War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [383]
The valet brought a woman’s fox coat.
“Fool, the sable one I told you. Hey, Matryoshka, the sable one!” he shouted so loudly that his voice echoed far off through the rooms.
A beautiful, thin, and pale Gypsy girl, with shining black eyes and black curly hair of a bluish sheen, in a red shawl, ran out with a sable coat over her arm.
“Here, I’m not sorry, take it,” she said, obviously fearful before her master and sorry about the coat.
Dolokhov, without answering her, took the coat, threw it on Matryosha, and wrapped her up.
“Like this,” said Dolokhov. “And then like this,” he said and raised the collar around her head, leaving it slightly open only in front of her face. “And then like this, see?” and he moved Anatole’s face to the opening in the collar, from which Matryosha’s brilliant smile could be seen.
“Well, goodbye, Matryosha,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Eh, my carousing’s finished here! Greetings to Styoshka.16 Well, goodbye! Goodbye, Matryosha; wish me happiness.”
“Well, Prince, God grant you great happiness,” Matryosha said to Anatole with her Gypsy accent.
At the porch stood two troikas, held by two fine-looking coachmen. Balaga got up on the first troika and, raising his elbows high, unhurriedly sorted out the reins. Anatole and Dolokhov got in with him. Makarin, Khvostikov, and the valet got into the other troika.
“Ready?” asked Balaga.
“We’re off!” he cried, winding the reins around his hand, and the troika raced thudding down Nikitsky Boulevard.
“Whoa! Giddap, now!…Whoa!” the cries of Balaga and the young fellow sitting on the box were all that was heard. On Arbat Square the troika snagged a carriage, something cracked, there was a shout, and the troika flew along the Arbat.
Having driven up and down the length of Podnovinsky, Balaga began reining in and, turning back, stopped the horses at the intersection of Old Konyushennaya.
The coachman jumped down to hold the horses by the bridle, Anatole and Dolokhov went off down the sidewalk. Coming to the back gate, Dolokhov whistled. A whistle answered him, and following that a maid ran out.
“Come into the yard or you’ll be seen; she’ll come out at once,” she said.
Dolokhov remained by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the yard, turned the corner, and ran up to the porch.
Gavrilo, Marya Dmitrievna’s enormous footman, met Anatole.
“To the mistress, if you please,” the footman said in a bass voice, barring the way back.
“What mistress? Who are you?” Anatole asked in a breathless whisper.
“If you please, I was ordered to bring you in.”
“Kuragin! Come back!” shouted Dolokhov. “We’re betrayed! Come back!”
By the back gate where he had stopped, Dolokhov was struggling with the yard porter, who had tried to lock the gate after Anatole went in. With a final effort, Dolokhov shoved the porter away and, as Anatole ran out, seized him by the arm, pulled him through the gate, and ran back with him to the troika.
XVIII
Marya Dmitrievna, finding the weeping Sonya in the corridor, had made her confess everything. Having intercepted Natasha’s note and read it, Marya Dmitrievna went to Natasha with the note in her hand.
“Mean, shameless girl,” she said to her. “I don’t want to hear anything!” She pushed back Natasha, who looked at her with astonished but dry eyes, locked her in with a key, and, having ordered the yard porter to let in the people who would be coming that evening, but not to let them out, and the valet to bring those people to her, she sat in the drawing room waiting for the abductors.
When Gavrilo came to report to Marya Dmitrievna that the people who had come had run away, she frowned, stood up, and, putting her hands behind her back, paced the rooms for a long time, reflecting on what to do. Towards midnight, feeling the key in her