Book Eleven: 1812 - Chapter XXXI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count thatMoscow was burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out tolook. Sonya and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went outwith him. Only Natasha and the countess remained in the room. Petyawas no longer with the family, he had gone on with his regimentwhich was making for Troitsa.

　　The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry.Natasha, pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under theicons just where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention toher father's words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning ofthe adjutant, three houses off.

　　"Oh, how terrible," said Sonya returning from the yard chilled andfrightened. "I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an awfulglow! Natasha, do look! You can see it from the window," she said toher cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.

　　But Natasha looked at her as if not understanding what was said toher and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She hadbeen in this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sonya, to thesurprise and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountablereason found it necessary to tell Natasha of Prince Andrew's wound andof his being with their party. The countess had seldom been so angrywith anyone as she was with Sonya. Sonya had cried and begged to beforgiven and now, as if trying to atone for her fault, paidunceasing attention to her cousin.

　　"Look, Natasha, how dreadfully it is burning!" said she.

　　"What's burning?" asked Natasha. "Oh, yes, Moscow."

　　And as if in order not to offend Sonya and to get rid of her, sheturned her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it wasevident that she could not see anything, and again settled down in herformer attitude.

　　"But you didn't see it!"

　　"Yes, really I did," Natasha replied in a voice that pleaded to beleft in peace.

　　Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neitherMoscow nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem ofimportance to Natasha.

　　The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countesswent up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her handas she was wont to do when Natasha was ill, then touched herforehead with her lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, andfinally kissed her.

　　"You are cold. You are trembling all over. You'd better lie down,"said the countess.

　　"Lie down? All right, I will. I'll lie down at once," said Natasha.

　　When Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew wasseriously wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at firstasked many questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was itserious? And could she see him? But after she had been told that shecould not see him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life wasnot in danger, she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all,evidently disbelieving what they told her, and convinced that say whatshe might she would still be told the same. All the way she had satmotionless in a corner of the coach with wide open eyes, and theexpression in them which the countess knew so well and feared so much,and now she sat in the same way on the bench where she had seatedherself on arriving. She was planning something and either deciding orhad already decided something in her mind. The countess knew this, butwhat it might be she did not know, and this alarmed and tormented her.

　　"Natasha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed."

　　A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. MadameSchoss and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.

　　"No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor," Natasha repliedirritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the openwindow the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. Sheput her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw herslim neck shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame.Natasha knew it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew PrinceAndrew was in the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hutacross the passage; but this dreadful incessant moaning made hersob. The countess exchanged a look with Sonya.

　　"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said the countess, softlytouching Natasha's shoulders. "Come, lie down."

　　"Oh, yes... I'll lie down at once," said Natasha, and beganhurriedly undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.

　　When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket,she sat down with her foot under her on the bed that had been madeup on the floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to thefront, and began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingersrapidly unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head movedfrom side to side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, lookedfixedly before her. When her toilet for the night was finished shesank gently onto the sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest thedoor.

　　"Natasha, you'd better lie in the middle," said Sonya.

　　"I'll stay here," muttered Natasha. "Do lie down," she addedcrossly, and buried her face in the pillow.

　　The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya undressed hastily and laydown. The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light leftin the room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at LittleMytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noiseof people shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up acrossthe street, and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard.

　　For a long time Natasha listened attentively to the sounds thatreached her from inside and outside the room and did not move. Firstshe heard her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bedunder her, then Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sonya'sgentle breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did notanswer.

　　"I think she's asleep, Mamma," said Sonya softly.

　　After short silence the countess spoke again but this time no onereplied.

　　Soon after that Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natashadid not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under thequilt, was growing cold on the bare floor.

　　As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped ina crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied nearby. The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning ofthe adjutant was heard. Natasha sat up.

　　"Sonya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whispered.

　　No one replied. Natasha rose slowly and carefully, crossedherself, and stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with herslim, supple, bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Steppingcautiously from one foot to the other she ran like a kitten the fewsteps to the door and grasped the cold door handle.

　　It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmicallyagainst all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinkingwith alarm and terror and overflowing with love.

　　She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto thecold, damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshedher. With her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped overhim, and opened the door into the part of the hut where PrinceAndrew lay. It was dark in there. In the farthest corner, on a benchbeside a bed on which something was lying, stood a tallow candlewith a long, thick, and smoldering wick.

　　From the moment she had been told that of Prince Andrew's woundand his presence there, Natasha had resolved to see him. She did notknow why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but feltthe more convinced that it was necessary.

　　All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But nowthat the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she mightsee. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like thatincessant moaning of the adjutant's? Yes, he was altogether like that.In her imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. Whenshe saw an indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his kneesraised under the quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible bodythere, and stood still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew herforward. She cautiously took one step and then another, and foundherself in the middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man-Timokhin- was lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons,and two others- the doctor and a valet- lay on the floor.

　　The valet sat up and whispered something. Timokhin, kept awake bythe pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strangeapparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, andnightcap. The valet's sleepy, frightened exclamation, "What do youwant? What's the matter?" made Natasha approach more swiftly to whatwas lying in the corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked,she must see him. She passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candlewick, and she saw Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside thequilt, and such as she had always seen him.

　　He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, hisglittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially hisneck, delicate as a child's, revealed by the turn-down collar of hisshirt, gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she hadnever seen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift,flexible, youthful movement dropped on her knees.

　　He smiled and held out his hand to her.