When Love Meets Death's Threshold — War and Peace

Natasha opened Andrew's door with a familiar movement and let Princess Mary pass in first. Mary understood those words two days ago this suddenly happened to mean that he had softened, and that gentleness was a sign of approaching death. She expected the childhood face and tender last words, and felt she would break into sobs. He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan among pillows, thin and pale, slowly stroking the delicate moustache he had grown. His eyes looked not outwards but inwards, almost hostile. Her tears dried. She felt guilty for being alive and thinking of the living. He kissed her hand as was their wont and asked in a calm, aloof voice how she had managed to get here, and whether she had brought little Nicholas. Had he screamed in agony it would have struck her less than that tone.

He thanked her with his lips only. The pressure of her hand made him wince. Conversation broke off. He pointed to Natasha and said fate had strangely brought them together and she looked after him all the time, in an offensively cold tone that proved he already understood something the living could not. When Natasha mentioned burned Moscow he said it was a great pity, gazing ahead and stroking his moustache. Then, wishing to speak pleasantly, he remarked that Count Nicholas had taken a great liking to Mary, and that if she liked him too it would be a good thing for them to marry. The words had no meaning for her except as proof of how far he now was from everything living.

She asked if he would like to see little Nicholas. He smiled for the first time, not with affection but with quiet irony, as if she were trying the last means of arousing him. The seven-year-old looked at his father with frightened eyes, did not cry because no one else was crying, and received a kiss from a man who did not know what to say. Led away, the boy understood the scene more profoundly than later knowledge would ever add, clung to Natasha, and wept. Mary did not speak any more of hopes of saving his life. She took turns with Natasha beside the sofa and prayed continually, turning in soul to that presence above the dying man that was now so evident.