During the hours that followed, hours of solitude, constant pain and semi-delirium, the more he edged his way mentally towards this newly discovered principle of eternal love, the stronger his unconscious renunciation of earthly life became. Loving everything and everybody, always sacrificing oneself for the sake of love, meant loving no one person, and not living this earthly life. And the more he absorbed this principle of love, the easier he found it to renounce life, and the more effectively he destroyed the dreadful barrier that the absence of love sets up between life and death. During that first period, whenever he remembered he was going to die, he said to himself, ‘All right, then. Couldn’t be better!’
But after that night at Mytishchi, when in his semi-delirious state the one woman he had been longing for had appeared before him, and he had pressed her hand to his lips and wept sweet tears of joy, the love for one woman had crept back unseen into his heart, and restored him to life. He began thinking again; some of his thoughts were pleasant, others disturbing. He remembered the moment at the ambulance station when he had caught sight of Kuragin, but he couldn’t find his way back to the feelings he had experienced then. He was longing to know whether Kuragin was still alive or not. But he was too scared to ask.
His illness had been taking its normal physical course, but then suddenly, two days before Princess Marya’s arrival, what Natasha called ‘this thing’ had come over him. It was the last spiritual struggle between life and death, with death coming out on top. It was a sudden awareness that life, seen through his love for Natasha, was still precious, and it came with a final shock of defeat mixed with fear of the unknown.
It happened in the evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, though his thoughts were remarkably clear. Sonya was sitting at the table. He fell into a doze. He was swept by a sudden surge of happiness.
‘Oh good, she’s here!’ he thought.
And sure enough, Natasha had tiptoed in unheard and was sitting there in Sonya’s place.
Ever since she had started looking after him he had always had a strong sense of her physical presence. She was sitting sideways-on in a low chair, screening him from the light of the candle, and she was knitting a stocking. (She had learnt to knit after hearing Prince Andrey once say that the best people to care for the sick are old nannies knitting stockings, because knitting always has such a soothing effect on people.) Her slender fingers flashed and the speeding needles clicked. He could clearly see the sharp silhouette of her pensive, lowered head. She made a slight movement, and the ball rolled down off her knee. She gave a start, glanced round at him, bent down to pick up the ball in one careful, smooth and deliberate movement, screening the light with her other hand, and sat back as before.
He watched her without stirring, and he could see that after this movement she needed to draw a deep breath, but was determined not to do so, forcing herself to breathe evenly.
At the Troitsa monastery they had talked about the past, and he had said that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound, because that had brought them together again, though since then they had never talked about the future.
‘Could it have happened, or not?’ he was wondering now as he watched her and listened to the slight clicking of the steel needles. ‘Can fate have brought us together so strangely only for me to die? . . . Can the truth about life have been revealed to me only to show I’ve been living a lie? I love her more than anything in the world! But what can I do if I do love her?’ he said, and suddenly he gave an instinctive groan, a habit he had fallen into while suffering so much pain.
Hearing the sound, Natasha put her knitting down, leant closer, and suddenly saw that his eyes were gleaming. She tripped across and bent over him.
‘You’re not asleep, are you?’
‘No. I’ve been watching you for ages. I felt you come in. You’re the only one who can give me that kind of gentle peace . . . and such lovely light. I could cry with happiness!’
Natasha moved closer. Her face was radiant with bliss.
‘Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world!’
‘What about me?’ She turned away for a second. ‘But why do you say too much?’ she said.
‘Too much? . . . Well, what do you think, what do you feel in your heart, in your heart of hearts? Am I going to live? What do you think?’
‘I’m sure you are. Yes, I’m sure!’ Natasha almost cried out, seizing both of his hands in a passionate gesture.
It was some time before he spoke.
‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful?’ He took her hand, and kissed it.
Natasha felt happy and deeply moved, but then she came to her senses. This wouldn’t do; he had to be kept quiet.
‘But you haven’t had enough sleep,’ she said, suppressing her feeling of joy. ‘Do try to get some sleep. Please.’
