War and Peace

Chapter 27

[eight]

Old Lostaff quit his job as a representative of the nobles, because it cost him too much money, and his family's situation was getting worse day by day, and his children often heard their parents whispering about selling the ancestral home. and the manor.In addition, there are still as many as 30 diners living in his home, and the hunting team expanded by Malar is still the same.The habits of life were the same as usual, and the earl and countess would not have considered life otherwise.

The count managed his property as if struggling in a very large trap, sinking deeper and deeper step by step, feeling powerless to break the net that restrained him, or untie it carefully and delicately. open.The good Countess believes that the family's downfall is not the Count's fault, and that the Count himself is grieving over it, even if he hides it.The countess was still looking for a solution, and as a woman, there was only one solution, which was to find a wealthy wife for Maral.She felt that this was the only hope, and that if Malal rejected this option, the chances of improving the family situation of the Rostaff family would always be lost.The one chosen for Malal was Sorin Karagina, her parents were kind people, the Rostavs knew her from Sorin's childhood, and now, because Sorin's brothers are all dead Now, she has become a wealthy unmarried girl.The Countess herself wrote a letter to Sorin's mother in Moscow, proposing to her a marriage between the two families. .Sorin's mother also invited Malal to Moscow.

The mother took the opportunity to tell Malal about this idea, and Malal understood her mother's thoughts, but felt very confused.

"Yes, I may love a poor girl," said Malal to himself. "Why, am I really going to give up love and reputation for property? How strange, how can mother say such things to me?" What about? Is it because Martha is poor that I can no longer love her and return her honest, tender love? I can't force myself to change my love," he thought, "I love Martha, I love her. I feel my love is stronger and more sublime than anything."

Maral did not go to Moscow, and the countess, who did not speak of the matter again, watched with apprehension, and sometimes with anger, her son and the dowry-less Masha grow closer and closer.Mother was annoyed with Martha, but she was an obedient, resolute, and friendly girl who could not be faulted.Nates received the fifth letter from Rome from Duke André, saying that his wound had relapsed and that he had to postpone his return until the beginning of the next year.Nates still loves her fiancé, and is still happy because of having this love, but she also begins to worry.She pitied herself, pitied the time that was passing in vain.

The Lostaffs were not happy.

[Nine]

Christmas is here, and the Rosestuffs still hold celebrations, but there is hardly any very enthusiastic atmosphere.After lunch on the second day of Christmas, the whole family retired to their rooms.This is the most boring time of the day.Nates walked aimlessly in the living room.

"Why are you walking around like a homeless man?" Mom said, "What do you need?"

"I need him . . . right now. Mom, don't look at me, I'm about to cry. Mom, I need him. Why am I wasting my time like this, Mom? . . . " Her voice broke off, To hide her tears, she quickly turned around and walked out of the room.

In order to amuse herself, she kept sending her servants to do this and that, ordering them inside and outside the house, up and down, as if she was surveying her own kingdom, but she still felt bored, she went into the hall, took She picked up the guitar, hid in the dark corner behind the cabinet, strummed the strings, and played the phrases from the opera she had heard with Duke Andry in Petersburg.She was sitting behind the cabinet, watching a ray of sunlight coming through the door of the dining room, playing the piano while thinking about it, completely immersed in the memory of the past.

"Come back soon, I'm afraid he won't come back! The most important thing is that I'm getting older every day, and that's the problem. I won't be what I am now. Maybe he will come today, He'll be there in a minute, maybe he's already here, sitting in the living room, maybe he was here yesterday and I forgot." She stood up, put down her guitar, and went into the living room.The whole family is already sitting at the tea table with the guests.

She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation of the family. "My God, it's still the same face, the same conversation, and Papa is still holding and blowing on the teacup like that!" Even hate them.

[ten]

After tea, Maral, Martha, and Natess went into their favorite corner of the living room, where they had been having their most friendly conversations.Today's topic is teenagers, and they recalled many interesting episodes in teenagers.

They smile with joy and recall the past, not of sad old age, but of poetic youth, the impression of the most distant past, in which dreams and reality are mingled.They laughed quietly, happy about something.

They then returned to the drawing room and entered into a conversation with the countess.The musician Jimmler is also in the living room.After a few conversations about philosophy and eternity, the countess suddenly said to Natès:

"It's your turn now. Sing something for us." "Mother! I don't want to sing anything." Natess said, but she stood up anyway.

Malar sat down at the piano, and Nates, as usual, chose a common and excellent place in the middle of the hall, and sang her mother's favorite songs.

She said she didn't want to sing, but she hadn't sung as well as she did tonight for a long time before.The old count was talking with Mitenka in the study, when he heard Natess singing, he was like a schoolboy looking forward to going out to play after class, he explained a few words to the housekeeper, then fell silent Mitenka was also listening quietly, standing in front of the count with a smile on his face.Malal watched his sister warily, breathing air with her.As she listened, Martha thought how great the distance was between her and her friend, who in any case had not the least bit of her cousin's charms.The old countess sat there with a happy and sad smile on her face, with tears in her eyes, shaking her head from time to time.She was thinking of Natès, of her own youth, and of the uncomfortable, dreadful thing about Natès's marriage to the Duke d'Andrew.

Before Natès had finished singing, the very happy thirteen-year-old Biga ran in and shouted, here comes the masquerade party.

There was a lively masquerade in the drawing room.Half an hour later, new masquerade dancers appeared in the hall: an old lady in a skirt with a bulging skirt, this was Malal, the Turkish woman was Bega, and Natess was pretending to be a husk. A cavalryman, Masha darkened her eyebrows with cork, and disguised herself as a Circassian.

After the ball, the young people felt that their costumes were so beautiful that they should go and perform elsewhere.They decided to go to Melakava's house.Merakova was a widow with several children, young and old, and governesses of both sexes. Her home was four kilometers from the Lostavs' house.

Three horse-drawn sleighs set off with these strangely dressed and joyous people.

[eleven]

Merakova, a fat, energetic woman in a fat civilian dress and glasses, is sitting in the living room surrounded by her children.At this time, there was a burst of lively footsteps and voices in the front hall, and then hussars, ladies, wizards, clowns and all kinds of people poured into the hall, and the living room was immediately filled with a joyous atmosphere.All the juniors in the Merakova family also completed their makeup and joined the masked crowd.

Melakuva didn't take off her glasses, held back her smile, and walked back and forth among the masked men, looking at everyone's faces in turn. She found that she couldn't recognize any of them. Muller doesn't even know his own daughter anymore.

After an hour of rejoicing, everyone's clothes were rumpled, and the beards and eyebrows drawn with charcoal were blurred on the sweaty and happy faces.Melakava began to recognize the costumed people, praised the costumes, thanked everyone for making her happy, then invited the guests to dinner in the drawing room, and ordered the servants to be rewarded in the hall.

At mealtime it was suggested that fortune-telling in the barn was accurate but dreadful.Martha was determined to give it a try.The barn was pointed out to Martha, and she was handed a leather coat, which she put on and stood up, looking at Maral, who was standing beside her.

Malal felt that he had never fully known Martha until today for the first time.Martha was really happy, active, and beautiful tonight, in a way Malal had never seen her before. "How beautiful the girl is!" thought Malal, "but what have I been thinking until now!"

Martha got up and went to the barn.Then, Malal also came out with the excuse that it was too hot in the room.

"I'm an idiot, an idiot! What have I been waiting for?" Malal thought, walking around the corner to the path that led to the barn outside the back door, where he knew Martha would pass.There is a firewood pile more than one meter high on the side of the road, which casts a vague black shadow.The branches of an old bare lime tree cast intertwined shadows on the snow on the path.The top of the snow-covered barn seemed to be carved out of gems, shining brightly in the moonlight.

Martha came out wrapped in a fur coat and saw him not far from Malar. The man in front of her was not the person she usually saw who was a little timid about him. He was wearing a woman's shirt. Clothes, hair terribly disheveled, and a happy smile that Martha had never seen before.She immediately ran to his side.

"It's a completely different person, but it's still the same as before." Looking at the face illuminated by the moon, Malar thought to himself.He poured both hands into her fur coat, hugged her tightly, brought her close to him, and kissed her lips with a mustache and the smell of charcoal.Martha kissed him too, and held his cheeks with her tiny hands.

"Martha!..." "Malar!..." That was all they said.They ran into the barn, and it was a while before they returned to the living room.

[twelve]
On the way home, Natess, who was good at observing and discovering the situation, arranged for Maral and Masha to ride in a sleigh.Malar drove the car steadily, no longer as moved as he was on the way, relying on the magical moonlight that changed everything, he kept secretly watching Martha's face, looking for the past and the present Martha, He had made up his mind never to leave her again.He looked and looked, and saw two very different Marthas in her.A smell of charcoal reminded him of her kissing feeling, so he took a breath of the cold air, looked at the flying snow in front of him, looked at the bright sky, and felt that he was in a fairyland.

"How are you, Martha?" he kept asking. "Good!" replied Martha, "and you?" Maral realized that this Martha would be his happy wife.Back home, Nates and Masha told their mother what had happened at Melakava's house, and then went back to their room.They undressed, and without wiping off the mustaches they had drawn in charcoal, they sat for a long time talking about their happiness.They talked about their married life, about their future husbands.On Nates' table, the two mirrors that the maid had prepared yesterday for fortune-telling were still there.

Nates looked in the mirror, but she couldn't see the phantom that the maid said should appear.Martha also looked in the mirror, but she also found nothing, but she did not want to let Natess despair.

"Yes, wait a minute, I... saw him." Martha said involuntarily, and she herself did not understand whether the "he" here referred to Andrée or Malar.

"How is he?"

"He's lying there." "Is he sick?" "No, he's happy." "Oh, what else, Martha?"

"Can't see clearly, there's something blue and red..." "Martha! When will he come back? When will I see him! My God! I'm so worried for him, and for myself Worry..." said Nates, who was silent about Martha's consolation, lay down on the bed, blew out the candle, and lay quietly on the bed with her eyes open, looking at the bleak moonlight shining through the frosted window.

[Thirteen]
After Christmas, Malal expresses his love for Martha and his decision to marry Martha to his mother.The countess had long noticed the relationship between Mala and Martha, and she had expected Maral's confession. She listened to her son's words in silence, and then told him that he would marry whomever he liked. Who gets married, but neither mother nor father will wish him this marriage.For the first time, Malar felt his mother’s injustice towards him. Her mother’s expression was cold and she asked someone to call for the count. When the count came, the countess wanted to tell her husband the truth in front of Malar, but she cried in anger. I got up, so I had to go out.The old count began to persuade Maral to give up his plan to marry Martha, but Maral said he could not betray his promise, so the father sighed and went to the countess without saying a word.He had a feeling of being sorry for his son. He had messed up the family business, and he couldn't condemn his son because of it. If the family business went well, Martha would be the perfect wife for Maral.

The parents stopped talking to their son on this subject, but after some time the countess called Martha, and with a cruelty more than Martha, or even the countess herself, had expected, she accused the niece of being ungrateful and of having cheated on her. son.Martha was silent and listened to the Countess's lesson with lowered eyes. She didn't understand what the Countess wanted her to do.In order to repay her benefactor, she is willing to sacrifice everything, but this time she doesn't know what to sacrifice and for whom.She must love the Countess and the Lowstaffs, and she must love Malal, on which she knew her happiness depended.She was deep and silent.Malal understood Martha's plight, so he went to explain to his mother. He asked her to forgive him and Martha, and promised them to marry. He also threatened his mother that if Martha was abused privately, he would immediately marry her privately.

Mother, with an indifference such as Malal had never seen before, replied that he had grown up to do whatever he wanted, but that she would never recognize the schemer as her daughter-in-law.Hearing the word "conspirator", Malal became enraged and told his mother in a loud voice that it never occurred to him that her mother would force him to sell his love, and if so, then he would... But he didn't have time The mother, who had anticipated what he would say, waited in dismay for his words, which might have very serious consequences between mother and son.He didn't have time to finish, because Natess rushed in with a pale face and a stern expression. She had been hiding outside the door and eavesdropping just now.

Natès put an end to a disruptive conversation between mother and child, and reconciled the outcome: Malal had his mother's permission that Martha would not suffer any private abuse; Parents do anything.

Maral is determined to return to the army, and after finishing his work in the team, he returns home and marries Martha.So, he returned to the army in the first month.After Malal left, the Lostaffs were not as good as before.The countess fell ill from the intensity of her emotions.The family situation was getting worse day by day, so the old count had to go to Moscow and sell his real estate in Moscow and the manor in the suburbs.

(End of this chapter)