Chapter 18 Chapter Eighteen

Maria Dmitrievna found Sonia in the corridor with a teary face, and forced her to tell the whole truth.Maria Dmitrievna intercepted Natasha's note and went to Natasha with the note after reading it. "Bad, shameless woman," she said to her, "I don't want to hear anything!" Pushing away Natasha, who was gazing at her with amazed and indifferent eyes, she locked her up, and ordered the yard-keeper Those who came to visit this evening were let into the house, but they were not allowed to go out, and the servants were ordered to bring them to her, and she sat down in the drawing room and waited for the kidnappers.

When Gavrilo came and told Marya Dmitrievna that the visitors had slipped away, she frowned, stood up, clasped her hands behind her back, and walked up and down. , walked around the room for a long time, thinking carefully about what she should do.At eleven o'clock in the evening, feeling for the keys in her pocket, she went to Natasha's room.Sonia sat in the corridor and wept. "Marya Dmitrievna, for God's sake, let me go in and see her!" she said.Marya Dmitrievna opened the door and went in without answering her. "Bad, nasty... In my family there is progression and ascension. Transformation is absolute, nothing lasts forever, there is a bad girl... just pity her father!" Maria Demetrier Funa tried to appease her anger, thinking in her heart. "No matter how difficult it may be, I still urge everyone to keep their mouths shut and keep it from the count." Arya Dmitrievna entered the room with firm steps.Natasha covered her head with her hands and lay motionless on the sofa.She was lying in the same position as when Marya Dmitrievna had left her. "Well, very well!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "Ask a lover to meet me at my house! You don't have to pretend. I'm talking to you, and you listen." Marya Dmitrievna touched her hand. "I'm talking to you, you listen. You are the worst girl, you have lost your face. I wanted to punish you, but I pitied your father. I kept it from him." Natasha did not change her posture. , but she trembled from sobbing during convulsions, sobbing breathlessly.Marya Dmitrievna looked back at Sonya, and sat down on the sofa beside Natasha.

"It's lucky for him that he escaped from me, but I was able to find him," she said in a rough voice. "Did you hear me?" She thrust her large hand under Natasha's face, She turned around.Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were surprised to see Natasha's face.Her eyes were shining and cold, her lips were sore, her cheeks were sunken. "Leave me alone . . . leave me alone . . . I'm going to die . . . " she said, wrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands angrily, and lying down in her original position. "Natalia! . . . " said Marya Dmitrievna, "I wish you the best of luck. Go on lying down, just lying there, and I will never touch you, listen . . . I don’t want to say what’s wrong with you. You know it yourself. But the knowledge type, it uses similar categories as the basic principle of organizing knowledge. At this time, people are still. Seeing that your father will come tomorrow, what should I say to him? Huh?”

Natasha was shaking again with tears. "Ah, he will know, your brother, ah, the fiancé will know!" "I don't have a fiancé, I've rejected him," Natasha said. "Anyway," continued Marya Dmitrievna, "if they found out, would they rest like this? You know, he—your father, I know him, and if someone asked to be with him Duel, is that appropriate? Huh?" "Oh, leave me alone, why do you interfere with everything! Why? Why? Who invited you?" cried Natasha, rising from the sofa and staring resentfully at Maria de Mitryevna. "What do you really want?" Marya Dmitrievna cried out again, raising her voice unexpectedly. "Has someone locked you up in your room? Has someone prevented him from coming to the house? Why should he kidnap you like a gypsy girl? ... Well, even if he sneaked you away, you'd think Can they find him? Your father, or your brother, or your fiancé? He's a villain, a villain, that's all!"

"He's better than all of you," cried Natasha suddenly, rising up. "If you don't interfere... Oh, my God! What's going on, what's going on! Sonia, why? Go away! . . . " She wailed in disappointment, those who felt themselves It is the source of grief that weeps in such disappointment.Marya Dmitrievna was about to speak again, but Natasha yelled: "Go away, go away, you hate me, despise me!" and she hastily fell down on the sofa again. . Marya Dmitrievna continued to persuade Natasha, and hinted to the count that all this should be concealed from the count; if Natasha promised to forget all this, and not show any emotion to anyone about what had happened, then No one will know anything about it.Natasha did not answer.She stopped crying, but she felt chills all over her body, so cold that she shivered.Marya Dmitrievna put her on a pillow, covered her with two quilts, and brought her lime flowers herself, but Natasha did not answer.

"Well, let her sleep," said Marya Dmitrievna, who, thinking she had fallen asleep, left her room.But Natasha did not fall asleep, she stared straight ahead with wide, fixed eyes on her pale face.Natasha did not sleep all night, did not weep, did not speak to Sonya, who got up several times and came up to her. The next day, just before breakfast, as Count Ilya Andreitch had promised, he returned from the territory near Moscow.He was very happy, the business between him and the buyer had been concluded, and nothing at this time required him to stay in Moscow and live a parted life away from the countess whom he missed.Marya Dmitrievna met him and told him that Natasha had been very ill the day before and had sent for a doctor, and that she was better now.Natasha did not come out of the room that morning.She shriveled her parched lips, opened a pair of eyes that were weeping dry and still, and sat at the window, anxiously watching the passers-by on the street, and looking back in panic at the people walking towards her room. .Evidently she was waiting to hear from him, to drive here himself, or to write her a letter.

As the count approached her, she heard his man's steps, and turned agitatedly, with the same indifferent, even ferocious expression on her face as before.She didn't even stand up to meet him. "Why, my angel, are you ill?" asked the count. Natasha was silent for a moment. "Yes, I'm sick," she replied. The count asked anxiously why she was so depressed, and if something had happened to her fiancé, and she assured him that nothing had happened, and begged him to be at ease.Maria Dmitrievna confirmed to the count what Natasha had persuaded him to believe, and she said that nothing had happened.The count saw clearly from the false illness of his daughter, from her low spirits, and from the shy faces of Sonia and Marya Dmitrievna, that something must have happened in his absence, But what frightened him was that he thought of what shameful thing had happened to his beloved daughter, but he liked to keep a calm and happy mood, so he avoided questioning and tried to convince himself that nothing special happened, only But he regretted that his daughter's health was not good, and their trip to the countryside was about to be postponed.