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Transcript
War and Peace, Book 3 Chapter 6, read for LibriVox.org by Marco Neo.
It was long since the Rostos had news of Nicholas.
Not till midwinter was the count at last handed a letter, addressed in his son's handwriting.
On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and haste, trying to escape
notice, close the door and began to read the letter.
Anna Mika Lovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house, on hearing of the
arrival of the letter, went softly into the room, and found a count with it in his hand,
sobbing and laughing at the same time.
Anna Mika Lovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still living with the Rostos.
My dear friend, said she, in a ton of pathetic inquiry, prepared to sympathise in any way.
The count sobbed yet more.
Nico Lenka, a letter, was wounded.
My darling boy, the Countess, promoted to be an officer.
Thank God, how tell the little Countess.
Anna Mika Lovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief, wiped the tears from
his eyes, and from the letter, then having dried her own eyes, she comforted the Count,
and decided that it dinner, and until tea time, she would prepare the Countess, and after
tea, with God's help, would inform her.
At dinner Anna Mika Lovna talked the whole time about the war news, and about Nico Lenka,
twice asked when the last letter had been received from him, although she knew that already.
She remarked that they may very likely be getting a letter from him that very day.
Each time that these hints began to make the Countess anxious, as she glanced uneasily
at the count, and at Anna Mika Lovna, the latter very adroitly turned the conversation
to insignificant matters.
Natasha, who of the whole family, was the most gifties, with the capacity to feel any shades
of intonation, look and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning of the meal,
and was certain that there was some secret between her father and Anna Mika Lovna, that it
had something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mika Lovna was preparing them for
it.
Both as she was, Natasha, who knew how sensitive her mother was, to anything relating to
Nico Lenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner, but she was too excited to eat
anything, and kept wriggling about on her chair, regardless of her governess is remarks.
After dinner, she rushed headlong after Anna Mika Lovna, and dashing at her, flung herself
on her neck, as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.
Anti-Darling, do tell me what it is?
Nothing my dear.
No dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up, I know you know something.
Anna Mika Lovna shook her head, you're a little sly boot, she said.
A letter from Nico Lenka, I'm sure of it, exclaimed Natasha, reading confirmation in Anna Mika
Lovna's face.
But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mother.
I will, I will, only tell me.
You won't, then I will go and tell it once.
Anna Mika Lovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter, on conditions
she should tell no one.
No, on my true word of honour, said Natasha crossing herself, I won't tell anyone, and
she ran off at once to Sonya.
Nico Lenka, wounded, a letter she announced in Gleafle Triumph.
Nicholas was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.
Natasha, seeing the impression her brother's wound, produced on Sonya, felt for the first
time the sorrowful sight of the news.
She rushed to Sonya, hugged her and began to cry.
A little wound, but he has been made an officer.
He as well now, he wrote himself, says she through her tears.
There now, it's true that all you women are cry babies, remarked Petia, pacing the
room with large, resolute strides.
Now I'm very glad, very glad indeed that my brother has distinguished himself so.
They're all blubberers and understand nothing.
Natasha smiled through her tears.
You haven't read the letter, asked Sonya.
No, but she said it was all over and that he's now an officer.
Thank God, so Sonya crossing herself, but perhaps she deceived you, let us go to Mama.
Petia paced the room in silence for her time.
If I had been in Nico Lenka's place, I would have killed even more of those Frenchmen,
he said.
What nasty brutes they are, I'd have killed so many that have been a heap of them.
Hold your tongue, Petia.
What a goose you are.
I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles, said Petia.
Do you remember him, Natasha suddenly asked after a moment's silence?
Sonya smiled.
Do I remember Nicolas?
No Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly?
Or everything, said Natasha, with an expressive gesture, evidently wishing to give her words
a very definite meaning.
I remember Nico Lenka, too.
I remember him well, she said, but I don't remember Boris.
I don't remember him a bit.
What, you don't remember Boris, asked Sonya in surprise?
It's not that I don't remember.
I know what he is like, but not as I remember Nico Lenka.
Him, I just shut my eyes and remember, but Boris, no, she shut her eyes.
No, there's nothing at all.
Oh Natasha, said Sonya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her friend, as if she did
not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to say, and as if she was saying it to someone
else, with whom Joaquin was out of the question.
I am in love with your brother once and for all.
And whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as long as I live.
Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes and said nothing.
She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there was such love as Sonya was speaking
of, but Natasha had not yet felt anything like it.
She believed it could be, but did not understand it.
Now you write to him, she asked.
Sonya became thoughtful.
The question of how to write in Nicholas, and whether she ought to write or mented her.
Now that he was already an officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him
of herself, and as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on himself.
I don't know, I think if he writes, I will write too, she said, blushing.
And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?
Sonya smiled, no.
And I should be ashamed to write to Boris, I'm not going to.
Why should you be ashamed?
Well, I don't know, it's awkward and would make me ashamed.
And I know why should be ashamed, said Petra, offended by Natasha's previous remark.
It's because she was in love with that fat one, his spectacles.
That was how Petra described his namesake, the new Count Bizukov, and now she's in
love with that singer.
He met Natasha's Italian singing master.
That's why she's ashamed.
Petra, you're a stupid, said Natasha.
Not more stupid than you, Madame, said the nine-year-old Petra, with the air of an old
brigadier.
The Countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhailovna's hints at dinner.
On retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair.
Her eyes fixed on a miniature portrait of her son, on the lid of a snuff box, while
the tears kept coming into her eyes.
Anna Mikhailovna, with the letter, came on tiptoe to the Countess's door and paused.
Don't come in, she said to the old Count who was following her.
Come later, and she went in, closing the door behind her.
The Counts put his ear to the keyhole and listened.
The first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna Mikhailovna's voice alone
in a long speech, then a cry, then silence, then both voices together with glad intonations,
and then footsteps.
Anna Mikhailovna opened the door.
Her face wore the proud expression of a surgeon who had just performed a difficult operation
and admits the public to appreciate his skill.
It is done, she said to the Count, pointing triumphantly to the Countess, who sat holding
in one hand the snuff box, with its portrait, and in the other the letter, and pressing
him alternately to her lips.
When she saw the Count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his bald head, over
which she again looked at the letter and the portrait, and in order to press them again
to her lips, she slightly pushed away the bald head.
Vera, Natasha, Sonia, and Petra now entered the room, and the reading of the letter began.
After a brief description of the campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part,
and his promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father and mother's hands, asking
for their blessing, and that he kissed Vera, Natasha, and Petra.
Once that, he sent greetings to Monticeux Shelley, Madame Schloss, and his old nurse, and asked
him to kiss for him, dear Sonia, whom he loved and thought of just the same as ever.
When she heard this, Sonia blushed, so that tears came into her eyes, and unable to
bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall.
The world rounded at full speed with her dress puffed out the cabaloon, and, flushed
and smiling, plumped down on the floor.
The Countess was crying.
Why are you crying, Mama? asked Vera, from all he says once you'd be glad and not cry.
This was quite true, but the Count, the Countess, and Natasha looked at her reproachfully,
and who is actually takes after thought the Countess.
Natasha's letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were considered worthy
to hear it, had come to the Countess, for she did not let it out of her hands.
The tutors came, and the nurses, and Dimitri, and several acquaintances, and the Countess
reread the letter each time, with fresh pleasure, and each time discovered in it fresh proofs
of Nikolanka's virtues.
How strange, how extraordinary, how joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible
motion, of whose tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom
she used to have quarrels with the two indulgent Counts, that son who had first learned to
say pear, and then granny, that this son should now be away in a foreign land, amid strange
surroundings, a manly warrior doing some kind of man's work, of his own, without help
or guidance.
The universal experience of ages, showing that children do grow imperceptibly from the
cradle to manhood, did not exist for the Countess.
Her son's growth towards manhood, at each of its stages, has seemed as extraordinary to
her, as if there had never existed the millions of human beings who grew up in the same way.
As twenty years before, it seemed impossible that little creature, who lived somewhere
under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast and begin to speak, so that now she could
not believe that that little creature could be this strong, brave man, this model son
and officer, that judging by this letter he now was.
Not a style, how charmingly he described, said she, reading the descriptive part of the
letter, and what a soul, not a word about himself, not a word, about some denisof or
other, though he himself, I dare say, is braver than any of them.
He says nothing about his sufferings, what a heart, how like him it is, and how he has
remembered everybody, not forgetting anyone.
I always said, when he was only so high, I always said.
For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of letters to Nicholas,
from all the household were written, and copied out, while under the supervision of the Countess
and the solicitude of the Count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment
of the newly commissioned officer were collected.
Anna Mikhailovna, practical woman that she was, had even managed by favour with army
authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself and her son.
She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, who
commanded the guards.
The rostovs supposed that the Russian guards abroad was quite a 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 Pavlovgrad regiments, which was presumably somewhere in the same neighbourhood.
And so it was decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke's Curia to Boris,
and Boris was to forward them to Nicholas.
The letters were from the Old Counts, the Countess, Petia, Vera, Natasha and Sonia, and
finally there were 6,000 rubles for his outfits, and various other things the Old Count sent
to his son, end of chapter 6, recording by Marco Niel, first broke Germany.
