War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy

a voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to give her lessons." "Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it at that age." "Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "Why, our mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen." "And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!" said the countess with a gentle smile, looking at Boris' and went on, evidently concerned with a thought that always occupied her: "Now you see if I were to be severe with her and to forbid it… goodness knows what they might be up to on the sly" (she meant that they would be kissing), "but as it is, I know every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter." "Yes, I was brought up quite differently," remarked the handsome elder daughter, Countess Vera, with a smile. But the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally do; on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant, expression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning, was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone- the visitors and countess alike—turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said it, and they all felt awkward. "People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make something exceptional of them," said the visitor. "What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too clever with Vera," said the count. "Well, what of that? She's turned out splendidly all the same," he added, winking at Vera. The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner. "What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess, when she had seen her guests out.

      Chapter 13

      When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the flower tubs and hid there.

      Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her ambush, waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about to call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she. Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching—as under an invisible cap—to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking round toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.

      "Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he, running up to her.

      "It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya.

      "Ah, I know what it is."

      "Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"

      "So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that, for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.

      Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes. "What will happen now?" thought she.

      "Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!" said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."

      "I don't like you to talk like that."

      "Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him and kissed her.

      "Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.

      "Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I have something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.

      Boris followed her, smiling.

      "What is the something?" asked he.

      She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown down on one of the tubs, picked it up.

      "Kiss the doll," said she.

      Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not reply.

      "Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went further in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!" she whispered.

      She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and fear appeared on her flushed face.

      "And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly, glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from excitement.

      Boris blushed.

      "How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still more, but he waited and did nothing.

      Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.

      Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs and stood, hanging her head.

      "Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but… "

      "You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in.

      "Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that… . In another four years… then I will ask for your hand."

      Natasha considered.

      "Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender little fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?"

      A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.

      "Settled!" replied Boris.

      "Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?"

      She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining sitting room.

      Chapter 14

      After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.

      "With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "There are not many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship."

      Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her friend's hand.

      "Vera," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or… "

      The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.

      "If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied as she rose to go to her own room.

      But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera with guilty, happy faces.

      It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.

      "How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You have a room of your own," and she took the inkstand