War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [598]
“Natasha, lie in the middle,” said Sonya.
“No, I’ll lie here,” said Natasha. “Do go to bed, all of you,” she added with vexation. And she buried her face in the pillow.
The countess, Mme Schoss, and Sonya hastily undressed and went to bed. Only the icon lamp remained lit in the room. But outdoors the fire in Little Mytishchi made it bright for two miles around, and there was the noise of drunk men shouting in the pot-house on the opposite corner of the street, which Mamonov’s Cossacks had broken into, and the adjutant’s constant moaning could still be heard.
Natasha listened for a long time to the sounds that reached her from outside and inside, and did not stir. First she heard her mother praying and sighing, the creaking of the bed under her, the familiar whistling snore of Mme Schoss, the quiet breathing of Sonya. Then the countess called Natasha’s name. Natasha did not answer.
“She seems to be asleep, mama,” Sonya replied softly. The countess, after a brief pause, called once more, but now no one answered her.
Soon after that, Natasha heard her mother’s regular breathing. Natasha did not stir, though her bare little foot, sticking out from under the covers, felt cold on the bare floor.
As if celebrating a victory over everyone, a cricket chirped in a crack. A cock crowed far away, others responded nearby. The shouts died down in the pot-house, and only the adjutant’s moaning could be heard. Natasha sat up.
“Sonya, are you asleep? Mama?” she whispered. No one answered. Natasha got up slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and stepped carefully with her slender and supple foot on the dirty, cold floor. A board creaked. Moving her feet quickly, she ran several steps like a kitten, and grasped the cold door handle.
It seemed to her that something heavy, throbbing rhythmically, was beating on all the walls of the cottage: it was the pounding of her own heart, sinking with fear, breaking with terror and love.
She opened the door, stepped across the threshold and onto the damp, cold, earthen floor of the front hall. The cold enveloped and refreshed her. With her bare foot, she felt a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened the door to the room where Prince Andrei was. The room was dark. In the back corner by the bed, on which something lay, a tallow candle with a big mushroom of snuff stood on a bench.
Already that morning, when she had been told about the wound and Prince Andrei’s presence, Natasha had decided that she must see him. She did not know why it had to be so, but she knew that the meeting would be painful, and was all the more convinced that it was necessary.
All day she had lived only in the hope of seeing him that night. But now that the moment had come, she was terrified of what she was going to see. How disfigured was he? What was left of him? Was he the same as that ceaseless moaning of the adjutant? Yes, that was how he was. In her imagination, he was the embodiment of that terrible moaning. When she saw an obscure mass in the corner, and took his knees raised under the blanket for his shoulders, she imagined some terrible body and stopped in horror. But an invincible power drew her on. She carefully took one step, another, and came into the middle of the small, cluttered room. Another man was lying in this room on the bench under the icons (this was Timokhin), and two more men were lying on the floor (these were the doctor and the valet).
The valet rose a little and whispered something. Timokhin, suffering from the pain in his wounded leg, was not asleep and stared all eyes at the strange