War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [749]
“May I kiss mamà?” he asked Natasha.
Natasha smiled shyly.
“Again,” she said, pointing with an imperious gesture to the place where Nikolai had kissed his wife.
“I don’t know why you think I’m in a bad humor,” said Nikolai, answering the question that he knew was in his wife’s mind.
“You can’t imagine how unhappy and lonely I am when you’re like that. It always seems to me…”
“Enough silliness, Marie. Shame on you,” he said gaily.
“It seems to me that you can’t love me, because I’m so plain…always…and now…in this cond…”
“Ah, how funny you are! Not dear for being pretty, but pretty for being dear. Men only love Malvina and the like because they’re beautiful: but do I love my wife? It’s not love, but just…I don’t know how to tell you. Without you or, like today, when there’s some falling-out between us, it’s as if I’m lost and can’t do anything. Well, do I love my finger? I don’t love it, but try cutting it off…”
“No, I’m not like that, but I understand. So you’re not angry with me?”
“Terribly angry,” he said, smiling, and, standing up and smoothing his hair, he started pacing the room.
“Do you know what I was thinking about, Marie?” he began, now that they were reconciled, beginning at once to think aloud in his wife’s presence. He did not ask whether she was prepared to listen to him; it made no difference to him. The thought had occurred to him, which meant to her, too. And he told her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them until spring.
Countess Marya heard him out, made her comments, and in turn began to think her thoughts aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.
“How one sees the woman in her even now,” she said in French, pointing to Natasha. “You reproach us women for being illogical. Here’s our logic. I say to her, ‘Papa wants to sleep,’ and she says, ‘No, he’s laughing.’ And she’s right,” said Countess Marya, smiling happily.
“Yes! yes!” And Nikolai, taking his daughter in his strong hands, lifted her up, seated her on his shoulder, and, holding her legs, began walking about the room with her. Both father and daughter had the same senselessly happy faces.
“But you know, maybe you’re unfair. You love this one too much,” Countess Marya whispered in French.
“Yes, but what can I do?…I try not to show it…”
Just then the sounds of the door pulley and footsteps came from the front hall and anteroom, like the sounds of an arrival.
“Someone’s come.”
“I’m certain it’s Pierre. I’ll go and find out,” said Countess Marya, and she went out of the room.
In her absence, Nikolai allowed himself to give his daughter a gallop around the room. Out of breath, he quickly set down the laughing girl and hugged her to his breast. His leaps reminded him of dancing, and, looking at the child’s round, happy face, he thought of how she would be when he, as an old man, started taking her out, and would do the mazurka with her, as his late father used to dance the Daniel Cooper with his daughter.
“It’s him, it’s him, Nicolas!” Countess Marya said a few minutes later, coming back into the room. “Now our Natasha’s revived. You should have seen her delight, and how he got it from her for overstaying. Well, come along, come along, quickly! Do part, finally,” she said, smiling, looking at the little girl, who pressed herself to her father. Nikolai went out, holding his daughter by the hand.
Countess Marya stayed in the sitting room.
“Never, never would I have believed,” she whispered to herself, “that one could be so happy.” Her face shone with a smile, but at the same time she sighed, and her profound gaze showed a quiet sadness. As if, besides the happiness she experienced, there was another happiness, unattainable in this life, which she involuntarily remembered at that moment.
X
Natasha was married in the early spring of 1813, and by 1820 she already had three daughters and one son, whom she had passionately wished for and was now nursing herself. She had filled out and broadened, so that it was difficult to recognize in this strong mother the former slender, nimble