Book 2 Part 4 Chapter 7 (Chapter 136 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: The visit at the "Little Uncle's." A Russian proprietor. Anisya (Anisyushka) Feodorovna, the housekeeper. A zakuska. Russian music. Mitka's balalaika. The "Little Uncle" plays. Natasha dances. Would Prince Andrei approve. The return home. Confidences.
Briggs: An evening at 'Uncle's'. Balalaika playing. Natasha's Russian dancing.
Maude: An evening at 'Uncle's'. The balalayka. Natasha's Russian dance
Pevear and Volkhonsky: Evening at uncle's. Balalaika. Natasha dances.

Translation:

VII.

When in the evening Ilagin parted with Nikolay, Nikolay turned out to be at such a distant distance from home that he accepted a proposal from the uncle to leave the hunt and spend the night at his, at the uncle’s, in his village Mihaylovka.

— And if you would drive in to me — a clean business march! — said the uncle, — Still this would be better; you see, the weather is wet, — spoke the uncle, —  you would be rested, and the countess would be taken away on carriage. — The proposal of the uncle was acceptable, for a carriage sent a hunter to Otradnoe; but Nikolay with Natasha and Petya went to the uncle’s.

Five persons, large and early, court men ran out onto the front porch to meet the baron. Ten women, old, large and early, leaned out from the rear porch to look at the driving hunters. The presence of Natasha, a woman, a lady on horseback, led the curiosity of the court of the uncle to those limits that many, not embarrassed at her presence, approached to her, dropped at her eyes and at her made their remarks about her, as about a shown miracle, which a person may not hear and understand what is spoken about them.

— Arinka, take a look, on a barrel she sits! She sits, but her lap is hanging out... you see the horn!

— Father of the world, that knife...

— You see the Tatar!

— How again do you not somersault? — said a brave one, all already turned to Natasha.

The uncle tore from his horse at the porch of his wooden overgrown garden house and looking around his household members, shouted imperatively so that the extra walked away and so all that was necessary was done for the reception of the guests and the hunting.

All ran away. The uncle stripped Natasha off from the horse and by the hand spent her by the shaky dated steps of the porch. In the house, not plastered, with log walls, was not very clean, — it was seen that the objective of the people living consisted not so that there were not stains, but there was not noticeable neglect. In the canopy it smelled of fresh apples and hung wolf and fox skins.

Through the hall the uncle spent his guests into a little hall with a folding table and red chairs, then in the living room with a birch round table and sofa, then into an office with a ragged sofa, worn out carpet and with portraits of Suvorov, the father and mother of the owner and himself in a military uniform. In the office was the strong smell of tobacco and dogs. In the office the uncle asked the guests to sit and to settle as at home, but himself got out. Rugay with an uncleaned back entered into the office and lied down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. From the office was a walking corridor, in which were seen screens with torn curtains. From behind the screen was heard a female laugh and whisper. Natasha, Nikolay and Petya undressed and sat down on the sofa. Petya leaned on his hand and immediately was asleep; Natasha and Nikolay were sitting silently. Their faces burned, they were very hungry and very happy. They saw each other (after hunting, in the room, Nikolay now did not count it fit to show his male superiority before his sister); Natasha winked at her brother and both held on not for long and loudly burst out laughing, not having time still to figure out the pretext for their laughter.

After a little while, the uncle entered in a kazakin, blue trousers and small boots. And Natasha felt that this very suit, at which she with surprise and mockery had seen the uncle at Otradnoe — was the present suit, which was not worse than frock coats and tailcoats. The uncle was also happy; he not only was not hurt by the laugh of brother and sister (in his head it could not come, so that they could laugh at his life), but himself joined to their unreasonable laugh.

— Here so young countess — a clean business march — a different such not seen! — he said, — giving one pipe with a long shank to Rostov, but a different short, trimmed shank laid in a habitual gesture between his three fingers.

— The day has left, though man in time has not happened in this!

Soon after the uncle opened the door, by the sound of the feet of an obviously barefoot girl, at the door with a big laden in her hands entered a thick, ruddy, beautiful woman of 40 years-old, with a double chin, and complete, rosy lips. She, with hospitable representativeness and attractiveness in her eyes and each movement, looked around the guests with an affectionate smile and respectfully bowed to them. Despite the more than ordinary thickness, forcing her to expose her chest forward and stomach and keep her head backwards, this woman (the housekeeper of the uncle) stepped extremely easily. She came up to the table, placed the tray and cleverly with her own white, plump hands took off and placed on the table bottles, snacks and treats. With this graduated she walked away and with a smile on her face came to ther door. —"Here is she and I! Now do you understand the uncle?" said to Rostov her appearance. How to not understand: not only Rostov, but Natasha understood the uncle and the matters of the frowned eyebrow, and happy, complacent smile, which a little bit wrinkled his lips at that time as entered Anisya Fedorovna. On the tray were herbs, liqueurs, fungi, cakes of black flour in whey, honeycomb, honey boiled and effervescent, apples, raw nuts and red-hot nuts in honey. Then Anisya Fedorovna brought jam in honey and in sugar, and ham, and a hen that had only been fried.

All this was economical, collecting the jam of Anisya Fedorovna. All this smelled, responded, and had the taste of Anisya Fedorovna. All responded to juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness and a nice smile.

— Eat, young countess, — she sentenced, giving Natasha that, then another. Natasha ate all, and to her it seemed, that the similar flatbread on whey, with such a bouquet of jam, nuts in honey and such a hen she had nowhere seen or eaten. Anisya Fedorovna exited. Rostov with the uncle, washing down the dinner with cherry liqueur, talked about past and future hunting, Rugay and the Ilaginsky dogs. Natasha with brilliant eyes sat all on the couch, listening to them. A few times she tried to wake up Petya, so that to give him a bite of something, but he spoke something incomprehensible, obviously not awake. Natasha was so funny in her soul, so well in this new for her setting that she was only afraid that too soon for her would come the carriage. After came an accidental silence, as this almost always is in people for the first time hosted in a house of their acquaintances, the uncle said, answering an idea, which was in his guests:

— So here I am living out the century... you die, — a clean business march — nothing will remain. What the same is that sin!

The face of the uncle was very much beautiful, when he spoke this. Rostov unwittingly remembered in this all the good that he heard from his father and neighbors about the uncle. The uncle in all the near provinces had the reputation of the noblest and most unselfish eccentric. He was called on to judge family affairs, he was made executor, he was believed in secrets, he was chosen as judge and other offices, but from public service he always stubbornly refused, fall and spring carrying in the fields on his brown gelding, winter sitting at home, summer lying in his overgrown garden.

— For what again do you not serve, uncle?

— I served, and threw it. I am not fit, a clean business march, to analyze anything. This is your business, but in my mind that's not enough. Here about hunting is another business, this is a clean business march! Open up that door, — he shouted. — for what is it shut! — The door at the end of the corridor (which the uncle called a colidor) led to an idle — hunting: so called the people for hunters. The barefeet quickly slapped and an invisible hand opened the door to the hunting. From the corridor clearly became heard the sounds of the balalaika, on which played some obvious master of this affair. Natasha now for a long time listened to these sounds and now exited into the corridor, so that to hear them clearer.

— This is my Mitka, my coachman... I bought him a good balalaika, I love it, — said the uncle. In the uncle it was instituted, so that when he came from the hunting alone — the hunting Mitka played on the balalaika. The uncle loved to listen to this music.

— How well! Right fine, — said Nikolay with some unwitting neglect, as if he was ashamed to admit how he was made extremely pleasant by these sounds.

— How fine? — with reproach said Natasha, feeling the tone, which her brother said this. — Not fine, but this is such a beauty! — For her so the same as the fungi, honey and liqueurs of the uncle seemed the best in the world, so this song seemed to her in this moment on horseback musical charms.

— More, please more, — said Natasha at the door, as only fell silent the balalaika. Mitka set up and again rattled Lady with brute force and interception. The uncle sat and listened, bowing his head to the side with a little bit of a noticeable smile. The motive of Lady repeated times one hundred. A few times the balalaika turned and again rattled those same sounds, and the listener was not bored, but only wanted to hear more and more of this game. Anisya Fedorovna entered and leaned her fat body to the lintel.

— Please listen, — she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely similar to the smile of the uncle. — He gloriously plays to us, — she said.

— Here on this knee that does not make, — suddenly with an energetic gesture said the uncle. — Here you need to sprinkle — a clean business march — sprinkle.

— But don't you know how? — asked Natasha. The uncle not answering smiled.

— Take a look, Anisyushka, whether the strings are intact on that guitar? For a really long time in my hands I have not taken, — a clean business march! Abandoned.

Anisya Fedorovna willingly went with her light step to perform the commission of her gentleman and brought a guitar.

The uncle, not looking at it, blew away the dust, his bony fingers banged by the cover of the guitar, and he set up and mended in the armchair. He took the (with some theatrical gestures, leaving the elbow of his left arm) guitar higher than the neck and winking at Anisya Fedorovna, started not Lady, but taking one sonorous, pure chord, measuredly, calmly, but firmly started quite a quiet trim and pace of a famous song: By the road’s pavement. In time, in tact, with that sedate fun (by that very one, which breathed all the being of Anisya Fedorovna), sang in the soul of Nikolay and Natasha the motive of the song. Anisya Fedorovna blushed and closed her handkerchief, laughingly exiting from the room. The uncle continued purely, carefully, energetically and firmly on the trim of the song, changing with an inspired look in looking at that place from which left Anisya Fedorovna. A little bit laughing at something on his face, with one part under his gray mustache, especially laughed then, when farther away went the song, accelerated in tact and in the places of brute force ripped off something.

— Beautiful, beautiful, uncle! More, more! — screamed Natasha, as only he finished. She, jumping up from her place, hugged the uncle and kissed him. — Nikolinka, Nikolinka! — she said, looking back at her brother and as if asking him: What again is this?

Nikolay also extremely liked the game of the uncle. The uncle for a second time played a song. The smiling face of Anisya Fedorovna appeared again in the doorway and from behind her still another face..."Behind the cold key, shouts the girl, wait!" played the uncle, did again a slick brute force, tore and stirred his shoulders.

— Well, well, darling, uncle, — in such a pleading voice groaned Natasha, as if her life depended on this. The uncle got up as if in him was two humans, — one of them seriously smiled above the merry fellow, but the merry fellow did a naive and neat trick before a dance.

— Well, niece! — shouted the uncle waving to Natasha a hand, tearing off the chord.

Natasha dropped from herself a handkerchief, which was thrown over on her, ran in forward to the uncle and, supporting her hands at the sides, made a movement of her shoulders and began.

Where, how, when sucked in herself from this Russian air which she breathed — this countess, raised by an emigrant Frenchwoman, this spirit, where from did she take these tricks, which pas de châle (no shawl) for a long time must have been forcing out? Yet the spirit and tricks that were those most, inimitable, not studied, Russian, which were waiting from the uncle. How only she had begun, smiling solemnly, proudly, slyly, and funny, the first fear, which swept Nikolay and all present, the fear that she had not that, passed and they now admired her.

She did that very thing and so exactly, so quite exactly she did this that Anisya Fedorovna, who immediately gave her the necessary for her affairs handkerchief, through laughter shed a tear, looking at this thin, graceful, so foreign to her, in silk and in velvet brought up countess, which was able to understand all that what was in Anisya, in the father of Anisya, in her aunt, in her mother, and in every Russian man.

— Well, countess — a clean business march! — happily laughing, said the uncle, finishing the dance. — Oh yes niece! Here only would for a hubby a fine fellow choose you, — a clean business march.

— Already selected, — said smiling Nikolay.

— Ah? — said the surprised uncle, looking interrogatively at Natasha. Natasha with a happy smile affirmatively nodded her head.

— Still what! — she said. Yet only as she said this, other, new building thoughts and feelings rose in her. "What meant the smile of Nikolay, when he said: "already selected"? Is he glad for this or not glad? He as if thinking that my Bolkonsky would not approve, would not get this or our joys. No, he would get all. Where is he?" thought Natasha and her face suddenly became serious. But this went on only for one second. "Don't think, do not dare to think about that," she said to herself and smiling, got hooked again to the uncle, asking for him to play something more.

The uncle played another song and a waltz; then, keeping silent, cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song.

As with the evening the powder fell out good...

The uncle sang so, as sing people, with that full and naive conviction that in a song all that matters concludes only in the words, that the tune itself comes and that a separate melody may not be, but that the tune — is only of the harmony. From this unconscious tune, as is the tune birds, the uncle was unusually good. Natasha was in delight from the singing of the uncle. She decided that she will not learn more on the harp, but will play only on the guitar. She asked the uncle for the guitar and immediately the same picked up the chords to the song.

In the tenth hour for Natasha and Petya arrived the line, carriage and three on horseback, sent to look for them. The count and countess did not know where they were and were very worried, so said the sent.

Petya was carried and placed as a dead body in the line; Natasha with Nikolay sat down on the carriage. The uncle wrapped up Natasha and said goodbye with her with a completely new tenderness. He by foot spent them to the bridge, which was needed to go round on a ford, and told with lanterns the hunters to go forward.

— Goodbye, dear niece! — he shouted from the dark in his voice, not that which Natasha knew before, but that which sang: "As with the evening the powder.”

In the village, which they drove through, were red lights and it funnily smelled like smoke.

— What is behind the beauty of this uncle! — said Natasha, when they left onto the big road.

— Yes, — said Nikolay. — You are not cold?

— No, I am fine, fine. I am so okay, — with disbelief even said Natasha. They long were silent.

The night was dark and raw. The horses were not visible; it was only heard how they slapped by invisible mud.

What in these children, impressionable souls, so greedily catch and assimilate all the diverse impressions of life? How was all packed up in her? But she was very happy. Now driving to home, she suddenly sang the motive song: "As with the evening the powder," the motive which she tried to catch all the road and finally caught.

— Caught it? — said Nikolay.

— What are you thinking about now, Nikolinka? — asked Natasha. They loved to ask each other this.

— I? — said Nikolay remembering; — Whether you see here, first I thought, that Rugay, the red male, looks like the uncle and what should he be as a person, that he and the uncle would hold all in themselves, should they not leap here for harmony, all would be held. How he is okay, uncle! Whether he is not really? — Well, but you?

— I? Wait, wait. Yes, I think first that here we go and think that we go home, but God knows where we will go in this dark and suddenly come and see that we are not in Otradnoe, but in a magic kingdom. But then more I think... No, nothing more.

— You know, rightly about him you think, — said Nikolay smiling, as recognized Natasha by the sound of his voice.

— No, — answered Natasha, although really she together with that thought about Prince Andrey, and about how he would have liked the uncle. — But still I repeat all, all the road I repeat: how well Anisyushka came forward, okay... — said Natasha. And Nikolay heard her resonant, unreasonable, happy laugh.

— But you know, — she suddenly said, — I know that now I will never be so happy and calm, as I am now.

— Here is nonsense, stupidity, and lies, — said Nikolay and thought: "What is behind this beauty of my Natasha! Such another friend in me is not and will not be. What for is she exiting to get married? — All would ride for her!"

"What a beauty is this Nikolay!" thought Natasha.

— Ah! There is still fire in the living room, — she said, pointing in the window at home, beautifully brilliant in the wet, velvet, dark night.

Time: the evening, after nine o'clock (at near ten o'clock in Bell. about half-past nine in Briggs. sometime past nine in Pevear and Volkhonsky. about ten o'clock in Dunnigan.

Locations: village of Mikhaylovka (Mikhailovka in Pevear and Volkhonsky, Dole, and Dunnigan. Mikhaylovna in Maude and Mandelker. Mihailovka in Garnett.)
Mentioned: Otradnoe, Tartar, Frenchwoman, Russian

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: They decide to spend the night at the village with the uncle. The emphasis on how they are received, particularly Natasha, who is marveled at how she sits on the horse, "like a Tartar woman!" She is set apart from other women.

Nice parenthetical here "after the hunt, inside the house, Nikolai no longer considered it necessary to display his male superiority before his sister".

Repetition of how "merry" they all are.

The uncle character is really developed here in the exposition as well as the dialogue. Someone who is trustworthy and looked up to, while at the same time, too "simple" to really understand or enjoy having any kind of
authority or power. The Tolstoyian righteous simpleton.

The tie together of music, the balalaika mirroring the happiness of Natasha's singing early in the novel.

And then the dance:

"Where, how, and when had this little countess, brought up by an emigre Frenchwoman, sucked this spirit in from the Russian air she breathed, where had she gotten these ways, which should have been long supplanted
by the pas de chale (Shawl dance)?"

But when the mention of husband, the mood changes, as the unspoken discord between Nikolai and Natasha arises, as emphasized by Natasha's inner monologue.

"I know I'll never again be as happy and peaceful as I am now."

Perhaps the most important aspect of the chapter is the connection between Nikolai and Natasha, the love they have for each other.

Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):

Ilagin (leaves immediately)

Nikolai Rostof (also "Nikolenka")

The Little uncle (Bell calls him "Michael Niknorovitch" again.)

Natasha (also "little countess" and a "woman", a "lady" in Briggs and Edmonds. Dole leaves in untranslated "baruinya." Also called a Tartar and "niece".)

Petya

Suvorof

Rugai

Anisya Feodorovna (as in Dole. "...Fyodorovna" in Garnett, Dunnigan, and Briggs. "...Fedorovna" in Maude and Wiener. "...Fiodorovna" in Edmonds. "Anicia Fedorovna" in Bell. Called "Anisyushya" by the little uncle in Dole.
Maude, Edmonds, Wiener, and Briggs don't use this second name. Bell says "Aniciouchka".)

Mitka (who plays the Ukrainian guitar.)

Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (and "future husband".)

Count Rostof ("count")

Countess Rostova ("countess")

(the little uncle's serfs and the women watching. A conversion between undifferentiated ones of them reveals one of their names to be Arinka, "Arina" in Bell. The french emigree that taught Natasha, most likely the teacher
previously referenced, is also referenced. Anisya's father, "Feodor" is referenced in Tolstoy's narration about the dance of the Russian people. Bell spells it "Ioghel".)

Abridged Versions: End of Chapter 12 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 7.

Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.

Komroff: Entire chapter is cut.

Kropotkin: Entire chapter is cut.

Bromfield: Chapter 3: Chapter really appears the same, ends with them seeing the light in the drawing room at the house.
Simmons: Chapter 7: the reaction of the peasants as Natasha is riding her horse is removed. The Uncle's reflections on life and his position in the community is removed. The lyrics of the songs and the reflections on Natasha's
Russian dance are removed.

Edmundson: Act Three Scene 2: Nikolai and Natsha have their conversation with some exposition about Andrei's return also mentioned in it.

Additional Notes:

Rey: Page 81: "Russian armies led by Suvorov....For the first time in its history, Russia appeared on the international scene as a Mediterranean power."

Frank: In addition, after the liberation of the serfs in 1861, he accepted the role of "arbiter of peace" in the local commission established in his district to settle the numerous disputes between landowners and peasants over the

terms of the liberation settlement. Because he was scrupulously honest, and his rulings tended to favor the peasants, he was cordially abhorred by the local gentry who had initially opposed his appointment. He resigned in

April 1862, more convinced than ever that individual moral qualities were of far greater importance than civil institutions for the welfare of society."

Okey: Page 109: “Most important, the songs of a humble peasant could penetrate just as profoundly into the human condition as the writings of enlightened sophisticate. J. G. Herder (1744-1803), the German Lutheran pastor

whose work sowed the seeds of what historians term romantic nationalism, was first inspired by Latvian folk-songs when ministering in Riga.”