Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 02 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/193

 WAR AND PEACE 171

Sonya, though generally very timid and shy, now was more urgent than all the others in her entreaties to Luiza Ivanovna not to disappoint them.

Sonya's costume was the best of all. Her mustache and dark brows were extremely becoming to her. All assured her that she was very handsome, and she was keyed up to a state of energy and excitement quite out of her usual manner. Some inner voice told her that now or never her fate was to be decided; and now, in her masculine garb, she seemed like another person. Luiza Ivanovna consented; and in less than half an hour, four troïkas, with jingling bells on shaft-arch1 and harness, swept, creaking and crunching over the frosty snow, up to the front steps.

Natasha was the first to catch the tone of Christmas festivity, and this jollity was perfectly infectious, growing more and more noisy, and reaching the highest pitch as they all came out into the frosty air, and with shouting and calling, and laughing and screaming, took their places in the sledges.

Two of the three spans were unmatched; the third troïka belonged to the old count, with a racer of the Orlof breed between the thills ; the fourth was Nikolaï's own private troïka with a low, shaggy, black shaft-horse. Nikolaï, in his old maid's costume, over which he threw his hussar's riding-cloak, fastened with a belt, took his place in the middle of his sledge, and gathered up the reins. It was so light that he could see the metal of the harness-plates shining in the moonbeams, and the horses' eyes, as they turned them anxiously toward the merry group gathered under the darkness of the porte-cochère.

In Nikolaï's sledge were packed Natasha, Sonya, Madame Schoss, and two of the maid-servants; in the old count's went Dimmler, with his wife and Petya; in theothers, the rest of the household serfs were disposed.

"You lead the way, Zakhar!" cried Nikolaï, to his father's coachman; he wished to have a chance to "beat" him on the road.

The old count's troika, with Dimmler and the other

1 Called duga.