《War And Peace》　Epilogue1 　CHAPTER IX
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

IT was on the eve of St. Nikolay's day, the 5th of December, 1820. That year
Natasha with her husband and children had been staying at Bleak Hills since the
beginning of autumn. Pierre was in Petersburg, where he had gone on private
business of his own, as he said, for three weeks. He had already been away for
six, and was expected home every minute.

On this 5th of December there was also staying with the Rostovs Nikolay's old
friend, the general on half-pay, Vassily Fedorovitch Denisov.

Next day visitors were coming in celebration of his nameday, and Nikolay knew
that he would have to take off his loose Tatar coat, to put on a frock coat, and
narrow boots with pointed toes, and to go to the new church he had built, and
there to receive congratulations, and to offer refreshments to his guests, and
to talk about the provincial elections and the year's crops. But the day before
he considered he had a right to spend as usual. Before dinner-time Nikolay had
gone over the bailiff's accounts from the Ryazan estate, the property of his
wife's nephew; written two business letters, and walked through the corn barns,
the cattleyard, and the stables. After taking measures against the general
drunkenness he expected next day among his peasants in honour of the fête, he
came in to dinner, without having had a moment's conversation alone with his
wife all day. He sat down to a long table laid with twenty covers, at which all
the household were assembled, consisting of his mother, old Madame Byelov, who
lived with her as a companion, his wife and three children, their governess and
tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sonya, Denisov, Natasha, her three
children, their governess, and Mihail Ivanitch, the old prince's architect, who
was living out his old age in peace at Bleak Hills.

Countess Marya was sitting at the opposite end of the table. As soon as her
husband sat down to the table, from the gesture with which he took up his
table-napkin and quickly pushed back the tumbler and wineglass set at his place,
she knew that he was out of humour, as he sometimes was, particularly before the
soup, and when he came straight in to dinner from his work. Countess Marya
understood this mood in her husband very well, and when she was herself in a
good temper, she used to wait quietly till he had swallowed his soup, and only
then began to talk to him and to make him admit that he had no reason to be out
of temper. But to-day she totally forgot this principle of hers; she had a
miserable sense of his being vexed with her without cause, and she felt
wretched. She asked him where he had been. He answered. She asked again whether
everything were going well on the estate. He frowned disagreeably at her
unnatural tone, and made a hasty reply.

"I was right then," thought Countess Marya, "and what is he cross with me
for?" In the tone of his answer she read ill-will towards her and a desire to
cut short the conversation. She felt that her words were unnatural; but she
could not restrain herself, and asked a few more questions.

The conversation at dinner, thanks to Denisov, soon became general and
animated, and she did not say more to her husband. When they rose from table,
and according to custom came up to thank the old countess, Countess Marya kissed
her husband, offering him her hand, and asked why he was cross with her.

"You always have such strange ideas; I never thought of being cross," he
said.

But that word always answered her: Yes, I am angry, and I don't choose
to say.

Nikolay lived on such excellent terms with his wife that even Sonya and the
old countess, who from jealousy would have been pleased to see disagreement
between them, could find nothing to reproach them with; but there were moments
of antagonism even between them. Sometimes, particularly just after their
happiest periods, they had a sudden feeling of estrangement and antagonism; that
feeling was most frequent during the times when Countess Marya was with child.
They happened to be just now at such a period of antagonism.

"Well, messieurs et mesdames," said Nikolay loudly, and with a show
of cheerfulness (it seemed to his wife that this was on purpose to mortify her),
"I have been since six o'clock on my legs. To-morrow will be an infliction, so
to-day I'll go and rest." And saying nothing more to Countess Marya, he went
off to the little divan-room, and lay down on the sofa.

"That's how it always is," thought his wife. "He talks to everybody but
not to me. I see, I see that I am repulsive to him, especially in this
condition." She looked down at her high waist and then into the looking-glass
at her sallow and sunken face, in which the eyes looked bigger than ever.

And everything jarred upon her: Denisov's shout and guffaw and Natasha's
chatter, and above all the hasty glance Sonya stole at her.

Sonya was always the first excuse Countess Marya pitched on for her
irritability.

After sitting a little while with her guests, not understanding a word they
were saying, she slipped out and went to the nursery.

The children were sitting on chairs playing at driving to Moscow, and invited
her to join them. She sat down and played with them, but the thought of her
husband and his causeless ill-temper worried her all the time. She got up, and
walked with difficulty on tiptoe to the little divan-room

"Perhaps he is not asleep. I will speak plainly to him," she said to
herself. Andryusha, her elder boy, followed her on tiptoe, imitating her. His
mother did not notice him.

"Dear Marie, I believe he is asleep; he was so tired," said Sonya, meeting
her in the next room (it seemed to Countess Marya that she was everywhere).
"Andryusha had better not wake him."

Countess Marya looked round, saw Andryusha behind her, felt that Sonya was
right, and for that very reason flushed angrily, and with evident difficulty
restrained herself from a cruel retort. She said nothing, and, so as not to obey
her, let Andryusha follow her, but signed to him to be quiet, and went up to the
door. Sonya went out by the other door. From the room where Nikolay was asleep,
his wife could hear his even breathing, every tone of which was so familiar. As
she listened to it, she could see his smooth, handsome brow, his moustaches, the
whole face she had so often gazed at in the stillness of the night when he was
asleep. Nikolay suddenly stirred and cleared his throat. And at the same instant
Andryusha shouted from the door, "Papa, mamma's here!" His mother turned pale
with dismay and made signs to the boy. He was quiet, and there followed a
terrible silence that lasted a minute. She knew how Nikolay disliked being
waked. Suddenly she heard him stir and clear his throat again, and in a tone of
displeasure he said:

"I'm never given a moment's peace. Marie, is it you? Why did you bring him
here?"

"I only came to look ... I did not see ... I'm so sorry ..."

Nikolay coughed and said no more. His wife went away, and took her son back
to the nursery. Five minutes later little, black-eyed, three-year-old Natasha,
her father's favourite, hearing from her brother that papa was asleep, and mamma
in the next room, ran in to her father, unnoticed by her mother.

The black-eyed little girl boldly rattled at the door, and her fat, little
feet ran with vigorous steps up to the sofa. After examining the position of her
father, who was asleep with his back to her, she stood on tiptoe and kissed the
hand that lay under his head. Nikolay turned round to her with a smile of
tenderness on his face.

"Natasha, Natasha!" he heard his wife whisper in dismay from the door.
"Papa is sleepy."

"No, mamma, he isn't sleepy," little Natasha answered with conviction.
"He's laughing."

Nikolay set his feet down, got up, and picked his little daughter up in his
arms.

"Come in, Masha," he said to his wife. She went in and sat down beside
him.

"I did not see him run in after me," she said timidly. "I just looked in
..."

Holding his little girl on one arm, Nikolay looked at his wife, and noticing
her guilty expression, he put the other arm round her and kissed her on the
hair.

"May I kiss mamma?" he asked Natasha. The little girl smiled demurely.
"Again," she said, with a peremptory gesture, pointing to the spot where
Nikolay had kissed her mother.

"I don't know why you should think I am cross," said Nikolay, replying to
the question which he knew was in his wife's heart.

"You can't imagine how unhappy, how lonely, I am when you are like that. It
always seems to me ..."

"Marie, hush, nonsense! You ought to be ashamed," he said gaily.

"It seems to me that you can't care for me; that I am so ugly ... at all
times, and now in this ..."

"Oh, how absurd you are! It's not those who are handsome we love, but those
we love who are handsome. It is only Malvinas and such heroines who are loved
because they are beautiful. And do you suppose I love my wife? Oh no, I don't
love you, but only ... I don't know how to tell you. When you are away, and any
misunderstanding like this comes between us, I feel as though I were lost, and
can do nothing. Why, do I love my finger? I don't love it, but only try cutting
it off ..."

"No, I don't feel like that, but I understand. Then you are not angry with
me?"

"I am awfully angry!" he said, smiling, and getting up, and smoothing his
hair, he began pacing up and down the room.

"Do you know, Marie, what I have been thinking?" he began, beginning at
once now that peace was made between them, thinking aloud before his wife. He
did not inquire whether she were disposed to listen; that did not matter to him.
An idea occurred to him; and so it must to her, too. And he told her that he
meant to persuade Pierre to stay with them till the spring.

Countess Marya listened to him, made some comments, and then in her turn
began thinking her thoughts aloud. Her thoughts were of the children.

"How one can see the woman in her already," she said in French, pointing to
little Natasha. "You reproach us women for being illogical. You see in her our
logic. I say, papa is sleepy, and she says, no, he's laughing. And she is
right," said Countess Marya, smiling blissfully.

"Yes, yes," said Nikolay, lifting up his little girl in his strong arm,
raised her high in the air, sat her on his shoulder, holding her little feet,
and began walking up and down with her. There was just the same look of
thoughtless happiness on the faces of father and daughter.

"But do you know, you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one," his
wife whispered in French.

"Yes, but what can I do? ... I try not to show it ..."

At that moment there was heard from the hall and the vestibule the sound of
the block of the door, and footsteps, as though some one had arrived.

"Somebody has come."

"I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and find out," said Countess Marya, and
she went out of the room.

While she was gone Nikolay allowed himself to gallop round the room with his
little girl. Panting for breath, he quickly lowered the laughing child, and
hugged her to his breast. His capers made him think of dancing; and looking at
the childish, round, happy little face, he wondered what she would be like when
he would be an old man, taking her out to dances, and he remembered how his
father used to dance Daniel Cooper and the mazurka with his daughter.

"It is he, it is he, Nikolay!" said Countess Marya, returning a few minutes
later. "Now our Natasha is herself again. You should have seen her delight, and
what a scolding he came in for at once for having out-stayed his time. Come, let
us go; make haste; come along! You must part at last," she said, smiling, as
she looked at the little girl nestling up to her father. Nikolay went out,
holding his daughter by the hand.

Countess Marya lingered behind.

"Never, never could I have believed," she murmured to herself, "that one
could be so happy." Her face lighted up with a smile; but at the same moment
she sighed, and a soft melancholy came into her thoughtful glance. It was as
though, apart from the happiness she was feeling there was another happiness
unattainable in this life, which she could not help remembering at that
moment.