War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [616]
Briskly shifting the position of his legs in their tight riding breeches, spreading the smell of scent around him, and admiring his lady, and himself, and the fine shape of his legs in their tight buckskins, Nikolai was saying to the blonde that there was a certain lady there in Voronezh that he wanted to abduct.
“What sort of lady?”
“Charming, divine. Her eyes” (Nikolai looked at his interlocutrice) “are blue, her mouth is coral, the whiteness” (he glanced at her shoulders) “of her figure is like Diana’s…”
The husband came over to them and sulkily asked his wife what she was talking about.
“Ah! Nikita Ivanych,” said Nikolai, politely getting up. And, as if wishing Nikita Ivanych to share in the joke, he began telling him, too, about his wish to abduct a certain blonde lady.
The husband smiled sullenly, the wife gaily. The governor’s kindly wife came up to them with a disapproving air.
“Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicolas,” she said, uttering the words “Anna Ignatyevna” in such a tone that it became clear at once to Rostov that Anna Ignatyevna was a very important lady. “Come, Nicolas. You do allow me to call you that?”
“Oh, yes, ma tante.*667 Who is she?”
“Anna Ignatyevna Malvintsev. She has heard about you from her niece, how you rescued her…Can you guess?”
“As if I haven’t rescued lots of them!” said Nikolai.
“Her niece, Princess Bolkonsky. She’s here in Voronezh with her aunt! Oho, how he blushes! What, are you…”
“Never thought of it! Enough, ma tante.”
“Well, all right, all right. Oh, what a one you are!”
The governor’s wife led him to a tall and very fat old woman in a blue toque, who had just finished her game of cards with the most important persons in town. This was Mrs. Malvintsev, Princess Marya’s aunt on her mother’s side, a wealthy, childless widow who lived year-round in Voronezh. She was standing and settling up for the game when Rostov approached her. She narrowed her eyes sternly and imposingly, glanced at him, and went on scolding the general who had won from her.
“Delighted, my dear,” she said, giving him her hand. “Kindly call on me.”
After talking about Princess Marya and her late father, whom Mrs. Malvintsev evidently did not like, and asking Nikolai what he knew about Prince Andrei, who evidently was also not in her good graces, the imposing old lady let him go, repeating her invitation to visit her.
Nikolai promised and blushed again as he was taking leave of Mrs. Malvintsev. At the mention of Princess Marya, Rostov experienced a feeling of bashfulness, even fear, incomprehensible to himself.
On leaving Mrs. Malvintsev, Nikolai wanted to return to the dancing, but the governor’s wife placed her plump little hand on his sleeve and, saying that she needed to talk to him, led him to the sitting room, which those who were there left at once, so as not to hinder her.
“You know, mon cher,” said the governor’s wife, with a serious expression on her small, kindly face, “it’s just the match for you. Would you like me to arrange it?”
“With whom, ma tante?” asked Nikolai.
“With the princess. Katerina Petrovna says Lili, but I think, no—the princess. Would you like me to? I’m sure your maman will thank me. Really, such a girl, so lovely! And she’s not at all so bad-looking.”
“Not at all,” Nikolai said, as if offended. “As befits a soldier, ma tante, I don’t invite myself anywhere and don’t refuse anything,” said Rostov, before he had time to think what he was saying.
“Remember, then: this is not a joke.”
“Of course not!”
“Yes, yes,” said the governor’s wife, as if talking to herself. “And here’s another thing, mon cher, entre autres. Vous êtes trop assidu auprès de l’autre, la blonde.*668 The husband is pitiful, really…”
“Ah, no, we’re friends,” Nikolai said in the simplicity of his heart: it had never occurred to him that the pastime which he found so amusing might not be so for someone else.
“But what a stupid thing I said to the governor’s wife!” Nikolai suddenly recalled at supper. “She’s sure to start matchmaking. And Sonya?…” And on taking leave of the governor