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Anisya Fedorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost. "You like listening?" she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely like "Uncle's." "That's a good player of ours," she added. "He doesn't play that part right!" said "Uncle" suddenly, with an energetic gesture. "Here he ought to burst out that's it, come on! ought to burst out." "Do you play then?" asked Natasha.
Not only Nicholas, but even Natasha understood the meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fedorovna entered. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves made with sugar. All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her.
Natasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such a chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room. After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and "Uncle" talked of past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes.
The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya Fedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles. "Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered Natasha first one thing and then another.
He still has his daughter Anisya in the country.... And he wants to talk about her too.... Yes, he has plenty to talk about now. His listener ought to sigh and exclaim and lament.... It would be even better to talk to women. Though they are silly creatures, they blubber at the first word. "Let's go out and have a look at the mare," Iona thinks.
"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: "What is it moves me so?" Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Uncle's" playing, and "Uncle" played the piece over again. Anisya Fedorovna's smiling face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces... Fetching water clear and sweet, Stop, dear maiden, I entreat
The tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the hearts of Nicholas and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of sober mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole being. Anisya Fedorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the room.
"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled. "Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't touched it for a long time. That's it come on! I've given it up." Anisya Fedorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her errand and brought back the guitar.
She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision, that Anisya Fedorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in Anisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian man and woman.
He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at Anisya Fedorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street.
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