War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER VI

Description

IT was a long while since the Rostovs had had news of their Nikolushka. But

in the middle of the winter a letter was handed to Count Rostov, on the envelope

of which he recognised his son's handwriting. On receiving the letter the count,

in alarm and in haste, ran on tiptoe to his room, trying to escape notice, shut

himself in and read the letter. Anna Mihalovna had learned (as she always did

learn all that passed in the house) that he had received a letter, and treading

softly, she went in to the count and found him with the letter in his hand,

sobbing and laughing at once. Anna Mihalovna, though her fortunes had been

looking up, was still an inmate of the Rostov household.

“My dear friend?” Anna Mihalovna brought out in a voice of melancholy

inquiry, equally ready for sympathy in any direction. The count sobbed more

violently

“Nikolushka … letter … wounded … he would … my dear … wounded … my darling

boy … the little countess … promoted … thank God … how are we to tell the little

countess?”

Anna Mihalovna sat down by his side, with her own handkerchief wiped the

tears from his eyes and from the letter, then dried her own tears, read the

letter, soothed the count, and decided that before dinner and before tea she

would prepare the countess; and after tea, with God's help, tell her all. During

dinner Anna Mihalovna talked of the rumours from the war, of dear Nikolay,

inquired twice when his last letter had been received, though she knew perfectly

well, and observed that they might well be getting a letter from him to-day.

Every time that the countess began to be uneasy under these hints and looked in

trepidation from the count to Anna Mihalovna, the latter turned the conversation

in the most unnoticeable way to insignificant subjects. Natasha, who was of all

the family the one most gifted with the faculty of catching the shades of

intonations, of glances, and expressions, had been on the alert from the

beginning of dinner, and was certain that there was some secret between her

father and Anna Mihalovna, and that it had something to do with her brother, and

that Anna Mihalovna was paving the way for it. Natasha knew how easily upset her

mother was by any references to news from Nikolushka, and in spite of all her

recklessness she did not venture at dinner to ask a question. But she was too

much excited to eat any dinner and kept wriggling about on her chair, regardless

of the protests of her governess. After dinner she rushed headlong to overtake

Anna Mihalovna, and in the divan-room dashed at her and flung herself on her

neck: “Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is.”

“Nothing, my dear.”

“No, darling, sweet, precious peach, I won't leave off; I know you know

something.”

Anna Mihalovna shook her head. “You are sharp, my child!” she said.

“A letter from Nikolinka? I'm sure of it!” cried Natasha, reading an

affirmative answer on the face of Anna Mihalovna.

“But, for God's sake, be more careful; you know what a shock it may be to

your mamma.”

“I will be, I will, but tell me about it. You won't? Well, then, I'll run and

tell her this minute.”

Anna Mihalovna gave Natasha a brief account of what was in the letter, on

condition that she would not tell a soul.

“On my word of honour,” said Natasha, crossing herself, “I won't tell any

one,” and she ran at once to Sonya. “Nikolinka … wounded … a letter …” she

proclaimed in gleeful triumph

“Nikolinka!” was all Sonya could articulate, instantly turning white. Natasha

seeing the effect of the news of her brother's wound on Sonya, for the first

time felt the painful aspect of the news.

She rushed at Sonya, hugged her, and began to cry. “A little wounded, but

promoted to be an officer; he's all right now, he writes himself,” she said

through her tears.

“One can see all you women are regular cry-babies,” said Petya, striding with

resolute steps up and down the room; “I'm very glad, really very glad, that my

brother has distinguished himself so. You all start blubbering! you don't

understand anything about it.” Natasha smiled through her tears.

“You haven't read the letter?” asked Sonya

“No; but she told me it was all over, and that he's an officer now …”

“Thank God,” said Sonya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she was deceiving

you. Let us go to mamma.”

Petya had been strutting up and down in silence

“If I were in Nikolinka's place, I'd have killed a lot more of those

Frenchmen,” he said, “they're such beasts! I'd have killed them till there was a

regular heap of them,” Petya went on.

“Hold your tongue, Petya, what a silly you are! …”

“I'm not a silly; people are silly who cry for trifles,” said Petya.

“Do you remember him?” Natasha asked suddenly, after a moment's silence.

Sonya smiled.

“Do I remember Nikolinka?”

“No, Sonya, but do you remember him so as to remember him thoroughly, to

remember him quite,” said Natasha with a strenuous gesture, as though she were

trying to put into her words the most earnest meaning. “And I do remember

Nikolinka, I remember him,” she said. “But I don't remember Boris. I don't

remember him a bit …”

“What? You don't remember Boris?” Sonya queried with surprise.

“I don't mean I don't remember him. I know what he's like, but not as I

remember Nikolinka. I shut my eyes and I can see him, but not Boris” (she shut

her eyes), “no, nothing!”

“Ah, Natasha!” said Sonya, looking solemnly and earnestly at her friend, as

though she considered her unworthy to hear what she meant to say, and was saying

it to some one else with whom joking was out of the question. “I have come to

love your brother once for all, and whatever were to happen to him and to me, I

could never cease to love him all my life.”

With inquisitive, wondering eyes, Natasha gazed at Sonya, and she did not

speak. She felt that what Sonya was saying was the truth, that there was love

such as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had never known anything like it. She

believed that it might be so, but she did not understand it.

“Shall you write to him?” she asked. Sonya sank into thought. How she should

write to Nikolay, and whether she ought to write to him, was a question that

worried her. Now that he was an officer, and a wounded hero, would it be nice on

her part to remind him of herself, and as it were of the obligations he had

taken on himself in regard to her. “I don't know. I suppose if he writes to me I

shall write,” she said, blushing.

“And you won't be ashamed to write to him?”

Sonya smiled.

“No.”

“And I should be ashamed to write to Boris, and I'm not going to

write.”

“But why should you be ashamed?”

“Oh, I don't know. I feel awkward, ashamed.”

“I know why she'd be ashamed,” said Petya, offended at Natasha's previous

remark, “because she fell in love with that fat fellow in spectacles” (this was

how Petya used to describe his namesake, the new Count Bezuhov); “and now she's

in love with that singing fellow” (Petya meant Natasha's Italian

singing-master), “that's why she's ashamed.”

“Petya, you're a stupid,” said Natasha.

“No stupider than you, ma'am,” said nine-year-old Petya, exactly as though he

had been an elderly brigadier.

The countess had been prepared by Anna Mihalovna's hints during dinner. On

returning to her room she had sat down in a low chair with her eyes fixed on the

miniature of her son, painted on the lid of her snuff-box, and the tears started

into her eyes. Anna Mihalovna, with the letter, approached the countess's room

on tiptoe, and stood still at the door.

“Don't come in,” she said to the old count, who was following her; “later,”

and she closed the door after her. The count put his ear to the keyhole, and

listened.

At first he heard the sound of indifferent talk, then Anna Mihalovna's voice

alone, uttering a long speech, then a shriek, then silence, then both voices

talking at once with joyful intonations, then there were steps, and Anna

Mihalovna opened the door. Her face wore the look of pride of an operator who

has performed a difficult amputation, and invites the public in to appreciate

his skill.

“It is done,” she said to the count triumphantly, motioning him to the

countess, who was holding in one hand the snuff-box with the portrait, in the

other the letter, and pressing her lips first to one and then to the other. On

seeing the count, she held out her arms to him, embraced his bald head, and

looked again over the bald head at the letter and the portrait, and in order

again to press them to her lips, slightly repelled the bald head from her. Vera,

Natasha, Sonya, and Petya came into the room, and the reading of the letter

began. The letter briefly described the march and the two battles in which

Nikolushka had taken part, and the receiving of his commission, and said that he

kissed the hands of his mamma and papa, begging their blessing, and sent kisses

to Vera, Natasha, and Petya. He sent greetings, too, to Monsieur Schelling and

Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and begged them to kiss for him his darling

Sonya, whom he still loved and thought of the same as ever. On hearing this,

Sonya blushed till the tears came into her eyes. And unable to stand the eyes

fixed upon her, she ran into the big hall, ran about with a flushed and smiling

face, whirled round and round and ducked down, making her skirts into a balloon.

The countess was crying.

“What are you crying about, mamma?” said Vera. “From all he writes, we ought

to rejoice instead of crying.”

This was perfectly true, but the count and the countess and Natasha all

looked at her reproachfully. “And who is it that she takes after!” thought the

countess.

Nikolushka's letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were

considered worthy of hearing it had to come in to the countess, who did not let

it go out of her hands. The tutors went in, the nurses, Mitenka, and several

acquaintances, and the countess read the letter every time with fresh enjoyment

and every time she discovered from it new virtues in her Nikolushka. How

strange, extraordinary, and joyful it was to her to think that her son—the

little son, whose tiny limbs had faintly stirred within her twenty years ago,

for whose sake she had so often quarrelled with the count, who would spoil him,

the little son, who had first learnt to say grusha, and then had learnt

to say baba—that that son was now in a foreign land, in strange

surroundings, a manly warrior, alone without help or guidance, doing there his

proper manly work. All the world-wide experience of ages, proving that children

do imperceptibly from the cradle grow up into men, did not exist for the

countess. The growth of her son had been for her at every stage of his growth

just as extraordinary as though millions of millions of men had not grown up in

the same way. Just as, twenty years before, she could not believe that the

little creature that was lying somewhere under her heart, would one day cry and

suck her breast and learn to talk, now she could not believe that the same

little creature could be that strong, brave man, that paragon of sons and of men

that, judging by this letter, he was now.

“What style, how charmingly he describes everything!” she said,

reading over the descriptions in the letter. “And what soul! Of himself not a

word … not a word! A great deal about a man called Denisov, though he was

himself, I dare say, braver than any one. He doesn't write a word about his

sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! How he thinks of every one! No one

forgotten. I always, always said, when he was no more than that high, I always

used to say …”

For over a week they were hard at work preparing a letter to Nikolushka from

all the household, writing out rough copies, copying out fair copies. With the

watchful care of the countess, and the fussy solicitude of the count, all sorts

of necessary things were got together, and money, too, for the equipment and the

uniform of the young officer. Anna Mihalovna, practical woman, had succeeded in

obtaining special patronage for herself and her son in the army, that even

extended to their correspondence. She had opportunities of sending her letters

to the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovitch, who was in command of the guards. The

Rostovs assumed that “The Russian Guards Abroad,” was quite a sufficiently

definite address, and that if a letter reached the grand duke in command of the

guards, there was no reason why it should not reach the Pavlograd regiment, who

were presumably somewhere in the same vicinity. And so it was decided to send

off their letters and money by the special messenger of the grand duke to Boris,

and Boris would have to forward them to Nikolushka. There were letters from the

count, the countess, Petya, Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, a sum of six thousand

roubles for his equipment, and various other things which the count was sending

to his son.

$$ Buy "War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER VI" on Amazon $$

Please check the description for download links if any or do a search to find alternative books.

Can't Download?
Please search mirrors if you can't find download links for "War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER VI" in "Description" and someone else may update the links. Check the comments when back to find any updates.

Search Mirrors
Maybe some mirror pages will be helpful, search this book at top of this page or click here to find more info.

1. Ebooks list page : 82
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER V
3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
6. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER IV
7. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIX
8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XVI
9. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XV
10. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIV
11. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER V
12. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER VI
13. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIX
14. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XVI
15. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIV
16. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XV