Chapter 3 third chapter

Princess Maria postponed the departure date.Both Sonia and the Earl wanted to replace Natasha.They failed to do so.They saw that she was the only one who could save her mother from a mad despair.Natasha stayed by her mother's side for three weeks, never leaving her, sleeping on a chair in her house, feeding her, feeding her, talking to her incessantly, for only her soft and loving voice could comforted the Countess. Mother's trauma is incurable.Petya's death claimed half of her life.A month had elapsed since the news of Petya's death came out of her house. She had been a vigorous woman of fifty who loved life, and now she had become a half-dead woman who had no interest in life. old woman.And this trauma, which had taken half the countess' life, this new trauma awakened Natasha.

The psychic wounds of a nervous breakdown, however strange they may seem, are healing just like physical wounds.And after a deep wound is healed, it seems as if he has grown up gradually, and the creation of the soul, like physical wounds, can only be healed by the inner vitality. This is how Natasha's wounds healed.It occurred to her that her life was over.However, love for a mother suddenly proves that the essence of life - love - Still alive in the heart, love is revived, so life is revived. The days before Prince Andrew's death connected Natasha with Princess Marya.New misfortunes brought them closer together.Princess Marya postponed her departure, and for the last three weeks she had nursed Natasha like a sick child.Natasha spent several weeks in her mother's room, a time that nearly exhausted her.

One day at noon Princess Marya found Natasha shivering with cold, took her to her room, and laid her down on her bed.Natasha was lying down, but when Princess Marya drew down the curtains to go out, Natasha called her to her side. "I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit with me for a while." "You are tired, you must sleep." "No, no. Why did you bring me here? She'll find me." "She is much better. She speaks normally today," said Princess Marya. Natasha was lying on the bed, carefully looking at Princess Maria's face with the help of the half-dark light in the room.

"Is she like him?" thought Natasha.Yes, like and not like.But she was something special, strange, new, and incomprehensible.She loves her.What about her heart?All good.How to do it?What is she thinking?What does she think of me?Yes, she is too good. "Martha," she said, taking one of her hands timidly, "Martha, you don't think I'm bad. Don't you? Martha, I love you so much, let's be really, really good Friends." Natasha embraced Princess Marya and kissed her hands and face.Princess Marya was both joyful and ashamed of this feeling for Natasha.

From that day on there was established between Princess Marya and Natasha a friendship of the tender tenderness which only exists between women.They kissed each other incessantly, spoke tender words, and spent most of the time together.If one is out and the other is restless, hurry up and follow. They both felt that they were more harmonious together than alone.The bond between them was stronger than friendship: it was a special bond that could survive only together. Sometimes they would be silent for hours on end; sometimes they would talk when they were in bed, and they would talk until dawn.Most of them are telling stories about the past.Princess Maria told about her childhood, her mother, her father and her ideals; Natasha was unwilling to live a pious and obedient life, and did not understand the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, but now she felt that she and Maria The princess is connected by love, she begins to love Princess Maria's past, and understands another side of her life that she did not understand before.She herself would not live the submissive life, the Christian self-sacrifice, because she was accustomed to seek other pleasures, but she understood and fell in love with the other's virtues which she did not understand before.As for Princess Maria, she listened to Natasha's story about her childhood and adolescence, and she also discovered another aspect of life that she didn't understand before, she had to believe in life and the joy of life.

They said nothing about him, which they felt would destroy the sublime feelings built up in them, and this silence, incredible, made them gradually forget him. Natasha was thin, pale, and so weak that people often talked about her health, but she was happy.However, sometimes she is suddenly afraid not only of death, but also of illness, weakness, and loss of beauty. Sometimes she looks at her arms and finds them so thin, which shocks her, or she looks in the mirror in the morning at her slender face, which she finds pitiful.She felt that it should be like this, but felt terrible and sad. Once, she walked upstairs quickly, out of breath, and couldn't help but want to retreat. In order to test her physical strength and see herself, she climbed up again.

Another time, her name was Dunyasha, her voice trembling.She heard Dunyasha's footsteps, and she called out again in her singing chest voice, listening to the sound herself. She does not know, nor does she believe, that out of the seemingly impenetrable layers of her heart sprouts tender shoots that must take root, and veil her sorrows with her living young leaves, will soon be unseen , can't feel it.Wounds slowly heal from the inside. At the end of January, when Princess Marya left for Moscow, the count insisted that Natasha go with her, in order to see a doctor in Moscow.