“No, on my true word of honor,” said Natásha, crossing herself, “I won’t tell anyone!” and she ran off at once to Sónya.
“Nikólenka … wounded … a letter,” she announced in gleeful triumph.
“ Nicolas! ” was all Sónya said, instantly turning white.
Natásha, seeing the impression the news of her brother’s wound produced on Sónya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.
She rushed to Sónya, hugged her, and began to cry.
“A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he wrote himself,” said she through her tears.
“There now! It’s true that all you women are crybabies,” remarked Pétya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. “Now I’m very glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all blubberers and understand nothing.”
Natásha smiled through her tears.
“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Sónya.
“No, but she said that it was all over and that he’s now an officer.”
“Thank God!” said Sónya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she deceived you. Let us go to Mamma.”
Pétya paced the room in silence for a time.
“If I’d been in Nikolúshka’s place I would have killed even more of those Frenchmen,” he said. “What nasty brutes they are! I’d have killed so many that there’d have been a heap of them.”
“Hold your tongue, Pétya, what a goose you are!”