Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew had been at the ambulance station on the field of Borodino. The doctor thought fever and the inflammation of his injured bowels sure to carry him off. On the seventh day, though, he ate bread with tea, and his temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning. At Mytishchi he himself asked to be taken out of the caleche. The pain of the move made him groan and faint; then he opened his eyes and whispered, and the tea? The remembering of that small detail astonished the doctor, who found the pulse improved and was dissatisfied, knowing by experience that if the patient did not die now he would die later with greater suffering. Timokhin, wounded in the leg, had joined him in Moscow, with a doctor, a valet, a coachman, and two orderlies. Prince Andrew asked for the Gospels, answered questions reluctantly but reasonably, then begged for a book to be put under him. When they lifted the cloak, the smell of mortifying flesh made them wince. The doctor changed the dressings and turned him; he fainted again, still pleading for the book.
In the stillness of the night his mind was not normal. Thoughts were clearer and more active than in health, but they acted apart from his will. A new happiness had been revealed at the ambulance station, when he had loved a suffering man he disliked: a happiness of the soul, of loving without object, divine love that cannot pass into hatred. He saw Natasha's soul for the first time, her shame and remorse, and the cruelty of his rejection, and longed to look into her eyes once more. Delirium built an airy structure of needles to a whispered piti-piti-piti; a fly burned his face; a white sphinx by the door became, with a creak and a whiff of air, the pale face and shining eyes of the Natasha he had been thinking of. He tried to drive the hallucination away, lost consciousness, and came to himself with the living Natasha kneeling before him, rigid, restraining her sobs.
He was not surprised, only quietly happy. You? he said. How fortunate. She kissed his hand and whispered, forgive me for what I have done. He said he loved her more, better than before, and lifted her face to look into her eyes, which were beautiful; he did not see that her thin pale face was dreadful. Voices rose: the valet had roused the doctor, who told her to go away. A maid sent by the countess knocked. Natasha went out like a sleepwalker and fell sobbing on her bed. From that time, at every halt, she never left the wounded Bolkonski. The doctor had not expected such firmness or skill from a young girl. The countess feared he might die in her daughter's arms, and could not oppose her. No one, least of all Natasha and Prince Andrew, spoke of renewing the engagement. The unsettled question of life and death, hanging over him and over all Russia, shut out every other consideration.
Coming Up in Chapter 262
On the third of September Pierre wakes late, his head aching and the clothes in which he slept without undressing uncomfortable on his body. It is eleven by the clock but peculiarly dark outdoors. He rises, rubs his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved stock on the writing table, remembers where he is.
