it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that."

"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and
suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real
or not? Do you remember what fun it was?"

"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in the
porch?"

So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad
memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones--those impressions of
one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend--and they
laughed with quiet enjoyment.

Sonya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared
the same reminiscences.

Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she
recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She
simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.

She only really took part when they recalled Sonya's first arrival. She
told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a corded
jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with
cords.

"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a
cabbage," said Natasha, "and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it
then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable."

While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of
the sitting room.

"They have brought the cock, Miss," she said in a whisper.

"It isn't wanted, Petya. Tell them to take it away," replied Natasha.

In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and
went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth
covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.

"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field," came the old
countess' voice from the drawing room.

Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nicholas, and Sonya,
remarked: "How quiet you young people are!"

"Yes, we're philosophizing," said Natasha, glancing round for a moment
and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams.

Dimmler began to play; Natasha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,
took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly
in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were
sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of
the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but
still sat softly running