And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and lay down on the sofa.
“That’s always the way,” thought Countess Márya. “He talks to everyone except me. I see … I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I am in this condition.” She looked down at her expanded figure and in the glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked larger than ever.
And everything annoyed her—Denísov’s shouting and laughter, Natásha’s talk, and especially a quick glance Sónya gave her.
Sónya was always the first excuse Countess Márya found for feeling irritated.
Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery.
The children were playing at “going to Moscow” in a carriage made of chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with difficulty, went to the small sitting room.
“Perhaps he is not asleep; I’ll have an explanation with him,” she said to herself. Andrúsha, her eldest boy, imitating his mother, followed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.
“Marie, dear, I think he is asleep—he was so tired,” said Sónya, meeting her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Márya that she crossed her path everywhere). “Andrúsha may wake him.”
Countess Márya looked round, saw Andrúsha following her, felt that Sónya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but to avoid obeying Sónya beckoned to Andrúsha to follow her quietly and went to the door. Sónya went away by another door. From the room in which Nikoláy was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night when he slept. Nikoláy suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at that moment Andrúsha shouted from outside the door: “Papa! Mamma’s standing here!” Countess Márya turned pale with fright and made signs to the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to Countess Márya. She knew how Nikoláy disliked being waked. Then through the door she heard Nikoláy clearing his throat again and stirring, and his voice said crossly:
“I can’t get a moment’s peace. … Márya, is that you? Why did you bring him here?”
“I only came in to look and did not notice … forgive me. …”
Nikoláy coughed and said no more. Countess Márya moved away from the door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little black-eyed three-year-old Natásha, her father’s pet, having learned from her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father, who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand which lay under his head. Nikoláy turned with a tender smile on his face.
“Natásha, Natásha!” came Countess Márya’s frightened whisper from the door. “Papa wants to sleep.”
“No, Mamma, he doesn’t want to sleep,” said little Natásha with conviction. “He’s laughing.”
Nikoláy lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.
“Come in, Másha,” he said to his wife.
She went in and sat down by her husband.
“I did not notice him following me,” she said timidly. “I just looked in.”
Holding his little girl with one arm, Nikoláy glanced at his wife and, seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed her hair.
“May I kiss Mamma?” he asked Natásha.
Natásha smiled bashfully.
“Again!” she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot where Nikoláy had placed the kiss.
“I don’t know why you think I am cross,” said Nikoláy, replying to the question he knew was in his wife’s mind.
“You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like that. It always seems to me …”
“Márya, don’t talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” he said gaily.
“It seems to be that you can’t love me, that I am so plain … always … and now … in this cond …”
“Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty. It is only Malvina and women of that kind who are loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don’t love her, but … I don’t know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between us like this, I seem lost and can’t do anything. Now do I love my finger? I don’t love it, but just try to cut it off!”
“I’m not like that myself, but I understand. So you’re not angry with me?”
“Awfully angry!” he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair he began to pace the room.
“Do you know, Márya, what I’ve been thinking?” he began, immediately thinking aloud in his wife’s presence now that they had made it up.
He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.
Countess Márya listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.
“You can see the woman in her already,” she said in French, pointing to little Natásha. “You reproach
