War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [43]
“Congratulations to the dear name-day lady and her children,” she said in her loud, dense voice, which overwhelmed all other noises. “And you, you old sinner,” she turned to the count, who was kissing her hand, “I bet you’re bored in Moscow? No chasing about with dogs here? Nothing to be done, old boy, look how these birdies are growing up.” She pointed to the girls. “Like it or not, you’ll have to hunt for suitors.”
“Well, how’s my Cossack?” (Marya Dmitrievna called Natasha a Cossack), she said, caressing Natasha, who came up to kiss her hand fearlessly and merrily. “I know she’s a wicked girl, but I love her.”
She took from her enormous reticule a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings and, having given them to the festively radiant and red-cheeked Natasha, turned away at once and addressed Pierre.
“E-eh! my gallant! come here to me!” she said in a falsely quiet and high voice. “Come here to me, my gallant…”
And she menacingly pushed her sleeves up still higher.
Pierre approached, gazing at her naïvely through his spectacles.
“Come on, come on, my gallant! I was the only one to tell your father the truth when chance smiled on him,33 and to you, too, God willing.”
She paused. Everyone fell silent, waiting for what would happen and feeling that this was only the preface.
“A fine one, to say the least! a fine lad!…His father’s lying on his deathbed, and he’s having fun, sitting a policeman on the back of a bear! Shame on you, old boy, shame on you! You’d do better to go to the war.”
She turned away and offered her arm to the count, who could barely keep from laughing.
“Well, so, I suppose it’s to table?” said Marya Dmitrievna.
The count went first with Marya Dmitrievna; then came the countess, led by a hussar colonel, a useful man, with whom Nikolai was to overtake his regiment, and Anna Mikhailovna with Shinshin. Berg offered his arm to Vera. The smiling Julie Karagin went to the table with Nikolai. After them came other couples, stretching the whole length of the room, and behind them all the children, tutors, and governesses came singly. Servants bustled about, chairs scraped, music began playing in the gallery, and the guests seated themselves. The sounds of the count’s household music were replaced by the sounds of knives and forks, the talk of the guests, the soft footsteps of the servants. At the head of the table on one end sat the countess. To her right Marya Dmitrievna, to her left Anna Mikhailovna and the other ladies. At the other end sat the count, to his left the hussar colonel, to his right Shinshin and the other male guests. One side of the long table was occupied by the older young people: Vera sat next to Berg, Pierre next to Boris; on the other side were the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind the crystal, the bottles, and the bowls of fruit, the count kept glancing at his wife and her tall cap with blue ribbons, and diligently poured wine for his neighbors, not forgetting himself. The countess, too, from behind the pineapples, never forgetting her duties as hostess, cast meaningful glances at her husband, the redness of whose face and bald head, it seemed to her, contrasted sharply with his gray hair. At the ladies’ end a steady chatter went on; at the men’s, louder and louder voices could be heard, especially that of the hussar colonel, who ate and drank so much, growing redder and redder, that the count now set him as an example to the other guests. Berg was saying to Vera, with a tender smile, that love was a heavenly, not an earthly, feeling. Boris was naming the guests at the table for his new friend Pierre, while exchanging glances with Natasha, who was sitting across from him. Pierre spoke little, looked at the new faces, and ate a lot. Starting with the two soups, of which he chose à la tortue,*112 and the savory pie, and right up to the hazel grouse, he did not skip a single dish or a single wine, which the butler mysteriously displayed for him behind his neighbor’s shoulder, the bottle