Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter XII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window ofher room hearing the sound of the peasants' voices that reached herfrom the village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She feltthat she could not understand them however much she might thinkabout them. She thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, afterthe break caused by cares for the present, seemed already to belong tothe past. Now she could remember it and weep or pray.

　　After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh.Toward midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the fullmoon began to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mistbegan to rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.

　　Pictures of the near past- her father's illness and last moments-rose one after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she nowlingered over these images, repelling with horror only the last one,the picture of his death, which she felt she could not contemplateeven in imagination at this still and mystic hour of night. Andthese pictures presented themselves to her so clearly and in suchdetail that they seemed now present, now past, and now future.

　　She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and wasbeing dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills,muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his grayeyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.

　　"Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died,"she thought. "He had always thought what he said then." And sherecalled in all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had thelast stroke, when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained athome against his will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairson tiptoe, and going to the door of the conservatory where he sleptthat night had listened at the door. In a suffering and weary voice hewas saying something to Tikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warmnights and of the Empress. Evidently he had wanted to talk. "And whydidn't he call me? Why didn't he let me be there instead of Tikhon?"Princess Mary had thought and thought again now. "Now he will nevertell anyone what he had in his soul. Never will that moment return forhim or for me when he might have said all he longed to say, and notTikhon but I might have heard and understood him. Why didn't I enterthe room?" she thought. "Perhaps he would then have said to me what hesaid the day he died. While talking to Tikhon he asked about me twice.He wanted to see me, and I was standing close by, outside the door. Itwas sad and painful for him to talk to Tikhon who did not understandhim. I remember how he began speaking to him about Lise as if she werealive- he had forgotten she was dead- and Tikhon reminded him that shewas no more, and he shouted, 'Fool!' He was greatly depressed. Frombehind the door I heard how he lay down on his bed groaning and loudlyexclaimed, 'My God!' Why didn't I go in then? What could he havedone to me? What could I have lost? And perhaps he would then havebeen comforted and would have said that word to me." And Princess Maryuttered aloud the caressing word he had said to her on the day ofhis death. "Dear-est!" she repeated, and began sobbing, with tearsthat relieved her soul. She now saw his face before her. And not theface she had known ever since she could remember and had always seenat a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen for the firsttime quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details, when shestooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.

　　"Dear-est!" she repeated again.

　　"What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinkingnow?" This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answershe saw him before her with the expression that was on his face ashe lay in his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief.And the horror that had seized her when she touched him andconvinced herself that that was not he, but something mysterious andhorrible, seized her again. She tried to think of something else andto pray, but could do neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at themoonlight and the shadows, expecting every moment to see his deadface, and she felt that the silence brooding over the house and withinit held her fast.

　　"Dunyasha," she whispered. "Dunyasha!" she screamed wildly, andtearing herself out of this silence she ran to the servants'quarters to meet her old nurse and the maidservants who came runningtoward her.