d expression at the spot
where Anisya Fedorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing
a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as
the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as
he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap.

"Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!" shouted Natasha as soon as he had
finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. "Nicholas, Nicholas!"
she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: "What is it moves me
so?"

Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Uncle's" playing, and "Uncle"
played the piece over again. Anisya Fedorovna's smiling face reappeared
in the doorway and behind hers other faces...

Fetching water clear and sweet,
Stop, dear maiden, I entreat--

played "Uncle" once more, running his fingers skillfully over the
strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.

"Go on, Uncle dear," Natasha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life
depended on it.

"Uncle" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them
smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a
naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.

"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that had
just struck a chord.

Natasha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face
"Uncle," and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her
shoulders and struck an attitude.

Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree
French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit
and obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would, one would have
supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were
those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that "Uncle" had expected
of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled triumphantly,
proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized
Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an
end, and they were already admiring her.

* The French shawl dance.

She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,
that Anisya Fedorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she
needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she
watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so
different from herself, who yet was able to understand all tha