“Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!” said Natásha, stopping suddenly. “I feel so happy!”
And she set off at a run along the passage.
Sónya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran after Natásha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face and light, joyous steps. At the visitors’ request the young people sang the quartet, “The Brook,” with which everyone was delighted. Then Nikoláy sang a song he had just learned:
At nighttime in the moon’s fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free, To feel that in this world there’s one Who still is thinking but of thee!
That while her fingers touch the harp Wafting sweet music o’er the lea, It is for thee thus swells her heart, Sighing its message out to thee. …
A day or two, then bliss unspoilt, But oh! till then I cannot live! …
He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to get ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.
Pierre was sitting in the drawing room where Shinshín had engaged him, as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began Natásha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and blushing:
“Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers.”