Book Twelve: 1812 - Chapter XVI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that hewas dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of analoofness from everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightnessof existence. Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming.That inexorable, eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of whichhe had felt continually all his life- was now near to him and, bythe strange lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible andpalpable...

　　Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced thatterribly tormenting fear of death- the end- but now he no longerunderstood that fear.

　　He had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a topbefore him, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and thesky, and knew that he was face to face with death. When he came tohimself after being wounded and the flower of eternal, unfettered lovehad instantly unfolded itself in his soul as if freed from the bondageof life that had restrained it, he no longer feared death and ceasedto think about it.

　　During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium hespent after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the newprinciple of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciouslydetached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybodyand always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, notto live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with thatprinciple of love, the more he renounced life and the morecompletely he destroyed that dreadful barrier which- in the absence ofsuch love- stands between life and death. When during those first dayshe remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well,what of it? So much the better!"

　　But after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seenher for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed herhand to his lips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for aparticular woman again crept unobserved into his heart and once morebound him to life. And joyful and agitating thoughts began to occupyhis mind. Recalling the moment at the ambulance station when he hadseen Kuragin, he could not now regain the feeling he then had, but wastormented by the question whether Kuragin was alive. And he darednot inquire.

　　His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natashareferred to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurredtwo days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritualstruggle between life and death, in which death gained the victory. Itwas the unexpected realization of the fact that he still valued lifeas presented to him in the form of his love for Natasha, and a last,though ultimately vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown.

　　It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish,and his thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sonya was sitting bythe table. He began to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seizedhim.

　　"Ah, she has come!" thought he.

　　And so it was: in Sonya's place sat Natasha who had just come innoiselessly.

　　Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experiencedthis physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in anarmchair placed sideways, screening the light of the candle fromhim, and was knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockingssince Prince Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sickso well as old nurses who knit stockings, and that there issomething soothing in the knitting of stockings. The needles clickedlightly in her slender, rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly seethe thoughtful profile of her drooping face. She moved, and the ballrolled off her knees. She started, glanced round at him, and screeningthe candle with her hand stooped carefully with a supple and exactmovement, picked up the ball, and regained her former position.

　　He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw adeep breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathedcautiously.

　　At the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he hadtold her that if he lived he would always thank God for his woundwhich had brought them together again, but after that they never spokeof the future.

　　"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her andlistened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate havebrought me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possiblethat the truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me thatI have spent my life in falsity? I love her more than anything inthe world! But what am I to do if I love her?" he thought, and heinvoluntarily groaned, from a habit acquired during his sufferings.

　　On hearing that sound Natasha put down the stocking, leaned nearerto him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up tohim and bent over him.

　　"You are not asleep?"

　　"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in.No one else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do...that light. I want to weep for joy."

　　Natasha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy.

　　"Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world."

　　"And I!"- She turned away for an instant. "Why too much?" she asked.

　　"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in yoursoul, your whole soul- shall I live? What do you think?"

　　"I am sure of it, sure!" Natasha almost shouted, taking hold of bothhis hands with a passionate movement.

　　He remained silent awhile.

　　"How good it would be!" and taking her hand he kissed it.

　　Natasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that thiswould not do and that he had to be quiet.

　　"But you have not slept," she said, repressing her joy. "Try tosleep... please!"

　　He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candleand sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and lookedat him, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task onher stocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished.

　　Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleeplong and suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration.

　　As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that nowalways occupied his mind- about life and death, and chiefly aboutdeath. He felt himself nearer to it.

　　"Love? What is love?" he thought.

　　"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that Iunderstand, I understand only because I love. Everything is,everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by italone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shallreturn to the general and eternal source." These thoughts seemed tohim comforting. But they were only thoughts. Something was lackingin them, they were not clear, they were too one-sidedly personal andbrain-spun. And there was the former agitation and obscurity. Hefell asleep.

　　He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, butthat he was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, andinsignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them anddiscussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away somewhere.Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he hadmore important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them byempty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons began todisappear and a single question, that of the closed door, supersededall else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it. Everythingdepended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went,and tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew hewould not be in time to lock the door though he painfully strained allhis powers. He was seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear wasthe fear of death. It stood behind the door. But just when he wasclumsily creeping toward the door, that dreadful something on theother side was already pressing against it and forcing its way in.Something not human- death- was breaking in through that door, and hadto be kept out. He seized the door, making a final effort to hold itback- to lock it was no longer possible- but his efforts were weak andclumsy and the door, pushed from behind by that terror, opened andclosed again.

　　Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman effortswere vain and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. Itentered, and it was death, and Prince Andrew died.

　　But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he wasasleep, and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, heawoke.

　　"Yes, it was death! I died- and woke up. Yes, death is anawakening!" And all at once it grew light in his soul and the veilthat had till then concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritualvision. He felt as if powers till then confined within him had beenliberated, and that strange lightness did not again leave him.

　　When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan,Natasha went up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answerand looked at her strangely, not understanding.

　　That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary'sarrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wastingfever assumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said didnot interest Natasha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to herwere more convincing.

　　From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrewtogether with his awakening from sleep. And compared to the durationof life it did not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleepcompared to the duration of a dream.

　　There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slowawakening.

　　His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. BothPrincess Mary and Natasha, who did not leave him, felt this. Theydid not weep or shudder and during these last days they themselvesfelt that they were not attending on him (he was no longer there, hehad left them) but on what reminded them most closely of him- hisbody. Both felt this so strongly that the outward and terrible side ofdeath did not affect them and they did not feel it necessary to fomenttheir grief. Neither in his presence nor out of it did they weep,nor did they ever talk to one another about him. They felt that theycould not express in words what they understood.

　　They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper anddeeper, away from them, and they both knew that this had to be soand that it was right.

　　He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave ofhim. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to theboy's and turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (PrincessMary and Natasha understood that) but simply because he thought it wasall that was required of him, but when they told him to bless the boy,he did what was demanded and looked round as if asking whether therewas anything else he should do.

　　When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,occurred, Princess Mary and Natasha were present.

　　"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minuteslain motionless, growing cold before them. Natasha went up, lookedat the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them butdid not kiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly ofhim- his body.

　　"Where has he gone? Where is he now?..."

　　When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table,everyone came to take leave of him and they all wept.

　　Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painfulperplexity. The countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha andbecause he was no more. The old count cried because he felt thatbefore long, he, too, must take the same terrible step.

　　Natasha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of theirown personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotionwhich had taken possession of their souls at the consciousness ofthe simple and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished intheir presence.