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Book 7 Chapter 12

WHEN THEY WERE ALL DRIVING BACK from Pelagea Danilovna's, Natasha, who always saw and noticed everything, managed a change of places, so that Luisa Ivanovna and she got into the sledge with Dimmler, while Sonya was with Nikolay and the maids.

Nikolay drove smoothly along the way back, making no effort now to get in front. He kept gazing in the fantastic moonlight at Sonya, and seeking, in the continually shifting light behind those eyebrows and moustaches, his own Sonya, the old Sonya, and the Sonya of to-day, from whom he had resolved now never to be parted. He watched her intently, and when he recognised the old Sonya and the new Sonya, and recalled, as he smelt it, that smell of burnt cork that mingled with the thrill of the kiss, he drew in a deep breath of the frosty air, and as he saw the earth flying by them, and the sky shining above, he felt himself again in fairyland.

“Sonya, is it well with thee?” he asked her now and then.

“Yes,” answered Sonya. “And thee?”

Half-way home, Nikolay let the coachman hold the horses, ran for a moment to Natasha's sledge, and stood on the edge of it.

“Natasha,” he whispered in French, “do you know I have made up my mind about Sonya?”

“Have you told her?” asked Natasha, beaming all over at once with pleasure.

“Ah, how strange you look with that moustache and those eyebrows, Natasha! Are you glad?”

“I'm so glad; so glad! I was beginning to get cross with you. I never told you so, but you have not been treating her nicely. Such a heart as she has, Nikolenka. I am so glad! I'm horrid sometimes; but I felt ashamed of being happy without Sonya,” Natasha went on. “Now, I'm so glad; there, run back to her.”

“No; wait a moment. Oh, how funny you look!” said Nikolay, still gazing intently at her; and in his sister, too, finding something new, extraordinary, and tenderly bewitching that he had never seen in her before. “Natasha, isn't it fairylike? Eh?”

“Yes,” she answered, “you have done quite rightly.”

“If I had seen her before as she is now,” Nikolay was thinking, “I should have asked her long ago what to do, and should have done anything she told me, and it would have been all right.”

“So you're glad,” he said, “and I have done right?”

“Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with mamma about it a little while age. Mamma said she was trying to catch you. How could she say such a thing! I almost stormed at mamma. I will never let any one say or think any harm of her, for there's nothing but good in her.”

“So it's all right?” said Nikolay, once more gazing intently at his sister's expression to find out whether that were the truth. Then he jumped off the sledge and ran, his boots crunching over the wet snow, to his sledge. The same happy, smiling Circassian, with a moustache and sparkling eyes, peeping from under the sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian was Sonya, and that Sonya was for certain now his happy and loving future wife.

On reaching home, the young ladies told the countess how they had spent the time at the Melyukov's, and then went to their room. They changed their dresses, but without washing off their moustaches, sat for a long while talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and they would be happy. Looking-glasses were standing on Natasha's table, set there earlier in the evening by Dunyasha, and arranged in the traditional way for looking into the future.

“Only when will that be? I'm so afraid it never will be.…It would be too happy!” said Natasha, getting up and going to the looking-glasses.

“Sit down, Natasha, perhaps you will see him,” said Sonya.

Natasha lighted the candles and sat down. “I do see some one with a moustache,” said Natasha, seeing her own face.

“You mustn't laugh, miss,” said Dunyasha.

With the assistance of Sonya and the maid, Natasha got the mirrors into the correct position. Her face took a serious expression, and she was silent. For a long while she went on sitting, watching the series of retreating candles reflected in the looking-glasses, and expecting (in accordance with the tales she had heard) at one minute to see a coffin, at the next to see him, Prince Andrey, in the furthest, dimmest, indistinct square. But ready as she was to accept the slightest blur as the form of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing. She began to blink, and moved away from the looking-glass.

“Why is it other people see things and I never see anything?” she said. “Come, you sit down, Sonya; to-day you really must. Only look for me … I feel so full of dread to-day!”

Sonya sat down to the looking-glass, got the correct position, and began looking.

“You will see, Sonya Alexandrovna will be sure to see something,” whispered Dunyasha, “you always laugh.”

Sonya heard these words, and heard Natasha say in a whisper: “Yes, I know she'll see something; she saw something last year too.” For three minutes all were mute.

“Sure to!” whispered Natasha, and did not finish.… All at once Sonya drew back from the glass she was holding and put her hand over her eyes. “O Natasha!” she said. “Seen something? Seen something? What did you see?” cried Natasha, supporting the looking-glass. Sonya had seen nothing. She was just meaning to blink and to get up, when she heard Natasha's voice say: “Sure to!” … She did not want to deceive either Dunyasha or Natasha, and was weary of sitting there. She did not know herself how and why that exclamation had broken from her as she covered her eyes.

“Did you see him?” asked Natasha, clutching her by the hand.

“Yes. Wait a bit.… I … did see him,” Sonya could not help saying, not yet sure whether by him Natasha meant Nikolay or Andrey. “Why not say I saw something? Other people see things! And who can tell whether I have or have not?” flashed through Sonya's mind.

“Yes, I saw him,” she said.

“How was it? How? Standing or lying down?”

“No, I saw … At first there was nothing; then I saw him lying down.”

“Andrey lying down? Is he ill?” Natasha asked, fixing eyes of terror on her friend.

“No, on the contrary—on the contrary, his face was cheerful, and he turned to me”; and at the moment she was saying this, it seemed to herself that she really had seen what she described.

“Well, and then, Sonya? …”

“Then I could make out more; something blue and red.…”

“Sonya, when will he come back? When shall I see him? My God! I feel so frightened for him, and for me, and frightened for everything …” cried Natasha; and answering not a word to Sonya's attempts to comfort her, she got into bed, and long after the candle had been put out she lay with wide-open eyes motionless on the bed, staring into the frosty moonlight through the frozen window-panes.


当他们大家离开佩拉格娅·丹尼洛夫娜乘坐雪橇回去的时候,向来把什么都看在眼里、对什么都注意的娜塔莎,给大家安排好了坐位,路易萨·伊万诺夫娜跟她,还有季姆勒都坐进同一辆雪橇,索尼娅、尼古拉和几个侍女坐在一起。

在归途中,尼古拉已经不争先恐后地催马疾驰,而是平稳地驶行。在那神奇的月光之下,他不时地打量索尼娅,借着已改变一切的月色,从那用软木炭画的眉毛和胡子后面寻找他从前的索尼娅和现在的索尼娅,他已经下定决定永远不离开她了。他不时地打量,当他认得像从前一样的索尼娅和另外一个索尼娅、而且想到软木炭的气味夹杂着接吻的感觉时,他深深呼吸寒冷的空气,一面注视后退的地面和星光闪耀的天空,他觉得自己又置身于仙境。

“索尼娅,你觉得舒畅吗?”他有时这样发问。

“舒畅,”索尼娅答道。“而你觉得怎样?”

在半路上,尼古拉叫马车夫把马勒住一会儿,他跑到娜塔莎的雪橇前面呆上分把钟,站在跨杠上。

“娜塔莎,”他用法国话低声对她说,“你可要知道,我和索尼娅的事,已经决定了。”

“你对她说了吗?”娜塔莎问道,她忽然高兴得容光焕发起来。

“噢,你脸上画着胡子和眉毛,显得多么古怪,娜塔莎!

你很高兴吗?”

“我真高兴,真高兴!我已经生你的气了。我虽然没有对你说,但是你对待她很不好。尼古拉,这是一颗怎样的心啊,我多么高兴!我常常令人可憎,但是我一个人觉得幸运,索尼娅不在身边,我觉得不好意思,”娜塔莎继续说下去,“现在我真够高兴了,喂,你跑去找她吧。”

“不过,等一等,你多么滑稽可笑啊!”尼古拉说道,他不时地端详她,他在妹妹身上也发现一种他前所未睹的新的、不平常的、令人神往的温柔。“娜塔莎,有几分神奇,是不是?”

“是的,”她回答,“你做得真够出色。”

“如果我从前看见她是现在这个模样,”尼古拉想道,“我老早就会问她应该怎样办,不管她吩咐我做什么事,我样样都会办好,那就一切称心了。”

“你真高兴,这么说,我做得出色啦?”

“咳,真出色呀!不久前我和妈妈为了这件事争吵起来了。妈妈说她要拉拢你。怎么可以这样说呢?我几乎要跟妈妈相骂了。我从来不让任何人说她的坏话,对她怀有坏的想法,因为她身上只有好的一面。”

“真够出色吗?”尼古拉说,又一次审视妹妹的面部表情,想要弄清楚她是否说了真话,这时只听见他那双皮靴吱吱响,他从跨杠上跳下来,朝他自己的雪橇跑去。她仍旧是那个幸福的笑容可掬的切尔克斯人,她有一副八字胡子和两只闪闪发亮的眼睛,从貂皮风帽下面向四外观看,她坐在那儿,这个切尔克斯人就是索尼娅,而这个索尼娅想必就是他未来的、幸福的、爱他的妻子。

小姐们回到家里以后,向母亲讲到她们怎样在梅柳科娃家里度过这一段时光,之后各人回到各人房里去。她们脱下衣服,但是没有抹去软木炭画的胡子,坐在那里,坐了很久,谈论自己的幸福。她们说到她们出嫁后怎样生活,她们的丈夫怎样和睦,她们会感到多么幸福。娜塔莎的桌上还摆着杜尼亚莎前夜给她准备好的几面镜子。

“只不过在什么时候这一切才能实现?我恐怕永远都没法……假如能够实现,那就太好了!”娜塔莎说道,她一面站立起来,走到镜子面前。

“娜塔莎,请坐,也许你能看见他。”索尼娅说。娜塔莎点燃蜡烛,坐下来了。

“我看见一个有两撇胡子的人。”娜塔莎看见自己的面孔时说。

“小姐,用不着发笑。”杜尼亚莎说。

娜塔莎在索尼娅和女仆的帮助下找到了一个摆放镜子的地方,她脸上带着严肃的表情,默不作声。她长久地坐着,从镜中观看一排逐渐消逝的蜡烛,她推测(根据她听见的故事来设想),在末了融入一个模糊不清的正方形的烛光中,时而瞧见一口棺材,时而瞧见他——安德烈公爵。但是不管她怎样想把一个最小的黑点视为人或者棺材的形象,她仍旧什么都看不见。她常常眨眼,从镜子旁边走开。

“为什么别人看得见,而我却看不见呢?”她说,“喂,你坐下吧,索尼娅,今天你一定应该,”她说道,“只不过为我……今天我可真害怕啦!”

索尼娅在镜子前面坐下来,装作一副照镜子的架势,她于是观看起来。

“瞧,索菲娅·阿历山德罗夫娜一定能看见,”杜尼亚莎轻声地说,“您总是发笑。”

索尼娅听见这些话,并且听见娜塔莎用耳语说:

“我知道,她准能看见,因为她旧年也看见了。”她们大家莫约静默了三分钟。“一定能看见!”娜塔莎用耳语说,没有把话说完……索尼娅忽然移开她拿着的那面镜子,用一只手捂住眼睛。

“噢,娜塔莎!”她说道。

“看见吗?看见吗?看见什么呀?”娜塔莎托着镜子,喊叫起来。

索尼娅什么也看不见,她刚想眨眨眼睛,站起来,这时她听见娜塔莎的说话声,她说:“一定看得见!”……她既不想欺骗杜尼亚莎,也不想欺骗娜塔莎,她坐在那里觉得难受。她本人并不知道,当她捂住眼睛的时候,她怎么会、为什么会不由自主地叫了一声。

“看见他吗?”娜塔莎抓着她的手问道。

“是的。等一等……我……看见他了,”索尼娅情不自禁地说,尽管还不晓得,娜塔莎言下的他指的是谁,他指的是尼古拉,或者他指的是安德烈。

“可是为什么不说我看见了?要知道别人都看得见啊!谁会揭穿我,说我看见了,或者说没有看见呢?”这个念头在索尼娅的头脑里闪了一下。

“是的,我看见他了。”她说。

“是个啥样子?是个啥样子?他是站着,还是躺着?”

“不过,我看见了……本来并没有什么,我忽然看见他躺着。”

“安德烈躺着?他病了么?”娜塔莎带着惊惶失措的表情,目不转睛地望着女友,问道。

“不,恰恰相反,恰恰相反,是一副愉快的面孔,他向我转过脸来。”当她说话的时候,她好像觉得,她看见了她说的那种情状。

“喂,后来怎样,索尼娅?”

“这时我没有看清楚,有一种既蓝而又红的物体……”

“索尼娅,他在什么时候回来呢?我在什么时候可以看见他!我的天呀!我多么替他也替自己担心,为一切担惊受怕啊……”娜塔莎说道,她对索尼娅的安慰一言不答,躺到床上,熄灭蜡烛之后长久地闭上眼睛,一动不动地躺在床上,透过结冰的窗户,望着寒冷的月光。



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