LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER XX

      The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the count’s visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms, some in the sitting room, some in the 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 countess’ 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 Natásha and Nicholas, who were noted for their musical talent, to sing something. Natásha, who was treated as though she were grown up, was evidently 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. Borís, come here,” said Natásha. “But where is Sónya?”

      She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to look for her.

      Running into Sónya’s room and not finding her there, Natásha ran to the nursery, but Sónya was not there either. Natásha concluded that she must be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was the place of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostóv household. And there in fact was Sónya 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. Natásha’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 neck and the corners of her mouth drooped.

      “Sónya! What is it? What is the matter? . . . Oo . . . Oo . . . Oo . . . !” And Natásha’s large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she began to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sónya was crying. Sónya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and hid her face still deeper in the bed. Natásha wept, sitting on the blue-striped feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sónya 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 hand—with 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 Borís 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 himself . . . and even then it can’t be done. And besides, if she tells Mamma” (Sónya 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 witness,” and she made the sign of the cross, “I love her so much, and all of you, only Véra . . . And what for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you that I would willingly sacrifice everything, only I have nothing . . . .”

      Sónya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in the feather bed. Natásha began consoling her, but her face showed that she understood all the gravity of her friend’s trouble.

      “Sónya,” she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true reason of her friend’s sorrow, “I’m sure Véra 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

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