stand.... Bezukhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is
square."

"You flirt with him too," said the countess, laughing.

"No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and
red.... How can I explain it to you?"

"Little countess!" the count's voice called from behind the door.
"You're not asleep?" Natasha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and
ran barefoot to her own room.

It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one
could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.

"Sonya?" she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten
with her enormous plait of hair. "No, how could she? She's virtuous. She
fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know anything more. Even
Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how...
charming she is," she went on, speaking of herself in the third person,
and imagining it was some very wise man--the wisest and best of
men--who was saying it of her. "There is everything, everything in her,"
continued this man. "She is unusually intelligent, charming... and
then she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile--she swims and rides
splendidly... and her voice! One can really say it's a wonderful voice!"

She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself
on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately
fall asleep, called Dunyasha the maid to put out the candle, and before
Dunyasha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier
world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in
reality, and even more so because it was different.

Next day the countess called Boris aside and had a talk with him, after
which he ceased coming to the Rostovs'.

CHAPTER XIV

On the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809 - 10 an old
grandee of Catherine's day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The
diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.

The grandee's well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with
innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance
which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of
police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.
Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried
footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men
wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons,