War And Peace: Book 6 - CHAPTER XVI

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

THERE was a sudden stir, the crowd began talking, rushed forward, then moved

apart again, and down the space left open through it, the Tsar walked to the

strains of the band, which struck up at once. Behind him walked the host and

hostess. The Tsar walked in rapidly, bowing to right and to left, as though

trying to hurry over the first moments of greeting. The musicians played the

polonaise in vogue at the time on account of the words set to it. The words

began: “Alexander, Elisaveta, our hearts ye ravish quite.” The Tsar went into

the drawing-room, the crowd made a dash for the door; several persons ran

hurriedly to the door and back with excited faces. The crowd made another rush

back, away from the drawing-room door at which the Tsar appeared in conversation

with the hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies

and begged them to move aside. Several, with faces that betrayed a total

oblivion of all the rules of decorum, squeezed forward, to the destruction of

their dresses. The men began approaching the ladies, and couples were formed for

the polonaise.

There was a general movement of retreat, and the Tsar, smiling, came out of

the drawing-room door, leading out the lady of the house, and not keeping time

to the music. He was followed by the host with Marya Antonovna Narishkin; then

came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whose names Madame Peronsky

never tired of reciting. More than half the ladies had partners, and were taking

part, or preparing to take part, in the polonaise.

Natasha felt that she would be left with her mother and Sonya in that

minority of the ladies who were crowded back against the wall, and not invited

to dance the polonaise. She stood, her thin arms hanging at her sides, and her

scarcely outlined bosom heaving regularly. She held her breath, and gazed before

her with shining, frightened eyes, with an expression of equal readiness for the

utmost bliss or the utmost misery. She took no interest in the Tsar, nor in all

the great people Madame Peronsky was pointing out; her mind was filled by one

thought: “Is it possible no one will come up to me? Is it possible that I shall

not dance among the foremost? Is it possible I shall not be noticed by all these

men, who now don't even seem to see me, but if they look at me, look with an

expression as though they would say: ‘Ah! that's not she, so it's no use

looking'?” “No, it cannot be!” she thought. “They must know how I long to dance,

how well I dance, and how they would enjoy dancing with me.”

The strains of the polonaise, which had already lasted some time, were

beginning to sound like a melancholy reminiscence in the ears of Natasha. She

wanted to cry. Madame Peronsky had left them. The count was at the other end of

the ballroom, the countess, Sonya, and she stood in that crowd of strangers as

lonely as in a forest, of no interest, of no use to any one. Prince Andrey with

a lady passed close by them, obviously not recognising them. The handsome

Anatole said something smiling to the lady on his arm, and he glanced at

Natasha's face as one looks at a wall. Boris passed by them, twice, and each

time turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came towards

them.

This family meeting here, in a ballroom, seemed a humiliating thing to

Natasha, as though there were nowhere else for family talk but here at a ball.

She did not listen, and did not look at Vera, who said something to her about

her own green dress.

At last the Tsar stood still beside the last of his partners (he had danced

with three), the music ceased. An anxious-looking adjutant ran up to the

Rostovs, begging them to move a little further back, though they were already

close to the wall, and from the orchestra came the circumspect, precise,

seductively, stately rhythm of the waltz. The Tsar glanced with a smile down the

ballroom. A moment passed; no one had yet begun. An adjutant, who was a steward,

went up to Countess Bezuhov and asked her to dance. Smiling, she raised her hand

and laid it on the adjutant's shoulder without looking at him. The

adjutant-steward, a master of his art, grasped his partner firmly, and with

confident deliberation and smoothness broke with her into the first gallop round

the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the ballroom caught his partner's

left hand, turned her; and through the quickening strains of the music nothing

could be heard but the regular jingle of the spurs on the adjutant's rapid,

practised feet, and at every third beat the swish of his partner's flying velvet

skirt as she whirled round.

Natasha looked at them, and was ready to cry that it was not she dancing that

first round of the waltz.

Prince Andrey, in his white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing stockings

and dancing-shoes, stood looking eager and lively, in the front of the ring not

far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoff was talking to him of the proposed first

sitting of the State Council to be held next day. From his intimacy with

Speransky, and the part he was taking in the labours of the legislative

commission, Prince Andrey was in a position to give authoritative information in

regard to that sitting, about which the most diverse rumours were current. But

he did not hear what Firhoff was saying to him, and looked from the Tsar to the

gentlemen preparing to dance, who had not yet stepped out into the ring.

Prince Andrey was watching these gentlemen, who were timid in the presence of

the Tsar, and the ladies, who were dying to be asked to dance.

Pierre went up to Prince Andrey and took him by the arm.

“You always dance. Here is my protégée, the younger Rostov girl, ask her,” he

said.

“Where?” asked Bolkonsky. “I beg your pardon,” he said, turning to the baron,

“we will finish this conversation in another place, but at a ball one must

dance.” He went forward in the direction indicated by Pierre. Natasha's

despairing, tremulous face broke upon Prince Andrey. He recognised her, guessed

her feelings, saw that it was her debut, remembered what she had said at the

window, and with an expression of pleasure on his face he approached Countess

Rostov.

“Permit me to introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess,

reddening.

“I have the pleasure of her acquaintance already, if the countess remembers

me,” said Prince Andrey, with a low and courteous bow, which seemed a direct

contradiction to Madame Peronsky's remarks about his rudeness. He went up to

Natasha, and raised his hand to put it round her waist before he had fully

uttered the invitation to dance. He proposed a waltz to her. The tremulous

expression of Natasha's face, ready for despair or for ecstasy, brightened at

once into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.

“I have been a long while waiting for you,” that alarmed and happy young girl

seemed to say to him in the smile that peeped out through the starting tears as

she raised her hand to Prince Andrey's shoulder. They were the second couple

that walked forward into the ring.

Prince Andrey was one of the best dancers of his day. Natasha danced

exquisitely. Her little feet in their satin dancing-shoes performed their task

lightly and independently of her, and her face beamed with a rapture of

happiness.

Her bare neck and arms were thin, and not beautiful compared with Ellen's

shoulders. Her shoulders were thin, her bosom undefined, her arms were slender.

But Ellen was, as it were, covered with the hard varnish of those thousands of

eyes that had scanned her person, while Natasha seemed like a young girl

stripped for the first time, who would have been greatly ashamed if she had not

been assured by every one that it must be so.

Prince Andrey loved dancing. He was anxious to escape as quickly as he could

from the political and intellectual conversations into which every one tried to

draw him, and anxious too to break through that burdensome barrier of constraint

arising from the presence of the Tsar; so he made haste to dance, and chose

Natasha for a partner because Pierre pointed her out to him, and because she was

the first pretty girl who caught his eyes. But he had no sooner put his arm

round that slender, supple waist, and felt her stirring so close to him, and

smiling so close to him, than the intoxication of her beauty flew to his head.

He felt full of life and youth again as, drawing a deep breath, he brought her

to a standstill and began to watch the other couples.

[Translate] Download Babylon Translate Software for Free!
[Directly Download] War And Peace: Book 6 - CHAPTER XVI!

Download this book from Usenet

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

Download "War And Peace: Book 6 - CHAPTER XVI" 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：194 添加时间：2007-05-10 23:09:20, 更新时间：2007-05-27 05:03:00, from internet