War and Peace

partner with eyes and ears intent on the colonel.
‘I am quite of your opinion,’ replied Nicholas, flaming 
up, turning his plate round and moving his wineglasses 
about with as much decision and desperation as though he 

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were at that moment facing some great danger. ‘I am con-
vinced that we Russians must die or conquer,’ he concluded, 
consciousas were othersafter the words were uttered that 
his remarks were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the oc-
casion and were therefore awkward.
‘What you said just now was splendid!’ said his partner 
Julie.
Sonya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and 
behind them and down to her neck and shoulders while 
Nicholas was speaking.
Pierre listened to the colonel’s speech and nodded ap-
provingly.
‘That’s fine,’ said he.
‘The young man’s a real hussar!’ shouted the colonel, 
again thumping the table.
‘What are you making such a noise about over there?’ 
Marya Dmitrievna’s deep voice suddenly inquired from the 
other end of the table. ‘What are you thumping the table 
for?’ she demanded of the hussar, ‘and why are you exciting 
yourself? Do you think the French are here?’
‘I am speaking ze truce,’ replied the hussar with a smile.
‘It’s all about the war,’ the count shouted down the table. 
‘You know my son’s going, Marya Dmitrievna? My son is 
going.’
‘I have four sons in the army but still I don’t fret. It is all 
in God’s hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare 
you in a battle,’ replied Marya Dmitrievna’s deep voice, 
which easily carried the whole length of the table.
‘That’s true!’

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Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies’ at 
the one end and the men’s at the other.
‘You won’t ask,’ Natasha’s little brother was saying; ‘I 
know you won’t ask!’
‘I will,’ replied Natasha.
Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous reso-
lution. She half rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat 
opposite, to listen to what was coming, and turning to her 
mother:
‘Mamma!’ rang out the clear contralto notes of her child-
ish voice, audible the whole length of the table.
‘What is it?’ asked the countess, startled; but seeing by 
her daughter’s face that it was only mischief, she shook a 
finger at her sternly with a threatening and forbidding 
movement of her head.
The conversation was hushed.
‘Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?’ and 
Natasha’s voice sounded still more firm and resolute.
The countess tried to frown, but could not. Marya Dmit-
rievna shook her fat finger.
‘Cossack!’ she said threateningly.
Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, 
looked at the elders.
‘You had better take care!’ said the countess.
‘Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?’ Natasha 
again cried boldly, with saucy gaiety, confident that her 
prank would be taken in good part.
Sonya and fat little Petya doubled up with laughter.
‘You see! I have asked,’ whispered Natasha to her little 

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brother and to Pierre, glancing at him again.
‘Ice pudding, but you won’t get any,’ said Marya Dmit-
rievna.
Natasha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she 
braved even Marya Dmitrievna.
‘Marya Dmitrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don’t 
like ice cream.’
‘Carrot ices.’
‘No! What kind, Marya Dmitrievna? What kind?’ she al-
most screamed; ‘I want to know!’
Marya Dmitrievna and the countess burst out laughing, 
and all the guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Marya 
Dmitrievna’s answer but at the incredible boldness and 
smartness of this little girl who had dared to treat Marya 
Dmitrievna in this fashion.
Natasha only desisted when she had been told that there 
would be pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was 
served round. The band again struck up, the count and 
countess kissed, and the guests, leaving their seats, went up 
to ‘congratulate’ the countess, and reached across the ta-
ble to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and 
with one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs 
scraped, and in the same order in which they had entered 
but with redder faces, the guests returned to the drawing 
room and to the count’s study.
CHAPTER XX
The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for bos-
ton, and the count’s visitors settled themselves, some in the 
two drawing rooms, some in the sitting room, some in the 

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library.
The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with 
difficulty from dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, 
and laughed at everything. The young people, at the count-
ess’ instigation, gathered round the clavichord and harp. 
Julie by general request played first. After she had played 
a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the other 
young ladies in begging Natasha and Nicholas, who were 
noted for their musical talent, to sing something. Natasha, 
who was treated as though she were grown up, was evident-
ly very proud of this but at the same time felt shy.
‘What shall we sing?’ she said.
‘‘The Brook,’’ suggested Nicholas.
‘Well, then,let’s be quick. Boris, come here,’ said Natasha. 
‘But where is Sonya?’
She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in 
the room ran to look for her.
Running into Sonya’s room and not finding her there, 
Natasha ran to the nursery, but Sonya was not there either. 
Natasha concluded that she must be on the chest in the pas-
sage. The chest in the passage was the place of mourning 
for the younger female generation in the Rostov house-
hold. And there in fact was Sonya lying face downward on 
Nurse’s dirty feather bed on the top of the chest, crumpling 
her gauzy pink dress under her, hiding her face with her 
slender fingers, and sobbing so convulsively that her bare 
little shoulders shook. Natasha’s face, which had been so 
radiantly happy all that saint’s day, suddenly changed: her 
eyes became fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad 

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neck and the corners of her mouth drooped.
‘Sonya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!’ 
And Natasha’s large mouth widened, making her look quite 
ugly, and she began to wail like a baby without knowing 
why, except that Sonya was crying. Sonya tried to lift her 
head to answer but could not, and hid her face still deeper 
in the bed. Natasha wept, sitting on the blue-striped feather 
bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sonya sat up and 
began wiping her eyes and explaining.
‘Nicholas is going away in a week’s time, his... papers... 
have come... he told me himself... but still I should not cry,’ 
and she showed a paper she held in her handwith the verses 
Nicholas had written, ‘still, I should not cry, but you can’t... 
no one can understand... what a soul he has!’
And she began to cry again because he had such a noble 
soul.
‘It’s all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you 
and Boris also,’ she went on, gaining a little strength; ‘he is 
nice... there are no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas 
is my cousin... one would have to... the Metropolitan him-
self... and even then it can’t be done. And besides, if she tells 
Mamma’ (Sonya looked upon the countess as her mother 
and called her so) ‘that I am spoiling Nicholas’ career and 
am heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God is my wit-
ness,’ and she made the sign of the cross, ‘I love her so much, 
and all of you, only Vera... And what for? What have I done 
to her? I am so grateful to you that I would willingly sacri-
fice everything, only I have nothing...’
Sonya could not continue, and again hid her face in her 

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hands and in the feather bed. Natasha began consoling her, 
but her face showed that she understood all the gravity of 
her friend’s trouble.
‘Sonya,’ she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed 
the true reason of her friend’s sorrow, ‘I’m sure Vera has 
said something to you since dinner? Hasn’t she?’
‘Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied 
some others, and she found them on my table and said 
she’d show them to Mamma, and that I was ungrateful, and 
that Mamma would never allow him to marry me, but that 
he’ll marry Julie. You see how he’s been with her all day... 
Natasha, what have I done to deserve it?..’
And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. 
Natasha lifted her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her 
tears, began comforting her.
‘Sonya, don’t believe her, darling! Don’t believe her! Do 
you remember how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talk-
ed in the sitting room after supper? Why, we settled how 
everything was to be. I don’t quite remember how, but 
don’t you remember that it could all be arranged and how 
nice it all was? There’s Uncle Shinshin’s brother has mar-
ried his first cousin. And we are only second cousins, you 
know. And Boris says it is quite possible. You know I have 
told him all about it. And he is so clever and so good!’ said 
Natasha. ‘Don’t you cry, Sonya, dear love, darling Sonya!’ 
and she kissed her and laughed. ‘Vera’s spiteful; never mind 
her! And all will come right and she won’t say anything to 
Mamma. Nicholas will tell her himself, and he doesn’t care 
at all for Julie.’

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Natasha kissed her on the hair.
Sonya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, 
and it seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft 
paws, and begin playing with the ball of worsted as a kit-
ten should.
‘Do you think so?... Really? Truly?’ she said, quickly 
smoothing her frock and hair.
‘Really, truly!’ answered Natasha, pushing in a crisp lock 
that had strayed from under her friend’s plaits.
Both laughed.
‘Well, let’s go and sing ‘The Brook.’’
‘Come along!’
‘Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so 
funny!’ said Natasha, stopping suddenly. ‘I feel so happy!’
And she set off at a run along the passage.
Sonya, shaking off some down which clung to her and 
tucking away the verses in the bosom of her dress close to 
her bony little chest, ran after Natasha down the passage 
into the sitting room with flushed face and light, joyous 
steps. At the visitors’ request the young people sang the 
quartette, ‘The Brook,’ with which everyone was delighted. 
Then Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:
At 
nighttime 
in 
the 
moon’s 
fair 
glow 
How 
sweet, 
as 
fancies 
wander 
free, 
To 
feel 
that 
in 
this 
world 
there’s 
one 
Who still is thinking but of thee!
That 
while 
her 
fingers 
touch 
the 
harp 
Wafting 
sweet 
music 
music 
the 
lea, 
It 
is 
for 
thee 
thus 
swells 
her 
heart, 

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Sighing its message out to thee...
A 
day 
or 
two, 
then 
bliss 
unspoilt, 
But oh! till then I cannot live!...
He had not finished the last verse before the young peo-
ple began to get ready to dance in the large hall, and the 
sound of the feet and the coughing of the musicians were 
heard from the gallery.
Pierre was sitting in the drawing-room where Shinshin 
had engaged him, as a man recently returned from abroad, 
in a political conversation in which several others joined 
but which bored Pierre. When the music began Natasha 
came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing 
and blushing:
‘Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers.’
‘I am afraid of mixing the figures,’ Pierre replied; ‘but if 
you will be my teacher...’ And lowering his big arm he of-
fered it to the slender little girl.
While the couples were arranging themselves and the 
musicians tuning up, Pierre sat down with his little part-
ner. Natasha was perfectly happy; she was dancing with a 
grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was sitting in a 
conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady. 
She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given 
her to hold. Assuming quite the pose of a society woman 
(heaven knows when and where she had learned it) she talk-
ed with her partner, fanning herself and smiling over the 
fan.
‘Dear, dear! Just look at her!’ exclaimed the countess as 
she crossed the ballroom, pointing to Natasha.

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Natasha blushed and laughed.
‘Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to 
be surprised at?’
In the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter 
of chairs being pushed back in the sitting room where the 
count and Marya Dmitrievna had been playing cards with 
the majority of the more distinguished and older visitors. 
They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and 
replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ball-
room. First came Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both 
with merry countenances. The count, with playful ceremo-
ny somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to Marya 
Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gal-
lantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the 
ecossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians 
and shouted up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:
‘Semen! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?’
This was the count’s favorite dance, which he had danced 
in his youth. (Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one fig-
ure of the anglaise.)
‘Look at Papa!’ shouted Natasha to the whole company, 
and quite forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up