ordered the hunters to ride in front with lanterns.
“Good-bye, dear niece!” his voice cried out in the darkness, not the voice Natasha used to know, but the one that had sung “Late that evening in the wood.”
In the village they drove through, there were little red lights and a cheerful smell of smoke.
“How lovely this uncle is!” said Natasha, when they came out on the high road.
“Yes,” said Nikolai. “Are you cold?”
“No, I’m perfect, perfect. I feel so good,” Natasha said, even with perplexity. They were silent for a long time.
The night was dark and damp. The horses could not be seen; they only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.
What was going on in that childishly receptive soul, so greedily