Free War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Page A

now, his taking it into his head to be an hussar! But what can one expect,
ma chère
?”
    “What a sweet little thing your younger girl is!” said the visitor. “Full of fun and mischief!”
    “Yes, that she is,” said the count. “She takes after me! And such a voice; though she’s my daughter, it’s the truth I’m telling you, she’ll be a singer, another Salomini. We’ve engaged an Italian to give her lessons.”
    “Isn’t it too early? They say it injures the voice to train it at that age.”
    “Oh, no! Too early!” said the count. “Why, our mothers used to be married at twelve and thirteen.”
    “Well, she’s in love with Boris already! What do you say to that?” said the countess, smiling softly and looking at Boris’s mother. And apparently in reply to the question that was always in her mind, she went on: “Why, you know, if I were strict with her, if I were to forbid her … God knows what they might not be doing in secret” (the countess meant that they might kiss each other), “but as it is I know every word she utters. She’ll come to me this evening and tell me everything of herself. I spoil her, perhaps, but I really believe it’s the best way. I brought my elder girl up more strictly.”
    “Yes, I was brought up quite differently,” said the elder girl, the handsome young Countess Vera; and she smiled. But the smile did not improve Vera’s face; on the contrary her face looked unnatural, and therefore unpleasing. Vera was good-looking; she was not stupid, was clever at her lessons, and well educated; she had a pleasant voice, and what she said was true and appropriate. But, strange to say, every one—both the visitor and the countess—looked at her, as though wondering why she had said it, and conscious of a certain awkwardness.
    “People are always too clever with their elder children; they try to do something exceptional with them,” said the visitor.
    “We won’t conceal our errors,
ma chère
! My dear countess was too clever with Vera,” said the count. “But what of it? she has turned out capitally all the same,” he added, with a wink of approval to Vera.
    The guests got up and went away, promising to come to dinner.
    “What manners! Staying on and on!” said the countess, when she had seen her guests out.
X
    When Natasha ran out of the drawing-room she only ran as far as the conservatory. There she stopped listening to the talk in the drawing-room, and waiting for Boris to come out. She was beginning to get impatient, and stamping her foot was almost ready to cry at his not coming at once, when she heard the young man’s footsteps coming out discreetly, not too slowly nor too quickly. Natasha darted swiftly away and hid among the tubs of shrubs.
    Boris stood still in the middle of the room, looked round him, brushed a speck of dirt off the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to the looking-glass examined his handsome face. Natasha, keeping quiet, peeped out of her hiding-place, waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the glass, smiled at his reflection, and walked towards the other door. Natasha was on the point of calling to him, but she changed her mind. “Let him look for me,” she said to herself. Boris had only just gone out, when at the other door Sonya came in, flushed and muttering something angrily through her tears. Natasha checked her first impulse to run out to her, and remained in her hiding-place, as it were under the invisible cap, looking on at what was going on in the world. She began to feel a peculiar novel sort of enjoyment in it. Sonya was murmuring something as she looked towards the drawing-room door. The door opened and Nikolay came in.
    “Sonya! what is the matter? how can you?” said Nikolay, running up to her.
    “Nothing, nothing, leave me alone!” Sonya was sobbing.
    “No, I know what it is.”
    “Very well, you do, so much the better then, and you can go back to her.”
    “So-o-onya! one word! How can