War and Peace (124 page)

Rostov saw the prisoners being led away, and galloped after them to look at his Frenchman with the dimple in his chin. He was sitting in his strange uniform on one of the spare horses, looking uneasily about him. The sword-cut in his arm could hardly be called a wound. He looked at Rostov with a constrained smile, and waved his hand by way of a greeting. Rostov still felt the same discomfort and vague remorse.

All that day and the next Rostov’s friends and comrades noticed that, without being exactly depressed or irritable, he was silent, dreamy, and preoccupied. He did not care to drink, tried to be alone, and seemed absorbed in thought. Rostov was still pondering on his brilliant exploit, which, to his amazement, had won him the St. George’s Cross and made his reputation indeed for fearless gallantry. There was something he could not fathom in it. “So they are even more frightened than we are,” he thought. “Why, is this all that’s meant by heroism? And did I do it for the sake of my country? And was he to blame with his dimple and his blue eyes? How frightened he was! He thought I was going to kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me the St. George’s Cross. I can’t make it out, I can’t make it out!”

But while Nikolay was worrying over these questions in his heart and unable to find any clear solution of the doubts that troubled him, the wheel of fortune was turning in his favour, as so often happens in the service. He was brought forward after the affair at Ostrovna, received the command of a battalion of hussars, and when an officer of dauntless courage was wanted he was picked out.

Countess Rostov had not recovered her strength when she received the news of Natasha’s illness. Weak as she still was, she set out at once
for Moscow with Petya and the whole household, and the Rostovs moved from Marya Dmitryevna’s into their own house, where the whole family were installed.

Natasha’s illness was so serious that, luckily for herself and her parents, all thought of what had caused it, of her conduct and of the breaking off of her engagement, fell into the background. She was so ill that no one could consider how far she was to blame for all that had happened, while she could not eat nor sleep, was growing visibly thinner, coughed, and was, as the doctors gave them to understand, in actual danger. Nothing could be thought of but how to make her well again. Doctors came to see Natasha, both separately and in consultation. They said a great deal in French, in German, and in Latin. They criticised one another, and prescribed the most diverse remedies for all the diseases they were familiar with. But it never occurred to one of them to make the simple reflection that they could not understand the disease from which Natasha was suffering, as no single disease can be fully understood in a living person; for every living person has his individual peculiarities and always has his own peculiar, new, complex complaints unknown to medicine—not a disease of the lungs, of the kidneys, of the skin, of the heart, and so on, as described in medical books, but a disease that consists of one out of the innumerable combinations of ailments of those organs. This simple reflection can never occur to doctors (just as a sorcerer cannot entertain the idea that he is unable to work magic spells) because it is the work of their life to undertake the cure of disease, because it is for that that they are paid, and on that they have wasted the best years of their life. And what is more, that reflection could not occur to the doctors because they saw that they unquestionably were of use; and they certainly were of use to all the Rostov household. They were of use, not because they made the patient swallow drugs, mostly injurious (the injury done by them was hardly perceptible because they were given in such small doses). They were of use, were needed, were indispensable in fact (for the same reason that there have always been, and always will be, reputed healers, witches, homœopaths and allopaths), because they satisfied the moral cravings of the patient and those who loved her. They satisfied that eternal human need of hope for relief, that need for sympathetic action that is felt in the presence of suffering, that need that is shown in its simplest form in the little child, who must have the place rubbed when it has hurt itself. The child is hurt, and runs at once to the arms of its
mother or nurse for them to kiss or rub the tender spot, and it feels better for the kissing and rubbing. The child cannot believe that these stronger, cleverer creatures have not the power to relieve its pain. And the hope of relief and the expressions of sympathy as the mother rubs it comfort it. To Natasha the doctors took the place of the mother, kissing and rubbing her “bobo,” when they declared that all the trouble would soon be over, if the coachman were to drive to the chemist’s shop, in Arbatsky Place, and buy—for a rouble and seventy copecks—those powders and pills in a pretty little box, and if those powders were given to the patient in boiled water precisely every two hours, neither more nor less.

What would Sonya, and the count, and the countess have done, how would they have felt if they had taken no steps, if they had not had those pills at certain hours, and the warm beverage, and the chicken cutlets, and all the detailed regime laid down by the doctors, which gave occupation and consolation to all of them. How could the count have borne his dearly loved daughter’s illness if he had not known that it was costing him a thousand roubles, and that he would not grudge thousands more, if that would do her any good; if he had not known that, in case she did not get better, he would spend thousands more on taking her abroad and consulting doctors there; if he had not been able to tell people how Metivier and Feller had failed to diagnose the complaint, but Friez had fathomed it, and Mudrov had succeeded even better in defining it? What would the countess have done if she had not sometimes been able to scold her sick Natasha for not following the doctors’ orders quite faithfully?

“You can never get well like this,” she would say, finding a refuge from her grief in anger, “if you won’t listen to the doctors and take your medicine properly! We can’t have any nonsense, when it may turn to pneumonia,” said the countess, and in pronouncing that—not to her only—mysterious word, she found great comfort. What would Sonya have done, had she not had the glad consciousness that at first she had not had her clothes off for three nights running, so as to be in readiness to carry out the doctors’ orders, and that now she did not sleep at night for fear of missing the exact hour at which the innocuous pills were to be given out of the gilt pill-box? Even Natasha herself, though she did declare that no medicines could do her any good, and that it was all nonsense, was glad to see so many sacrifices being made for her, and glad to have to take medicines at certain hours. And she was even glad,
indeed, to be able by her disregard of the doctors’ prescription to show how little faith she put in them, and how little she cared for life.

The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and made jokes, regardless of her dejected face. But then when he had gone into the next room, and the countess had hastily followed him, he assumed a serious face, and shaking his head gravely, said that though there was indeed danger, he had hopes from the effect of the most recent medicine, and that they could only wait and see; that the illness was more due to moral than physical causes, but … The countess slipped some gold into his hand, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him, and always went back to the sick-room with a lighter heart.

The symptoms of Natasha’s illness were loss of appetite, sleeplessness, a cough, and continual depression. The doctors declared that she must have medical treatment, and therefore kept her in the stifling atmosphere of the town. And all the summer of 1812 the Rostovs did not visit the country.

In spite of the numerous little bottles and boxes of pills, drops, and powders, of which Madame Schoss, who had a passion for them, made a complete collection, in spite of the loss of the country life to which she was accustomed, youth gained the upper hand; Natasha’s grief began to be covered up by the impressions of daily life; it ceased to lie like an aching load on her heart; it began to fade into the past; and Natasha began to return to physical health again.

Natasha was calmer, but no happier. She did not merely shun every external form of amusement—balls, skating, concerts, and theatres—but she never even laughed without the sound of tears behind her laughter. She could not sing. As soon as she began to laugh or attempted to sing all by herself, tears choked her: tears of remorse; tears of regret for that time of pure happiness that could never return; tears of vexation that she should so wantonly have ruined her young life, that might have been so happy. Laughter and singing especially seemed to her like scoffing at her grief. She never even thought of desiring admiration; she had no impulse of vanity to restrain. She said and felt at that time that all men were no more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon. An inner sentinel seemed to guard against every sort of pleasure. And, indeed, she seemed
to have lost all the old interests of her girlish, careless life, that had been so full of hope. Most often, and with most pining, she brooded over the memory of those autumn months, the hunting, the old uncle, and the Christmas holidays spent with Nikolay at Otradnoe. What would she not have given to bring back one single day of that time! But it was all over for her. Her presentiment at the time had not deceived her, that such a time of freedom and readiness for every enjoyment would never come again. But yet she had to live.

It comforted her to think, not that she was better, as she had once fancied, but worse, far worse than any one, than any one in the whole world. But that meant little to her. She believed it; but then she asked: “And what next?” And there was nothing to come. There was no gladness in life, but life was passing. All Natasha tried after was plainly to be no burden to others, and not to hinder other people’s enjoyment; but for herself she wanted nothing. She held aloof from all the household. It was only with her brother, Petya, that she felt at ease. She liked being with him better than being with the rest, and sometimes even laughed when she was alone with him. She hardly left the house to go anywhere; and of the guests who came to the house she was only glad to see one person—Pierre. No one could have been more tender, circumspect, and at the same time serious, than Count Bezuhov in his manner to her. Natasha was unconsciously aware of this tenderness, and it was owing to it that she found more pleasure in his society. But she was not even grateful to him for it. Nothing good in him seemed to her due to an effort on Pierre’s part. It seemed so natural to Pierre to be kind that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natasha noticed some confusion or awkwardness in Pierre in her presence, especially when he was trying to do something for her pleasure or afraid something in the conversation might suggest to her painful reminiscences. She observed this, and put it down to his general kindliness and shyness, which she supposed would be the same with every one else. Ever since those unforeseen words—that if he had been free, he would have asked on his knees for her hand and her love—uttered in a moment full of violent emotion for her, Pierre had said nothing of his feelings to Natasha; and it seemed to her clear that those words, which had so comforted her, had been uttered, just as one says any meaningless nonsense to console a weeping child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because Natasha felt between herself and him the force of that moral barrier—of the absence of which she had been so conscious with Kuragin—that the
idea never occurred to her that her relations with Pierre might develop into love on her side, and still less on his, or even into that tender, self-conscious, romantic friendship between a man and a woman, of which she had known several instances.

Towards the end of St. Peter’s fast, Agrafena Ivanovna Byelov, a country neighbour of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions to the saints there. She suggested to Natasha that she should prepare herself for the Sacrament, and Natasha caught eagerly at the suggestion. Although the doctors forbade her going out early in the morning, Natasha insisted on keeping the fast, and not simply as it was kept in the Rostovs’ household, by taking part in three services in the house, but keeping it as Agrafena Ivanova was doing, that is to say, for a whole week, not missing a single early morning service, or litany, or vesper.

The countess was pleased at these signs of religious fervour in Natasha. After the poor results of medical treatment, at the bottom of her heart she hoped that prayer would do more for her than medicine; and though she concealed it from the doctors and had some inward misgivings, she fell in with Natasha’s wishes, and intrusted her to Madame Byelov.

Agrafena Ivanovna went in to wake Natasha at three o’clock in the night, and frequently found her not asleep. Natasha was afraid of sleeping too late for the early morning service. Hurriedly washing, and in all humility putting on her shabbiest dress and old mantle, Natasha, shuddering at the chill air, went out into the deserted streets, in the limpid light of the early dawn. By the advice of Agrafena Ivanovna, Natasha did not attend the services of her own parish church, but went to a church where the priest was esteemed by the devout Madame Byelov as being of a particularly severe and exemplary life. There were few people in the church. Natasha and Madame Byelov always took the same seat before an image of the Mother of God, carved at the back of the left choir; and a new feeling of humility before the great mystery came over Natasha, as at that unusual hour in the morning she gazed at the black outline of the Mother of God, with the light of the candles burning in front of it, and the morning light falling on it from the window. She listened to the words of the service, and tried to follow and understand them. When she did understand them, all the shades of her personal feeling blended with her prayer; when she did not understand, it was still sweeter for her to think that the desire to understand all was pride, that she could not comprehend all; that she had but to believe and give herself up to God,
Who was, she felt, at those moments guiding her soul. She crossed herself, bowed to the ground, and when she did not follow, simply prayed to God to forgive her everything, everything, and to have mercy on her, in horror at her own vileness. The prayer into which she threw herself heart and soul was the prayer of repentance. On the way home in the early morning, when they met no one but masons going to their work, or porters cleaning the streets, and every one was asleep in the houses, Natasha had a new sense of the possibility of correcting herself of her sins and leading a new life of purity and happiness.