War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [366]
Count Ilya Andreich, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya, pointing to her former admirer.
“Do you recognize him?” he asked. “But where has he appeared from?” the count asked Shinshin. “Didn’t he vanish somewhere?”
“Yes,” replied Shinshin. “He was in the Caucasus, ran away from there, and, they say, became minister to some reigning prince in Persia, and killed the shah’s brother there. Well, so all the Moscow ladies are losing their minds! Dolochoff le Persan, and all’s said. Now no word is spoken among us without Dolokhov; they swear by him, they invite people for him as if he was a sterlet,” said Shinshin. “Dolokhov and Anatole Kuragin have driven all our ladies out of their minds.”
A tall, beautiful lady entered the neighboring box, with an enormous braid and very bared, white, full shoulders and neck, on which hung a double string of big pearls. She took a long time to settle herself, rustling her heavy silk gown.
Natasha involuntarily gazed at that neck, the shoulders, the pearls, the coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and pearls. As Natasha looked at her a second time, the lady turned and, meeting Count Ilya Andreich’s eyes, nodded to him and smiled. This was Countess Bezukhov, Pierre’s wife. Ilya Andreich, who knew everybody in the world, leaned over and addressed her.
“Have you been here long, Countess?” he said. “I’ll come, I’ll come and kiss your hand. I’m here on business, and I’ve brought my girls along. They say Semyonova is an incomparable performer,” said Ilya Andreich. “Count Pyotr Kirillovich never used to forget us. Is he here?”
“Yes, he wanted to stop by,” said Hélène, and she looked attentively at Natasha.
Count Ilya Andreich sat back in his place.
“Fine woman, isn’t she?” he whispered to Natasha.
“Wonderful!” said Natasha. “One could just fall in love with her!” At that moment the last chords of the overture sounded and the conductor tapped with his baton. The late-coming men went to their seats in the parterre and the curtain rose.
As soon as the curtain rose, the boxes and parterre all fell silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniforms and tailcoats, all the women, in precious stones on bare bodies, with greedy curiosity turned their attention to the stage. Natasha also began to look.
IX
The stage consisted of flat boards in the middle, with painted pieces of cardboard on the sides representing trees, and canvas stretched over boards at the back. In the middle of the stage sat girls in red bodices and white skirts. One, very fat, in a white silk dress, sat apart on a low stool with a piece of green cardboard glued to the back of it. They were all singing something. When they finished their song, the girl in white went up to the prompter’s box, and a man with tight silk breeches on his fat legs, and with a feather and a dagger, came up to her and began singing and spreading his arms.
The man in tight breeches sang alone, then she sang. Then they both fell silent, music began to play, and the man began to touch the hand of the girl in the white dress with his fingers, evidently waiting for the beat again so as to begin his part with her. They sang together, and everybody in the theater clapped and shouted, and the man and woman on stage, who represented lovers, began to bow, smiling and spreading their arms.
After the country, and with the serious mood she was in, Natasha found all this wild and astonishing. She was unable to follow the course of the opera; she could not even hear the music: she saw only painted cardboard and strangely