Chapter 9 Chapter nine

A flat wooden board is placed in the middle of the stage, on both sides are colored cardboards with trees painted on it, and behind it is a canvas stretched straight on the wooden board.Some girls with red belts and white dresses sat in the middle of the stage, and a very fat girl in a white silk dress sat alone on a low stool, behind which a piece of green cardboard was pasted.They were singing some kind of song.When they had finished singing the song, the girl in the white dress came to the front of the prompter's booth, and the man with tight silk trousers wrapped around his thick legs was holding a hat with a white feather in his hand. He walked up to her with a dagger, spread his hands, and began to sing.

The man in the tight silk trousers sings solo, and she joins.After this the two men stopped singing and began to play music, and the man began to caress the hand of the girl in white, apparently waiting for the solo part to be sung with her in time.The two of them sang this song together, and the entire audience in the theater applauded. A man and a woman who played the role of lovers smiled and stretched out their hands and bowed to show their gratitude. After returning from the country, Natasha's heart was still heavy, and everything on the stage seemed to her rough and strange.She couldn't keep watching the progress of the opera plot, she couldn't even listen to the music anymore, she only saw colored cardboard, strangely dressed men and women, making strange movements under the dazzling lights, talking for a while, singing for a while, She knew that all this must be a theatrical performance, but it was all so artificial and unnatural that she could not help being sometimes ashamed of the actors and now finding them ridiculous.She looked round and watched the faces of the audience, seeking in them the sneer and bewilderment inherent in her; but all were absorbed in what was happening on the stage.It seemed to Natasha that they all expressed false admiration. "It must be so!" thought Natasha.She sometimes looked at the rows of waxed heads in the pool seat one by one, and sometimes looked at the women with bare shoulders and arms in the box, especially Helen next to her. Looking intently at the stage, he felt that bright lights filled the hall, and that the cold air was warmed by a large crowd.Natasha gradually entered a state of intoxication she had not experienced for a long time.She was so carried away that she could not remember who she was, where she was, or what was happening before her.As she looked, she thought, and strange incoherent thoughts flashed unexpectedly through her mind.Now she wanted to jump to the edge of the box and sing the aria that the actress had sung, now she wanted to catch the little old man sitting near her with her fan, and now she wanted to bend over Helen and tickle her.

In the moment of silence on the stage, waiting for her to begin the aria, a door leading to the entrance to the pit beyond the Rostovs' box creaked open, and the footsteps of a belated man could be heard. "He is Kuragin!" Shen Shen whispered.Countess Bezukhova smiled and turned to the approaching man.Natasha looked in the direction of Countess Bezukhova's eyes, and saw an unusually handsome adjutant, with a confident and respectful look. Class political economy, capitalist social system and Hegelian idealism Philosophy, walked to the front of their boxes.He was Anatoly Kuragin, whom she had met and remembered long ago at the Petersburg ball.Now, in his adjutant's uniform, with epaulettes and braid, he walks forward with a steady, manly step, if he were not handsome, if there were no kindly complacency and pleasure in his good-looking face , his pace will make people laugh.Though they were performing, he took his time, lightly clinking spurs and sabers, and with his handsome, perfumed head held high, he walked across the corridor carpet.He looked at Natasha, went up to his sister, put his gloved hand on the edge of the box, shook his head at her, pointed to Natasha, bent down and asked what talk.

"Maischarmante!" he said, obviously referring to Natasha, who understood him rather than heard him from the movement of his lips.Then he went to the first row, sat next to Dolokhov, and nudged the flattering Dolokhov in a friendly but casual manner.He winked at him pleasantly, smiled, and put one foot on the railing at the front of the stage. -------- ①French: very, very cute! "How alike brother and sister!" said the count; "both are handsome." Shinshin whispered to the count about Kuragin's abnormal relations with men and women in Moscow, and Natasha listened carefully precisely because he was talking about her charmante.

The first act was over, and the audience in the pool stood up and became a mess. Some people walked around, and some people walked out of the auditorium. Boris went to the Rostovs' box, accepted the congratulations in a normal way, raised his eyebrows slightly, smiled carelessly, and told Natasha and Sonya that his betrothed intended to invite them to the wedding, saying: Then go out.Natasha talked to him with a delighted and coquettish smile, and congratulated that Boris, whom she had once been passionately in love with, on his wedding.In the state of intoxication she was in, everything seemed ordinary and natural.

The topless Helen sat beside her, smiling at everyone in the same way, and Natasha also smiled at Boris. Helene's box was full of people, and she was surrounded by the most distinguished and intelligent men on the other side of the stall, who seemed to be vying to show everyone that they were all her acquaintances. During the intermission, Kuragin and Dolokhov were standing by the railing on the edge of the stage in front of them, looking from time to time at the Rostovs' box.It pleased Natasha to know that he was talking about her.She even turned so that he could see her profile, which, in her opinion, made a good impression. Before the second act began, Pierre's figure appeared in the pool seat. After Moscow, the Rostov family has not yet met him.His face was sad, and he had grown fatter since Natasha had last seen him.He paid no attention to anyone and kept walking to the front row.Pierre cheered up at the sight of Natasha, and hurried across the rows of boxes to their box.He went up to them, propped his elbows on the edge of the box, and had a long talk with Natasha, smiling.While Natasha was talking with Pierre, she heard a man's voice in Countess Bezukhova's box, which she somehow recognized as Kuragin's voice.She looked back and her eyes met his.His face was almost beaming, and he looked directly into her eyes with that gentle, pleasing look—she was so close to him, looked at him so, and was so confident that he would like her, but she didn't agree with her. Unfamiliar with this, it seems surprising.

The scene of the second act is a monument on watercolor painting, a round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, the footlight lampshade is pulled up, they start to play the bass trumpet and the double bass, and many people in black robes come out from the left and right .People started waving their arms, they held dagger-like weapons in their hands, and then some people came running and started dragging away the girl who was wearing a white dress and now was wearing a blue dress.They didn't drag her away all at once, they sang with her for a long time, and then they dragged her away, and someone in the background thumped a metal instrument three times, and everyone got down on their knees and sang prayers.The performance of these acts was interrupted several times by the cheers of the audience.

Every time Natasha looked at the stand during this scene, she saw Anatole Kuragin looking at her with his hand resting on the back of the easy chair.She was pleased to see that he was already charmed by her, and it did not occur to her that there was anything out of the ordinary about it. When the end of the second act was announced, Countess Bezukhova got up, turned her face to the Rostovs' box (her breasts were completely exposed), and beckoned the old count with her gloved fingers, she did not Ignored the few who came into her box, put a good-natured smile on her face, and started talking to him.

"Introduce me to some of your lovely daughters, please," she said, "the whole town is talking about them, and I don't know them." Natasha got up and curtseyed to the splendid countess, and Natasha blushed with delight at the compliments of this splendid beauty. "I want to be a Muscovite now, too," said Helen, "how shameful you are to bury your pearls in the countryside!" Countess Bezukhova deserved the reputation of a charming woman.She can say what she doesn't want to say very easily and naturally, and she is especially good at flattering others.

"No, dear count, allow me to take care of your daughters. But I will not stay here long. And so will you. I will do my best to keep your daughters happy for a while. I was in Petersburg I've just heard a lot about you, and I'd like to know you," she said to Natasha, with her usual charming smile. "I heard about you from my squire, Drubetskoy, who you heard was getting married, and from my husband's friend, Bolkonsky, that is Prince Andrey Bolkonsky heard about you," she said emphatically, implying that she knew of his connection with Natasha.In order to get to know each other more fully, she begged him to let one of the young ladies sit in her box for the rest of the opera, and Natasha went towards her.

The setting for the third act on the stage is the palace, where many candles are lit and pictures of bearded knights are hung.The Tsar and Empress stood roughly in the middle.The Tsar waved his right hand, obviously timid, sang something clumsily, and sat down on the crimson throne.The girl, first in a white dress, then in a blue dress, and now in a shirt, with disheveled hair, stands beside the throne.She turned to the Queen, and sang something mournfully, but the Tsar waved his hand solemnly, and some bare-legged men and bare-legged women came out on either side, and they danced together.Then the violin played its shrill melody, and one of the girls, with their thick bare legs and thin arms, left the rest and went backstage, pulling the Straightening the stiff belt, she came out backstage, walked to the middle of the stage, and danced, slapping one foot quickly with the other.The audience in the pool applauded, and then there was a man standing in the corner.The orchestra played the dulcimer and the trumpet louder, and only the man with his bare legs danced alone, high and fast. (The man's name is Dibor, and he earns sixty thousand rubles a year for this skill.) The audience in the downstairs stalls, boxes, and balconies applauded desperately, and the man stopped, smiled, Bow to the audience on all sides.Then there were other bare-legged men and women dancing, and then a tsar shouting something to the music, and they all sang again.But suddenly a storm blew up, chromatic scales and dropped seventh chords sounded in the orchestra, everyone ran, and dragged one of them backstage, the curtain fell, and there was a terrible uproar among the audience There was a thump and a crackle, and everyone, with triumphant looks on their faces, began to shout. "Dybol! Dubold! Dubold!" Natasha no longer thought it was such a strange thing.She was very happy in her heart, and looked around with a pleasant smile. "N'est-cepasqu'ilestadmirable-Duport?" said Helen, turning her face towards her. "Oh, oui." ② Natasha replied. -------- ①French: Dibol is charming, isn't it? ②French: Ah, that's right.