of the winter nights seemed to call for some special
celebration of the season.

On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the
inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time
of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning,
was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his
study. Sonya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a
design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastasya
Ivanovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old
ladies. Natasha came into the room, went up to Sonya, glanced at
what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without
speaking.

"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?" asked her mother. "What
do you want?"

"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!" said Natasha, with
glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.

The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.

"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly."

"Sit down with me a little," said the countess.

"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?"

Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to
hide them and left the room.

She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then
went into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a
young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from
the serfs' quarters.

"Stop playing--there's a time for everything," said the old woman.

"Let her alone, Kondratevna," said Natasha. "Go, Mavrushka, go."

Having released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and went
to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing
cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.

"What can I do with them?" thought Natasha.

"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard
and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats."

"Just a few oats?" said Misha, cheerfully and readily.

"Go, go quickly," the old man urged him.

"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk."

On her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar,
though it was not at all the time for tea.

Foka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natasha
liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked
whether the samovar was really wanted.