War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [468]
“But what else could there be? What did I want? I want his death,” she cried out with loathing for herself.
She dressed, washed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. At the porch stood carriages without horses, and things were being packed into them.
The morning was warm and gray. Princess Marya stopped on the porch, never ceasing to be horrified at her inner loathsomeness and trying to put her thoughts in order before going in to see him.
The doctor came downstairs and went out to her.
“He’s a little better today,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you. Some of what he says can be understood, his head is clearer. Come along. He’s calling for you…”
Princess Marya’s heart beat so hard at this news that she turned pale and leaned against the doorway so as not to fall. To see him, to talk to him, to have him look at her now, when her whole soul was filled with those dreadful criminal temptations, was painfully joyful and terrible.
“Come along,” said the doctor.
Princess Marya entered her father’s room and went up to his bed. He lay propped up on his back, his small, bony hands covered with purple, knotty veins, lying on the covers, his left eye looking straight ahead, his right squinting to one side, his eyebrows and lips motionless. He was all so thin, small, and pitiful. His face seemed to have shriveled or melted away, the features had grown smaller. Princess Marya went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers so hard that it was clear he had long been waiting for her. He pulled at her hand, and his eyebrows and lips twitched angrily.
She looked at him in fear, trying to guess what he wanted from her. When she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face, he calmed down and did not take his gaze from her for several seconds. Then his lips and tongue moved, sounds came out, and he began to speak, looking at her timidly and imploringly, clearly afraid that she would not understand him.
Princess Marya, straining all her powers of attention, looked at him. The comic effort with which he moved his tongue made Princess Marya lower her eyes and force herself to suppress the sobs that rose in her throat. He said something, repeating his words several times. Princess Marya could not understand them; but she tried to guess what he was saying and repeated questioningly the words he had said to her.
“Ma-sa…eh…eh…” he repeated several times.
She could not understand these words. The doctor thought he could and, repeating his words, asked: “Marya afraid?” The prince shook his head negatively and again repeated the same thing…
“My soul, my soul aches,” Princess Marya guessed and said. He grunted affirmatively, took her hand, and began pressing it to various places on his chest, as if trying to find the right place for it.
“All thoughts! of you…thoughts,” he then pronounced much more clearly and understandably than before, now that he was sure they understood him. Princess Marya pressed her head to his hand, trying to hide her sobs and tears.
He moved his hand over her hair.
“I was calling you all night…” he brought out.
“If only I’d known…” she said through her tears. “I was afraid to come in.”
He pressed her hand.
“You weren’t asleep?”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Princess Marya, shaking her head negatively. Involuntarily submitting to her father, she now spoke the way he did, trying to speak more in signs, and as if also moving her tongue with difficulty.
“Dear heart…”—or “Dear friend…” Princess Marya could not make it out, but certainly, by the expression of his gaze, it was a tender, caressing word such as he had never spoken before. “Why didn’t you come?”
“And I was wishing, wishing for his death!” thought Princess Marya. He fell silent.
“Thank you…daughter, dear friend…for everything, everything…forgive me…thank you…forgive me…thank you!…” And tears flowed from his eyes. “Call Andryusha,” he said suddenly, and something childishly timid and mistrustful showed