“And you won’t be ashamed to write to him?”

“And you won’t be ashamed to write to him?”

Sonya smiled.

“No.”

“And I should be ashamed to write to Boris, and I’m not going to write.”

“But why should you be ashamed?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I feel awkward, ashamed.”

“I know why she’d be ashamed,” said Petya, offended at Natasha’s previous remark, “because she fell in love with that fat fellow in spectacles” (this was how Petya used to describe his namesake, the new Count Bezuhov); “and now she’s in love with that singing fellow” (Petya meant Natasha’s Italian singing-master), “that’s why she’s ashamed.”

“Petya, you’re a stupid,” said Natasha.

“No stupider than you, ma’am,” said nine-year-old Petya, exactly as though he had been an elderly brigadier.

The countess had been prepared by Anna Mihalovna’s hints during dinner. On returning to her room she had sat down in a low chair with her eyes fixed on the miniature of her son, painted on the lid of her snuff-box, and the tears started into her eyes. Anna Mihalovna, with the letter, approached the countess’s room on tiptoe, and stood still at the door.

“Don’t come in,” she said to the old count, who was following her; “later,” and she closed the door after her. The count put his ear to the keyhole, and listened.

At first he heard the sound of indifferent talk, then Anna Mihalovna’s voice alone, uttering a long speech, then a shriek, then silence, then both voices talking at once with joyful intonations, then there were steps, and Anna Mihalovna opened the door. Her face wore the look of pride of an operator who has performed a difficult amputation, and invites the public in to appreciate his skill.

“It is done,” she said to the count triumphantly, motioning him to the countess, who was holding in one hand the snuff-box with the portrait, in the other the letter, and pressing her lips first to one and then to the other. On seeing the count, she held out her arms to him, embraced his bald head, and looked again over the bald head at the letter and the portrait, and in order again to press them to her lips, slightly repelled the bald head from her. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya came into the room, and the reading of the letter began. The letter briefly described the march and the two battles in which Nikolushka had taken part, and the receiving of his commission, and said that he kissed the hands of his mamma and papa, begging their blessing, and sent kisses to Vera, Natasha, and Petya. He sent greetings, too, to Monsieur Schelling and Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and begged them to kiss for him his darling Sonya, whom he still loved and thought of the same as ever. On hearing this, Sonya blushed till the tears came into her eyes. And unable to stand the eyes fixed upon her, she ran into the big hall, ran about with a flushed and smiling face, whirled round and round and ducked down, making her skirts into a balloon. The countess was crying.

� ( r m y� � � ne society, on the appearance of Anatole on the scene, all the three women in Prince Nikolay Andreivitch’s house felt alike that their life had not been real life till then. Their powers of thought, of feeling, of observation, were instantly redoubled. It seemed as though their life had till then been passed in darkness, and was all at once lighted up by a new brightness that was full of significance.