Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
|
new to Sonya. She ran rapidly
toward him.
"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her
face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the
cloak that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and
kissed her on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt
cork. Sonya kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little
hands pressed them to his cheeks.
"Sonya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and
then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back
porch.
CHAPTER XII
When they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovnas, Natasha, who
always saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss
should go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sonya with Nicholas and
the maids.
On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing
and kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonyas
face and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former
and his present Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be parted
again. He looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new
Sonya, and being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the
sensation of her kiss, inhaled the frosty air with a full breast
and, looking at the ground flying beneath him and at the sparkling
sky, felt himself again in fairyland.
"Sonya, is it well with thee?" he asked from time to time.
"Yes!" she replied. "And with thee?"
When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and
ran for a moment to Natashas sleigh and stood on its wing.
"Natasha!" he whispered in French, "do you know I have made up my
mind about Sonya?"
"Have you told her?" asked Natasha, suddenly beaming all over with
joy.
"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...
Natasha--are you glad?"
"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I
did not tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart
she has, Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be
happy while Sonya was not," continued Natasha. "Now I am so glad!
Well, run back to her."
"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!" cried Nicholas, peering
into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual,
and bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before.
"Natasha, its magical, isnt it?"
"Yes," she replied. "You have done splendidly."
"Had I seen her before as she is now," thought Nicholas, "I should
long ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me,
and all would have been well."
"So you are glad and I have done right?"
"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.
Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing!
I nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of
Sonya, for there is nothing but good in her."
"Then its all right?" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the
expression of his sisters face to see if she was in earnest. Then
he jumped down and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his
sleigh. The same happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and
beaming eyes looking up from under a sable hood, was still sitting
there, and that Circassian was Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly his
future happy and loving wife.
When they reached home and had told their mother how they had
spent the evening at the Melyukovs, the girls went to their
bedroom. When they had undressed, but without washing off the cork
mustaches, they sat a long time talking of their happiness. They
talked of how they would live when they were married, how their
husbands would be friends, and how happy they would be. On Natashas
table stood two looking glasses which Dunyasha had prepared
beforehand.
"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too
good!" said Natasha, rising and going to the looking glasses.
"Sit down, Natasha; perhaps youll see him," said Sonya.
Natasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking
glasses, and sat down.
"I see someone with a mustache," said Natasha, seeing her own face.
"You mustnt laugh, Miss," said Dunyasha.
With Sonyas help and the maids, Natasha got the glass she held
into the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious
expression and she sat silent. She sat
War And Peace page 315 War And Peace page 317
|