Page 980 - war-and-peace

But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had
a bad leg all these last days. It was decided that the count
must not go, but that if Louisa Ivanovna (Madame Schoss)
would go with them, the young ladies might go to the Me-
lyukovs’, Sonya, generally so timid and shy, more urgently
than anyone begging Louisa Ivanovna not to refuse.
Sonya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and
eyebrows were extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told
her she looked very handsome, and she was in a spirited
and energetic mood unusual with her. Some inner voice
told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in
her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa
Ivanovna consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka
sleighs with large and small bells, their runners squeaking
and whistling over the frozen snow, drove up to the porch.
Natasha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone,
which, passing from one to another, grew stronger and
stronger and reached its climax when they all came out into
the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to one an-
other, laughing, and shouting.
Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the
third was the old count’s with a trotter from the Orlov stud
as shaft horse, the fourth was Nicholas’ own with a short
shaggy black shaft horse. Nicholas, in his old lady’s dress
over which he had belted his hussar overcoat, stood in the
middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.
It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected
from the metal harness disks and from the eyes of the hors-
es, who looked round in alarm at the noisy party under the

980 War and Peace