War And Peace полностью

And then pitty-pitty-pitty, itty-itty, pitty-pitty – ugh, the fly had settled on him . . . And his attention slid away into another realm half-way between reality and delirium where something very special was going on. Here the edifice was still intact, still rising; there was still something straining upwards, the candle was still burning, the red halo was still there, and the same shirt-that-was-a-sphinx was still there over by the door. But there was something else. There was a creaking sound, a breath of fresh air, and a different white sphinx stood in the doorway. This sphinx had a white face and in it the gleaming eyes of Natasha, the very girl who had just been in his thoughts.

‘Oh, this terrible delirium – it goes on for ever!’ thought Prince Andrey, trying to rid himself of this face. But the face stayed there in all its reality; the face was coming closer. Prince Andrey tried to get back to the earlier realm of pure thought, but he couldn’t manage it. His delirium kept dragging him back. The softly murmuring voice kept up its rhythmic whisper, he could still feel something pressing down on him, and something rising up, and there was the strange face right in front of him. Prince Andrey gathered all his strength in an effort to bring himself round; he stirred a little, but then there was a sudden ringing in his ears, his eyes went dim, and he fainted away like a man disappearing under water.

When he came round there was Natasha, the very living Natasha that of all people in the world he was dying to love with that newly revealed, pure, divine love, down on her knees before him. He knew it was the real, living Natasha, and this came as no surprise; he was quietly happy. Natasha was kneeling, terrified but rooted to the spot (she couldn’t have moved a muscle), gazing at him and trying so hard not to sob. Her pale face showed no movement other than a slight tremor in her lips and chin.

Prince Andrey gave a sigh of relief, smiled and held out his hand.

‘Is it you?’ he said. ‘Real happiness!’

In one quick movement Natasha carefully shuffled up closer, still on her knees, and took his hand equally carefully, bending her face down over it, kissing it, caressing it with her lips.

‘Oh please forgive me!’ she whispered, looking up and glancing at him. ‘Please do forgive me!’

‘I love you,’ said Prince Andrey.

‘Forgive . . .’

‘What is there to forgive?’ asked Prince Andrey.

‘Forgive me for what I . . . what I . . . did to you,’ Natasha murmured in a barely audible broken whisper, and she kissed his hand more and more, covering it with caresses from her lips.

‘I love you, darling, more than I did, better than before,’ said Prince Andrey, lifting her face with his hand so he could look her in the eyes.

Those eyes, brimming with happy tears, were gazing at him with gentle compassion and the joy of love. Natasha’s pale thin face with its puffy lips was worse than unattractive – it looked terrible. But Prince Andrey couldn’t see her face; he saw only the glittering eyes, and they were beautiful. They heard voices behind them.

Pyotr, the valet, was now wide awake, and he had woken the doctor. Timokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had long been a witness to all that was happening, and he had shrunk down on his bench, carefully pulling the sheet right across his bare body.

‘What’s all this then?’ said the doctor, getting up from his low bed. ‘I must ask you to withdraw, madam.’

At that moment there was a knock at the door; it was a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed that her daughter was missing.

Natasha left the room like a sleepwalker woken up in mid-trance, walked back to her hut, and sank down on her bed sobbing.

From that day on, at every stop and overnight stay throughout the rest of the Rostovs’ journey, Natasha never left Bolkonsky’s side, and the doctor was forced to admit that he had not expected to see such fortitude in a young girl, nor that kind of skill in nursing a wounded man.

Awful as it was for the countess to think that Prince Andrey might (and according to the doctor probably would) die on the road in her daughter’s arms, she was no match for Natasha. Even though the rapprochement between Prince Andrey and Natasha raised the possibility that if he happened to survive their old engagement might be renewed, nobody – least of all Natasha and Prince Andrey – ever mentioned it. The unresolved question of life and death still hung in the balance, not only over Prince Andrey, but over the whole of Russia, and this precluded all other considerations.

CHAPTER 33

Pierre woke late on the 3rd of September. He had a headache, the clothes he had slept in hung heavily on him, and he had a vague recollection of something reprehensible that he had done the evening before. That reprehensible something was yesterday’s conversation with Captain Ramballe.