War And Peace полностью

The ghastly upheaval of the Rostovs’ last days in Moscow had repressed all the dark thoughts that Sonya now found so burdensome. She was glad to find temporary relief in practicalities. But when she heard of Prince Andrey’s presence in their house, in spite of all the genuine sympathy she felt for him and Natasha, she was seized by a wonderful superstitious feeling that God did not want her to be parted from Nikolay. She knew Natasha loved no one but Prince Andrey, and had never stopped loving him. She knew that now they were together, reunited under such terrible circumstances, they would fall in love again, and then Nikolay, being a relative, wouldn’t be able to marry Princess Marya. Despite all the horrors of the last days in Moscow and the first days of the journey, this feeling, this awareness that Providence was intervening in her private life, made Sonya feel happy.

It was at the Troitsa monastery that the Rostovs made the first break in their journey.

In the monastery hostel three large rooms were assigned to the Rostov family, one exclusively for Prince Andrey. On that first day there the wounded man was feeling much better. Natasha was sitting with him. In the next room the count and countess were in polite conversation with the father superior, who had called in to see his old acquaintances and benefactors. Sonya was sitting there with them, dying to know what Prince Andrey and Natasha were talking about. She could hear their voices through the door. The door of Prince Andrey’s room opened. Natasha came out looking all excited and didn’t see the monk getting to his feet to greet her and pulling a baggy sleeve up to free his right hand. She went straight over to Sonya and took her by the arm.

‘Natasha, what do you think you’re doing? Come over here,’ said the countess.

Natasha walked across to receive a blessing, and the old monk counselled her to turn to God, and also their patron saint, whenever she needed help. As soon as the father superior had gone, Natasha took her friend by the hand, and walked out with her into the empty third room.

‘Sonya, he is going to live, isn’t he? Do say yes,’ she said. ‘Sonya, I’m so happy, and so miserable too! Sonya, darling, everything’s back to where it was. I want him alive. He just can’t . . . because . . . be . . . cause . . .’ And Natasha collapsed in tears.

‘Yes! I knew it! Thank God,’ said Sonya. ‘He is going live.’ Sonya was just as excited as her friend, experiencing the same mixture of anguish and dread, as well as one or two personal reflections that she was keeping to herself. She sobbed as she kissed and comforted Natasha. ‘I want him alive!’ she kept thinking. After shedding their tears and chatting together as they wiped them away, the two friends went over to Prince Andrey’s door. Natasha opened it carefully and glanced in. Sonya stood next to her by the half-open door.

Prince Andrey was lying there, raised up on three pillows. His pale face looked peaceful, his eyes were closed, and they could see his steady breathing.

‘Oh, Natasha!’ Sonya cried suddenly, stifling a shriek as she grabbed her cousin by the arm, and backed away from the door.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ asked Natasha.

‘It’s that thing . . . You know . . .’ said Sonya, with a white face and quivering lips.

Natasha gently closed the door and walked over to the window with Sonya, not yet understanding what she was saying.

‘You remember,’ said Sonya, looking scared and serious. ‘You remember. That time when I looked in the mirror instead of you . . . at Otradnoye. At Christmas time . . . Do you remember what I saw?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Natasha, goggling. She had a vague recollection of Sonya telling her something about seeing Prince Andrey lying down.

‘You remember!’ Sonya went on. ‘I saw him. I told you, all of you, you and Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed,’ she said, emphasizing every detail by gesturing with a lifted finger, ‘and he had his eyes shut, and he was covered with a pink quilt, and he had his hands folded,’ said Sonya, with growing certainty, as she ran through the details they had just set eyes on, that she had actually seen them before. At the time she hadn’t seen anything at all; she had blurted out the first thing that came into her head. But what she had invented then now seemed as real as any other actual memory. What she had said at the time – that he had looked round and smiled at her, and he was covered with something red – she remembered clearly now, and she was absolutely certain about what she had seen and said: he had been covered with a pink quilt – yes, it was pink – and his eyes had been closed.

‘Yes, it was pink,’ said Natasha, who also seemed to have an inkling that it had been a pink quilt, and this little detail was the oddest thing, the real mystery behind the prophetic vision.

‘What does it mean?’ said Natasha, thinking about it.

‘I don’t know! It’s all so weird!’ said Sonya, clutching at her head.