Chapter 15 Chapter fifteen

When Natasha opened the door of his room with her usual movements and let the princess go in first, Princess Maria's throat was so constricted that she was about to burst into tears.No matter how much she controlled, no matter how hard she tried to stay calm, she knew she couldn't see him without tears. Princess Maria understood what Natasha meant when he had that situation two days ago.She understood that this meant that he had suddenly become gentle, and this kind of gentleness was a harbinger of death.As she approached the door, she saw in her imagination Andryusha's face, the soft, thin, lovely face she had seen in her childhood, which was not always his face and which was why she always gave her strong impact.She also knew that he would say some soft and tender words to her, like the words her father said to her before he died, and that she would not be able to bear it, and would cry on him.But sooner or later, it will always be like this, it is inevitable, so she stepped into the room, and at the moment when she couldn't help crying more and more in her throat, she gradually distinguished his figure with myopic eyes, and found his face, she finally saw his face and met his eyes.

He was lying on a sofa with pillows tucked around him, and he wore a squirrel fur robe.He was thin and pale, holding a small handkerchief in one thin, transparent white hand, and wiping his sparsely grown beard with the other hand, moving his fingers slowly, looking at the person coming. When Princess Mary saw his face and looked at him, she suddenly slowed down and felt her tears dry up and her crying stop.The expression on his face and eyes is captured, so it is called a ghost; Yang Qi guides things to be born, so it is called a god. Zhang Zai of the Northern Song Dynasty pointed out: "Ghost, she suddenly became timid and felt guilty."

"But where am I guilty?" she asked herself, "in that you live and think of the living, and I! . . . " replied his stern look. When he slowly looked at his sister and Natasha, his deep gaze, which was not looking outward, was almost hostile. He kissed his sister, and kissed each other's hands, as they had done before. "Hi, Mary, how did you get here?" he said, his voice as calm and foreign as his gaze.If he had burst into a cry of despair, it would have frightened Princess Marya no more than the sound of his voice. "Did you bring Nikolushka, too?" he asked, equally calmly and slowly, obviously struggling to remember.

"How are you doing now?" asked Princess Marya, surprising herself with the question. "Well, my dear, it's time to ask the doctor," he said, and after seeming to try to make himself as pleasant as possible, he added, just talking with his mouth (he obviously didn't think what he was saying at all): "Merci, chereamie, d'etrevenue."① -------- ①Thank you for coming, dear. Princess Marya took his hand.This made him frown slightly, but not noticeably.He was silent, and she didn't know what to say.She understood what had happened to him for two days.In his words, in his tone of voice, and above all in his eyes—cold, almost hostile—the alienation from worldly life that frightens a living man is felt.He seems to have trouble understanding everything that is alive; but at the same time you feel that he does not understand living things, not because he has lost his understanding, but because he understands what other living people do not understand and cannot understand. Something swallowed him whole.

"See how strangely fate has brought us here!" he said, breaking the silence, and pointing to Natasha. "She's been taking care of me." Princess Marya listened, but did not understand what he said.How could he, the clever and gentle Prince Andrew, say such things in the presence of the man he loved (and the man loved him)!If he had wanted to live, he would not have said that in a cold, hurtful tone.If he didn't know that he was going to die, how could he not pity her so much, how could he say this in front of her!There is only one explanation for this: that everything else does not matter to him, and that everything does not matter because something else, most important, enlightens him.

Conversation is lifeless, incoherent, and interrupted from time to time. "Mary came via Ryazan," Natasha said.Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Marie.And Natasha, after he called her that in front of her, noticed it for the first time. "Well, so what?" he said. "She heard that the whole city of Moscow burned down, completely, as if..." Natasha pauses: It shouldn't have been said.He seemed to be struggling to listen, but couldn't. "Yeah, burnt out, talking about it," he said, "it's a pity." He began to stare straight ahead, smoothing his beard blankly with his fingers.

"Have you seen Count Nicholas, Marie?" said Prince Andrew suddenly, apparently wishing to please them. "He wrote here to say that he liked you very much," he went on briefly and calmly, and as to the complex meanings his words had for living people, he seemed unable to comprehend them all. "If you're in love with him too, if you're married... that's fine." He added, speaking a little too quickly, as if pleased with what he'd been looking for for a long time and finally found it.Princess Marya heard his words, but they meant nothing to her except confirmation that he was now terribly remote from all living things.

"Why talk about me!" she said calmly, glancing at Natasha.Sensing her eyes resting on her, Natasha did not look up at her.Everyone was silent again. "Andre, do you want..." Princess Maria said suddenly in a trembling voice, "do you want to see Nikolushka? He has always missed you." Prince Andrei smiled almost imperceptibly, for the first time, but Princess Marya, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that it was not a smile of joy, not a smile of love for her son. , but a slight, gentle sneer at Princess Marya's insistence on using this last resort to excite his feelings.

"Well, I'm happy for Nikolushka. How is he?" When Nikolushka was brought before Prince Andrey, he looked at his father in fear, but did not cry, because no one cried, and Prince Andrey kissed him, but evidently did not know what to say to him. After Nikolushka had been taken away, Princess Marya approached her brother again, kissed him, and then wept uncontrollably. He stared at her. "Are you crying for Nikolushka?" he asked. Princess Marya cried and nodded affirmatively. "Mary, you know the Gospel..." But he fell silent suddenly. "What did you say?"

"It's nothing. You shouldn't be crying here," he said, still looking at her indifferently. When Princess Marya cried, he understood that she was crying that Nikolushka would lose his father.With a great deal of strength he mustered his efforts to return to earthly life and turn to the views they held. "Yes, they should be sorry!" thought he, "but how simple it is!" "The birds of the sky don't sow and don't reap, yet your Lord feeds them," he said to himself, and wanted to tell the princess. "Oh no, they have their own understandings, and they won't understand! They can't understand because the feelings they value, the thoughts that we consider important, all of that—are useless.

We can't communicate with each other! "So, he was silent. -------- ① It is the twenty-sixth verse of the sixth chapter of the New Testament Matthew. Prince Andrew's youngest son was only seven years old.He had just learned to read and knew nothing.After that day, he felt a lot of things, gained knowledge, observation, and experience; however, even if he had already possessed these abilities, he could not understand his father, Aunt Maria and his father better and more deeply than this moment. The meaning of the scene between Natasha.He understood everything, left the room without a cry, went silently to Natasha, who was following him, and looked shyly at her with his handsome, pensive eyes; his bright red upper lip turned up. Trembling, he laid his head on her and wept. From that day on, avoiding Dessalle, avoiding the countess who caressed him, he either sat alone or timidly approached Aunt Maria and Natasha, whom he seemed to prefer to his aunt, He stalked them quietly and timidly. Princess Marya came out of Prince Andrew's room, fully understanding what Natasha's face told her.She stopped talking to Natasha about the hope of saving his life.She and she took turns by his sofa, no more weeping, just constant prayer, an inner appeal to that eternal and unattainable Master whose presence was already felt in the dying man's head.