War And Peace: Book 11 - CHAPTER XXII

作者: Leo Tolstoy

Free Download Babylon Translate Software

The poster (email) is not available. 收藏推荐:

图书介绍

Author: Leo Tolstoy

THE TOWN ITSELF meanwhile was deserted. There was scarcely a creature in the

streets. The gates and the shops were all closed; here and there near pot-houses

could be heard solitary shouts or drunken singing. No one was driving in the

streets, and footsteps were rarely heard. Povarsky Street was perfectly still

and deserted. In the immense courtyard of the Rostovs' house a few wisps of

straw were lying about, litter out of the waggons that had gone away, and not a

man was to be seen. In the Rostovs' house—abandoned with all its wealth—there

were two persons in the great drawing-room. These were the porter, Ignat, and

the little page, Mishka, the grandson of Vassilitch, who had remained in Moscow

with his grandfather. Mishka had opened the clavichord, and was strumming with

one finger. The porter, with his arms akimbo and a gleeful smile on his face,

was standing before the great looking-glass.

“That's fine, eh, Uncle Ignat?” said the boy, beginning to bang with both

hands at once on the keys.

“Ay, ay!” answered Ignat, admiring the broadening grin on his visage in the

glass.

“Shameless fellows! Shameless, upon my word!” they heard behind them the

voice of Mavra Kuzminishna, who had softly entered. “The fat-faced fellow

grinning at himself! So this is what you are at! It's not all cleared away down

there, and Vassilitch fairly knocked up. You wait a bit!”

Ignat, setting his belt straight, left off smiling, and with eyes

submissively downcast, walked out of the room.

“Auntie, I was only just touching …” said the boy.

“I'll teach you only just to touch. Little rascal!” cried Mavra Kuzminishna,

waving her hand at him. “Go and set the samovar for your granddad.”

Brushing the dust off, she closed the clavichord, and sighing heavily went

out of the drawing-room and closed the door. Going out into the yard Mavra

Kuzminishna mused where she would go next: whether to drink tea in the lodge

with Vassilitch, or to the storeroom to put away what still remained to be

stored away.

There was a sound of rapid footsteps in the still street. The steps paused at

the gate, the latch rattled as some hand tried to open it.

Mavra Kuzminishna went up to the little gate.

“Whom do you want?”

“The count, Count Ilya Andreitch Rostov.”

“But who are you?”

“I am an officer. I want to see him,” said a genial voice, the voice of a

Russian gentleman.

Mavra Kuzminishna opened the gate. And there walked into the courtyard a

round-faced officer, a lad of eighteen, whose type of face strikingly resembled

the Rostovs'.

“They have gone away, sir. Yesterday, in the evening, their honours set off,”

said Mavra Kuzminishna cordially. The young officer standing in the gateway, as

though hesitating whether to go in or not, gave a click with his tongue

expressive of disappointment.

“Ah, how annoying!” he said. “Yesterday I ought to … Ah, what a pity …”

Meanwhile Mavra Kuzminishna was intently and sympathetically scrutinising the

familiar features of the Rostov family in the young man's face, and the tattered

cloak and trodden-down boots he was wearing. “What was it you wanted to see the

count for?” she asked.

“Well … what am I to do now!” the officer cried, with vexation in his voice,

and he took hold of the gate as though intending to go away. He stopped short

again in uncertainty.

“You see,” he said all at once, “I am a kinsman of the count's, and he has

always been very kind to me. So do you see” (he looked with a merry and

good-humoured smile at his cloak and boots) “I am in rags, and haven't a

farthing; so I had meant to ask the count …”

Mavra Kuzminishna did not let him finish.

“Would you wait just a minute, sir? Only one minute,” she said. And as soon

as the officer let go of the gate, Mavra Kuzminishna turned, and with her rapid,

elderly step hurried into the back court to her lodge.

While she was running to her room, the officer, with downcast head and a

faint smile, was pacing up and down the yard, gazing at his tattered

boots.

“What a pity I have missed uncle! What a nice old body! Where has she run off

to? And how am I to find out the nearest way for me to overtake the regiment,

which must be at Rogozhsky by now?” the young officer was musing meanwhile.

Mavra Kuzminishna came round the corner with a frightened and, at the same time,

resolute face, carrying in her hands a knotted check handkerchief. A few steps

from him, she untied the handkerchief, took out of it a white twenty-five rouble

note, and gave it hurriedly to the officer.

“Had his excellency been at home, to be sure, he would have done a kinsman's

part, but as it is … see, may be …” Mavra Kuzminishna was overcome with shyness

and confusion. But the officer, with no haste nor reluctance, took the note, and

thanked Mavra Kuzminishna. “If only the count had been at home,” murmured Mavra

Kuzminishna, as it were apologetically. “Christ be with you, sir. God keep you

safe,” she said, bowing and showing him out. The officer, smiling and shaking

his head, as though laughing at himself, ran almost at a trot along the empty

streets to overtake his regiment at Yauzsky bridge.

But for some time Mavra Kuzminishna remained standing with wet eyes before

the closed gate, pensively shaking her head, and feeling a sudden rush of

motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown boy-officer.

[Translate] Download Babylon Translate Software for Free!
[Directly Download] War And Peace: Book 11 - CHAPTER XXII!

Download this book from Usenet

Free register and download UseNet downloader, then you can free download from UseNet.

Download "War And Peace: Book 11 - CHAPTER XXII" from Usenet!

使用Usenet下载

免费注册即可使用Usenext下载电子书！
Usenet是来自德国的下载软件，强大的共享网络搜索下载工具，免费注册后即可不限速下载150G 电子书，Audiobook等等~~赶快下载使用吧！

Copyright Disclaimer:
本站一切内容源于互联网搜索，禁止商用！如有任何不妥请联系:admin@ebookee.com，我们将在24小时内删除相关内容。

浏览量：198 添加时间：2007-05-11 00:00:15, 更新时间：2007-05-27 05:03:00, from internet