Book Eleven: 1812 - Chapter XXXII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in theambulance station on the field of Borodino. His feverish state and theinflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor'sopinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate withpleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed thathis temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning.The first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he hadremained in the caleche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himselfasked to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by hisremoval into the hut had made him groan aloud and again loseconsciousness. When he had been placed on his camp bed he lay for along time motionless with closed eyes. Then he opened them andwhispered softly: "And the tea?" His remembering such a small detailof everyday life astonished the doctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse,and to his surprise and dissatisfaction found it had improved. Hewas dissatisfied because he knew by experience that if his patient didnot die now, he would do so a little later with greater suffering.Timokhin, the red-nosed major of Prince Andrew's regiment, hadjoined him in Moscow and was being taken along with him, having beenwounded in the leg at the battle of Borodino. They were accompanied bya doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his coach. man, and two orderlies.

　　They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, lookingwith feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying tounderstand and remember something.

　　"I don't want any more. Is Timokhin here?" he asked.

　　Timokhin crept along the bench to him.

　　"I am here, your excellency."

　　"How's your wound?"

　　"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?"

　　Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.

　　"Couldn't one get a book?" he asked.

　　"What book?"

　　"The Gospels. I haven't one."

　　The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how hewas feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantlybut reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under himas he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet liftedthe cloak with which he was covered and, making wry faces at thenoisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, beganexamining that dreadful place. The doctor was very much displeasedabout something and made a change in the dressings, turning thewounded man over so that he groaned again and grew unconscious anddelirious from the agony. He kept asking them to get him the bookand put it under him.

　　"What trouble would it be to you?" he said. "I have not got one.Please get it for me and put it under for a moment," he pleaded in apiteous voice.

　　The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.

　　"You fellows have no conscience," said he to the valet who waspouring water over his hands. "For just one moment I didn't look afteryou... It's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it."

　　"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something underhim!" said the valet.

　　The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what wasthe matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when heasked to be carried into the hut after his caleche had stopped atMytishchi. After growing confused from pain while being carried intothe hut he again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea oncemore recalled all that had happened to him, and above all vividlyremembered the moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight ofthe sufferings of a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come tohim which promised him happiness. And those thoughts, though now vagueand indefinite, again possessed his soul. He remembered that he hadnow a new source of happiness and that this happiness had something todo with the Gospels. That was why he asked for a copy of them. Theuncomfortable position in which they had put him and turned him overagain confused his thoughts, and when he came to himself a thirdtime it was in the complete stillness of the night. Everybody near himwas sleeping. A cricket chirped from across the passage; someone wasshouting and singing in the street; cockroaches rustled on thetable, on the icons, and on the walls, and a big fly flopped at thehead of the bed and around the candle beside him, the wick of whichwas charred and had shaped itself like a mushroom.

　　His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has thepower and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on whichto fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away fromthe deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes inand can then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew'smind was not in a normal state in that respect. All the powers ofhis mind were more active and clearer than ever, but they actedapart from his will. Most diverse thoughts and images occupied himsimultaneously. At times his brain suddenly began to work with avigor, clearness, and depth it had never reached when he was inhealth, but suddenly in the midst of its work it would turn to someunexpected idea and he had not the strength to turn it back again.

　　"Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot bedeprived," he thought as he lay in the semi-darkness of the quiet hut,gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. "A happinesslying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that acton man- a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving.Every man can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it waspossible only for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why wasthe Son...?"

　　And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and PrinceAndrew heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality)a soft whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating"piti-piti-piti," and then "titi," and then again "piti-piti-piti,"and "ti-ti" once more. At the same time he felt that above his face,above the very middle of it, some strange airy structure was beingerected out of slender needles or splinters, to the sound of thiswhispered music. He felt that he had to balance carefully (though itwas difficult) so that this airy structure should not collapse; butnevertheless it kept collapsing and again slowly rising to the soundof whispered rhythmic music- "it stretches, stretches, spreading outand stretching," said Prince Andrew to himself. While listening tothis whispering and feeling the sensation of this drawing out andthe construction of this edifice of needles, he also saw by glimpses ared halo round the candle, and heard the rustle of the cockroaches andthe buzzing of the fly that flopped against his pillow and his face.Each time the fly touched his face it gave him a burning sensation andyet to his surprise it did not destroy the structure, though itknocked against the very region of his face where it was rising. Butbesides this there was something else of importance. It wassomething white by the door- the statue of a sphinx, which alsooppressed him.

　　"But perhaps that's my shirt on the table," he thought, "andthat's my legs, and that is the door, but why is it alwaysstretching and drawing itself out, and 'piti-piti-piti' and 'ti-ti'and 'piti-piti-piti'...? That's enough, please leave off!" PrinceAndrew painfully entreated someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelingsagain swam to the surface of his mind with peculiar clearness andforce.

　　"Yes- love," he thought again quite clearly. "But not love whichloves for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for somereason, but the love which I- while dying- first experienced when Isaw my enemy and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of lovewhich is the very essence of the soul and does not require anobject. Now again I feel that bliss. To love one's neighbors, tolove one's enemies, to love everything, to love God in all Hismanifestations. It is possible to love someone dear to you withhuman love, but an enemy can only be loved by divine love. That is whyI experienced such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What hasbecome of him? Is he alive?...

　　"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, butdivine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else candestroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many peoplehave I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none asI did her." And he vividly pictured to himself Natasha, not as hehad done in the past with nothing but her charms which gave himdelight, but for the first time picturing to himself her soul. Andhe understood her feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He nowunderstood for the first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her,the cruelty of his rupture with her. "If only it were possible forme to see her once more! Just once, looking into those eyes to say..."

　　"Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!" flopped thefly... And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, aworld of reality and delirium in which something particular washappening. In that world some structure was still being erected anddid not fall, something was still stretching out, and the candlewith its red halo was still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx laynear the door; but besides all this something creaked, there was awhiff of fresh air, and a new white sphinx appeared, standing at thedoor. And that sphinx had the pale face and shining eyes of the veryNatasha of whom he had just been thinking.

　　"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is," thought PrinceAndrew, trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the faceremained before him with the force of reality and drew nearer.Prince Andrew wished to return that former world of pure thought,but he could not, and delirium drew him back into its domain. The softwhispering voice continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressedhim and stretched out, and the strange face was before him. PrinceAndrew collected all his strength in an effort to recover hissenses, he moved a little, and suddenly there was a ringing in hisears, a dimness in his eyes, and like a man plunged into water he lostconsciousness. When he came to himself, Natasha, that same livingNatasha whom of all people he most longed to love with this new puredivine love that had been revealed to him, was kneeling before him. Herealized that it was the real living Natasha, and he was not surprisedbut quietly happy. Natasha, motionless on her knees (she was unable tostir), with frightened eyes riveted on him, was restraining hersobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the lower part of itsomething quivered.

　　Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.

　　"You?" he said. "How fortunate!"

　　With a rapid but careful movement Natasha drew nearer to him onher knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it andbegan kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.

　　"Forgive me!" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him."Forgive me!"

　　"I love you," said Prince Andrew.

　　"Forgive...!"

　　"Forgive what?" he asked.

　　"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" faltered Natasha in ascarcely audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand morerapidly, just touching it with her lips.

　　"I love you more, better than before," said Prince Andrew, liftingher face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.

　　Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,compassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face,with its swollen lips, was more than plain- it was dreadful. ButPrince Andrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which werebeautiful. They heard the sound of voices behind them.

　　Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.Timokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, hadlong been watching all that was going on, carefully covering hisbare body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.

　　"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed. "Please goaway, madam!"

　　At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed herdaughter's absence, knocked at the door.

　　Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natasha went out of theroom and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.

　　From that time, during all the rest of the Rostovs' journey, atevery halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natasha neverleft the wounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to admit that he hadnot expected from a young girl either such firmness or such skill innursing a wounded man.

　　Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrewdie in her daughter's arms during the journey- as, judging by what thedoctor said, it seemed might easily happen- she could not opposeNatasha. Though with the intimacy now established between thewounded man and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recovertheir former engagement would be renewed, no one- least of all Natashaand Prince Andrew- spoke of this: the unsettled question of life anddeath, which hung not only over Bolkonski but over all Russia, shutout all other considerations.