War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [748]
“That’s how it always is,” thought Countess Marya. “He talks with everybody except me. I see, I see he finds me repulsive. Especially in this condition.” She looked at her high stomach and in the mirror at her yellow, pale, emaciated face, its big eyes bigger than ever.
And everything became unpleasant for her: Denisov’s shouting and laughing, and Natasha’s talking, and especially the glance that Sonya hastily cast at her.
Sonya was always the first pretext that Countess Marya chose for her irritation.
Having sat with the guests and understood nothing of what they were saying, she quietly stepped out and went to the nursery.
The children were riding to Moscow on chairs and invited her to come with them. She sat down and played with them, but the thought of her husband and his groundless vexation never stopped tormenting her. She got up and, tiptoeing with difficulty, went to the small sitting room.
“Maybe he’s not asleep; I’ll have a talk with him,” she said to herself. Andryusha, the elder boy, imitating her, came after her on tiptoe. Countess Marya did not notice him.
“Chère Marie, il dort, je crois; il est si fatigué,”*748 said Sonya (it seemed to Countess Marya that she met her everywhere) in the big sitting room. “Andryusha may wake him up.”
Countess Marya turned, saw Andryusha behind her, felt that Sonya was right, and, precisely because of that, flared up and clearly had difficulty holding back a harsh word. She said nothing and, so as not to obey Sonya, made a sign with her hand for Andryusha not to make noise but still to follow her, and went to the door. Sonya left by the other door. From the room where Nikolai was sleeping, his wife could hear his regular breathing, familiar to her down to the smallest nuances. Hearing that breathing, she saw before her his smooth, handsome forehead, his mustache, his whole face, which she so often gazed at for a long time, while he slept, in the silence of the night. Nikolai suddenly stirred and grunted. And at the same time, Andryusha shouted through the door:
“Papa, mama’s standing here.”
Countess Marya turned pale from fright and began making signs to her son. He fell silent, and this silence, so terrible for Countess Marya, went on for about a minute. She knew how much Nikolai disliked being awakened. Suddenly from behind the door came a new grunt, movement, and the displeased voice of Nikolai said:
“They don’t give me a moment’s peace. Marie, is that you? Why have you brought him here?”
“I only came to look, I didn’t see…excuse me…”
Nikolai cleared his throat and fell silent. Countess Marya stepped away from the door and took her son to the nursery. Five minutes later, unnoticed by her mother, the three-year-old, dark-eyed little Natasha, her father’s favorite, having learned from her brother that papa was sleeping in mama’s sitting room, ran to her father. The dark-eyed little girl boldly opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa, stepping energetically on her blunt little feet, and, making out the position of her father, who was sleeping with his back to her, got up on tiptoe and kissed his hand, which lay under his head. Nikolai turned with a tender smile on his face.
“Natasha, Natasha!” Countess Marya’s frightened whisper was heard through the door, “papa wants to sleep.”
“No, mama, he doesn’t want to sleep,” little Natasha answered with conviction, “he’s laughing.”
Nikolai lowered his feet, sat up, and took his daughter in his arms.
“Come in, Masha,” he said to his wife. Countess Marya went in and sat down by her husband.
“I didn’t see him run after me,” she said timidly. “I’m so…”
Nikolai, holding his daughter with one arm, glanced at his wife and, noticing the guilty expression on her face, put his other arm