‘I agreed,’ Natasha said to herself now, ‘that it would be awful if h were to remain always suffering. I said that then only because it would b so awful for him, but he did not understand it so. He thought that ij would be awful for me. Then he still wanted to live, and was afraid c death. And I said it so clumsily, so stupidly. I was not thinking that, was thinking something quite different. If I had said what I was thinking I should have said: “Let him be dying, dying all the time before my eyes and I should be happy in comparison with what I am now.” Now . . there is nothing, no one. Did he know that? No. He did not know, an' never will know it. And now it can never, never be made up for.’
And again he was saying the same words; but this time Natasha in he imagination made him a different answer. She stopped him, and said ‘Awful for you, but not for me. You know that I have nothing in life bu you, and to suffer with you is the greatest happiness possible for me.’ An he took her hand and pressed it, just as he had pressed it on that terribl evening four days before his death. And in her imagination she said t him other words of tenderness and love, which she might have said ther whicii she only said now. ... ‘I love thee! . . . thee ... I love, lov i thee . . .’ she said, wringing her hands convulsively, and setting he teeth with bitter violence . . .
And a sweeter mood of sorrow was coming over her, and tears wer starting into her eyes; but all at once she asked herself: ‘To whom was sb saying that? Where is he, and what is he now?’
WAR AND PEACE 1015
And again everything was shrouded in chill, cruel doubt, and again, rowning nervously, she tried to gaze into that world where he was. And iow, now, she thought, she was just penetrating the mystery . . . But at hat instant, when the incomprehensible, it seemed, was being unveiled tefore her eyes, a loud rattle at the door handle broke with a painful shock in her hearing. Her maid, Dunyasha, rushed quickly and abruptly into he room with frightened eyes, that took no heed of her.
‘Come to your papa, make haste,’ Dunyasha said, with a strange, bccited expression. ‘A misfortune . . . Pyotr Ilyitch ... a letter,’ she ;asped out, sobbing.
II
The feeling of aloofness from all the world, that Natasha experienced at his time, she felt in an even more marked degree with the members of ler own family. All her own family, her father and mother and Sonya, iyere so near her, so everyday and ordinary that every word they uttered, ’:very feeling they expressed, was jarring in the world in which she had ived of late. She felt more than indifference, positive hostility to them. She heard Dunyasha’s words of Pyotr Ilyitch, of a misfortune, but she lid not understand them.
‘What misfortune could they have, what misfortune is possible to them? Everything goes on in its old, regular, easy way with them,’ Natasha was saying inwardly.
As she went into the drawing-room, her father came quickly out of the :ountess’s room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He had evidently run out of the room to give vent to the sobs that were choking him. Seeing Natasha, he waved his arms in despair, and went off into violent, miserable sobs, that convulsed his soft, round face.
‘Pet . . . Petya . . . Go, go in, she’s calling . . .’ And sobbing like a child, he tottered with feeble legs to a chair, and almost dropped on to it, hiding his face in his hands.
An electric shock seemed to run all through Natasha. Some fearful pain seemed to stab her to the heart. She felt a poignant anguish; it seemed to her that something was being rent within her, and she was dying. But with the pain she felt an instant release from the seal that shut her out of life. At the sight of her father, and the sound of a fearful, husky scream from her mother through the door, she instantly forgot herself and her own sorrow.
She ran up to her father, but he feebly motioned her towards her mother’s door. Princess Marya, with a white face and quivering lower jaw, came out and took Natasha’s hand, saying something to her. Natasha neither saw nor heard her. With swift steps she went towards the door, stopped for an instant as though struggling with herself, and ran in to her mother.
The countess was lying down on a low chair in a strange awkward
attitude; she was beating her head against the wall. Sonya ana some maid-servants were holding her by the arms.
‘Natasha, Natasha! . . .’ the countess was screaming. ‘It’s not true, not true . . . it’s false . . . Natasha! ’ she screamed, pushing the maids away.‘All you go away, it’s not true! Killed! . . . ha, ha, ha! ... not true! . . .’
Natasha knelt down on the low chair, bent over her mother, embraced her, with surprising strength lifted her up, turned her face to her, and pressed close to her.
‘Mamma! . . . darling! ... I’m here, dearest mamma,’ she whispered to her, never ceasing for a second.
