He was lying on a couch, propped up with cushions, wearing a dressing-gown lined with squirrel-fur. He looked thin and pale. One thin hand of transparent whiteness held on to a handkerchief; with the other he was softly fingering his delicate moustache, which had grown quite long. His eyes sought out the newcomers as they came in.
The moment she saw his face and met his eyes Princess Marya immediately checked her stride, her tears dried up and her sobbing stopped. As she caught the expression on his face and the look in his eyes she felt suddenly timid and guilty.
‘What have I got to feel guilty about?’ she asked herself. The answer came from him in a hard, icy stare: ‘Being alive and thinking about the living world, while I . . .’
Andrey’s deep stare, inward – rather than outward-looking, contained something not far from hostility as he slowly scanned his sister and Natasha. He kissed his sister while they held hands, something they had always done.
‘Hello, Marie. How did you get here?’ he said, and his voice was as flat and otherworldly as the look in his eyes. If he had screamed in sheer despair, the scream would have been less ghastly than the sound of his voice.
‘Have you brought Nikolay?’ he said in the same slow, flat tone, obviously finding it difficult to remember where he was.
‘How are you now?’ said Princess Marya, surprising herself by what she was saying.
‘You’ll have to ask the doctor, my dear,’ he said. Making a big effort to put on a show of affection, he managed to mouth a few more words (obviously without the slightest idea of what he was saying): ‘Thank you for coming, my dear.’
Princess Marya squeezed his hand. He winced at her touch, though his reaction was barely noticeable. He was silent now, and she couldn’t think of anything to say. She understood what had happened to him two days before. In his words, in his tone of voice, above all in his eyes – so cold, verging on the hostile – there was that sense of remoteness from all earthly things that seems so horrible to a living person. Clearly, he was having the greatest difficulty in understanding anything to do with the living world, yet it seemed that his inability to understand the living world was not due to any loss of comprehension, it was because he could now comprehend something different, something beyond the understanding of living people, something that was gradually absorbing his whole being.
‘Funny how fate has brought us together again,’ he said, breaking the silence and pointing to Natasha. ‘She’s looking after me.’
Princess Marya heard what he said, but she couldn’t understand him. How could Prince Andrey, with all his warmth and sensitivity, talk like that in the presence of the girl he loved, and who loved him? If he had any thought of living he wouldn’t have spoken in such a cold and offensive tone. If he didn’t know he was dying, how could he have been so callous, talking like that while she was there? There was only one explanation: nothing mattered to him now, and the reason nothing mattered was that something new and much more important had been revealed to him.
The conversation was incoherent, lacking warmth, continually breaking down.
‘Marie came round through Ryazan,’ said Natasha.
Prince Andrey didn’t notice she had called his sister Marie. And Natasha as she did so became aware of it for the first time.
‘Did she?’ he said.
‘She had heard that Moscow has been burnt to the ground, every bit of it. It looks as though . . .’
Natasha stopped. Conversation was impossible. He was obviously straining to listen, but not managing to do so.
‘Yes. Burnt down. That’s what they say,’ he said. ‘Terrible pity,’ and he stared straight ahead, his fingers playing distractedly with his moustache.
‘So you met Count Nikolay, Marie?’ said Prince Andrey all of a sudden, evidently trying to say something nice. ‘He said in his letter how much he liked you,’ he went on, speaking so frankly and easily; he was obviously incapable of understanding the complexity and deep significance his words would have for living people. ‘If you ever found you liked him too, it might be a good idea . . . to get married,’ he added, gabbling a little as if he was glad to hit on just the words he had been struggling to find. Princess Marya heard him speak, but his words didn’t mean anything; they just showed how terribly remote he now was from anything to do with the living world.
‘Don’t talk about me,’ she said calmly, with a glance across at Natasha. Natasha, could feel her eyes upon her, but she didn’t look back. Another silence ensued.
‘Andrey, would you . . .’ Princess Marya began with a catch in her voice, ‘would you like to see Nikolay? He never stops talking about you.’
