It really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came running, out to the porch carrying candles.
'Who is it?' asked someone in the porch.
'The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses,' replied some voices.
CHAPTER XI
Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic woman wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.
Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The clown--Dimmler--and the lady--Nicholas--started a dance. Surrounded by the screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and disguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves about the room.
'Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natasha! See whom she looks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler--isn't he good! I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonya. And who is that? Well, you have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya--clear away the tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar! Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him...' different voices were saying.
Natasha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them into the back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs joined the mummers.
Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs, went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs she failed to recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband's, dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.
'And who is is this?' she asked her governess, peering into the face of her own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. 'I suppose it is one of the Rostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?' she asked Natasha. 'Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!' she ordered the butler who was handing things round. 'That's not forbidden by his law.'
Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the dancers, who--having decided once for all that being disguised, no one would recognize them--were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna hid her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.
'My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!' she said.
After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovna made the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.
In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the serfs had something served to them in the ballroom.
'Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!' said an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.
'Why?' said the eldest Melyukov girl.
'You wouldn't go, it takes courage...'
'I'll go,' said Sonya.
'Tell what happened to the young lady!' said the second Melyukov girl.
'Well,' began the old maid, 'a young lady once went out, took a cock, laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a man, like an officer--comes in and sits down to table with her.'
'Ah! ah!' screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror.
'Yes? And how... did he speak?'
'Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then...'
'Now, why frighten them?' said Pelageya Danilovna.
'Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself...' said her daughter.
'And how does one do it in a barn?' inquired Sonya.
'Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what you hear; hammering and knocking-- that's bad; but a sound of shifting grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too.'
'Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn.'
Pelageya Danilovna smiled.
'Oh, I've forgotten...' she replied. 'But none of you would go?'
'Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go,' said Sonya.
'Well, why not, if you're not afraid?'
