“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” shouted Natásha as soon as he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. “Nikólenka, Nikólenka!” she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: “What is it moves me so?”
Nikoláy too was greatly pleased by “Uncle’s” playing, and “Uncle” played the piece over again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces …
Fetching water clear and sweet, Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—
played “Uncle” once more, running his fingers skillfully over the strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.
“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life depended on it.
“Uncle” rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.
“Now then, niece!” he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that had just struck a chord.
Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face “Uncle,” and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her shoulders and struck an attitude.
Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an émigré French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit and obtained that manner which the pas de châle would, one would have supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that “Uncle” had expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled