"We will have tea, Natásha. Yes? Tea, then, if you please! We will have some other talks, my dear monsieur! What a charming man!"
"And the bath, papa?"
"Oh, yes, then we shall have no tea."
Thus the only result from the conversation with the newly arrived guests was taken from the landlord. But Peter Ivánovich was now proud and happy of his arrangements. The drivers, who came to ask a pourboire, vexed him, because Serézha had no change, and Peter Ivánovich was on the point of sending once more for the landlord, but the happy thought that others, too, ought to be happy on that evening helped him out of that predicament. He took two three-rouble bills, and, sticking one bill into the hand of one of the drivers, he said, "This is for you" (Peter Ivánovich was in the habit of saying "you" to all without exception, unless to a member of his family); "and this is for you," he said, transferring the other bill from the palm of his hand to that of the driver, in some such manner as people do when paying a doctor for a visit. After attending to all these things, he was taken to the bath-house.
Sónya, who was sitting on the divan, put her hand under her head and burst out laughing.
"Oh, how nice it is, mamma! Oh, how nice!"
Then she placed her feet on the divan, stretched herself, adjusted herself, and fell into the sound, calm sleep of a healthy girl of eighteen years of age, after six weeks on the road. Natálya Nikoláevna, who was still busy taking out things in her sleeping-room, heard, no doubt with her maternal ear, that Sónya was not stirring, and went out to take a look at her. She took a pillow and, raising the girl's reddened, dishevelled head with her large white hand, placed her on the pillow. Sónya drew a deep, deep sigh, shrugged her shoulders, and put her head on the pillow, without saying "Merci," as though that had all been done of its own accord.
"Not on that bed, not on that, Gavrílovna, Kátya," Natálya Nikoláevna immediately turned to the maids who were making a bed, and with one hand, as though in passing, she adjusted the straying hair of her daughter. Without stopping and without hurrying, Natálya Nikoláevna dressed herself, and upon the arrival of her husband and her son everything was ready: the trunks were no longer in the rooms; in Pierre's sleeping-room everything was arranged as it had been for several decades in Irkútsk: the morning-gown, the pipe, the tobacco-pouch, the sugared water, the Gospel, which he read at night, and even the image stuck to the rich wall-paper in the rooms of Chevalier, who never used such adornments, but on that evening they appeared in all the rooms of the third division of the hotel.
Having dressed herself, Natálya Nikoláevna adjusted her collar and cuffs, which, in spite of the journey, were still clean, combed herself, and seated herself opposite the table. Her beautiful black eyes gazed somewhere into the distance: she looked and rested herself. She seemed to be resting, not from the unpacking alone, nor from the road, nor from the oppressive years,—she seemed to be resting from her whole life, and the distance into which she was gazing, and in which she saw living and beloved faces, was that rest which she was wishing for. Whether it was an act of love, which she had done for her husband, or the love which she had experienced for her children when they were young, or whether it was a heavy loss, or a peculiarity of her character,—everyone who looked at that woman could not help seeing that nothing could be expected from her, that she had long ago given all of herself to life, and that nothing was left of her. All that there was left was something worthy of respect, something beautiful and sad, as a reminiscence, as the moonlight. She could not be imagined otherwise than surrounded by all the comforts of life. It was impossible for her ever to be hungry, or to eat eagerly, or to have on soiled clothes, or to stumble, or to forget to clear her nose. It was a physical impossibility. Why it was so, I do not know, but every motion of hers was dignity, grace, gentleness toward all those who could enjoy her sight.